re: Game of Thrones Show/Books future.

For a little reference I'm 1/4 of the way through adwd. I think that books will be worth finishing. If you've gotten through the fourth book then you might as well continue. On the positive side for the future of the series I think that the 4 th book was necessarily the worst in a 7 part series. It has to connect the first three books to last three. It in turn spends more time setting up the rest of the story than entertaining.

On thr negative side for the future of the series to me it just seems like the weight of the information in the series has become a little too much. It's unnecessarily extensive. Having to break the 4th and 5th books up is a symptom of this. It just makes the series drag a bit.

As for the series actually being finished, I have a gut feeling that it will end like Herbert's Dune series. Martin will bring all the doubters back with an excellent 6 th book. He will get you interested in where things are going again. He'll end the 6 th book with a killer cliffhanger. Then he'll die before he finishes the series, leaving behind only a rough outline for the final book.