Books

Mr Martin skilfully manages to destroy all sense of intrigue in what the climax of the series might be about and who it might be between by calling his series ' A Song of Ice and Fire '. Perfect for those book fans who don't really want to be surprised or witness a multi-book arc unfold on its own terms.

In fact, these are books written for people who seemingly can only feel emotion when it is screamed through a megaphone painted in pink fluorescent stripes. Martin carefully assembles ideas of subtlety, empathy, letting the reader do the work and throws them all away with the satisfaction of a man who only has a hammer in his toolbox and therefore everything is a nail.

Martin develops plot points mostly by taking a disturbingly large amount of pages to highlight the sexual torture of several female characters who sometimes then end up falling in love with their torturer - nobody knows how to write women quite like a middle aged man after all.

His other main method of developing plot is to throw in thousands of characters who do 'good' things (like, not rape their partners/sisters/mothers I guess) and then kill them off. Forty years ago Martin would've been in his element as the lead script editor for shows like Dynasty or Dallas as he displays much the same level of talent and care for developing well rounded characters and plot points that make as much sense as Bobby Ewing emerging from a shower a year after he died.

It comes as no surprise that these books were optioned by Netflix, a company that encourages its showrunners to produce content that can be "on in the background" and that doesn't really require much more than a passing commitment from its audience. Just as this is a show you don't really have to pay much attention to, these are books that require no reader investment, just a lack of desire to enjoy reading.