LAST EDITED ON Sep-25-21 AT 03:20 PM (EDT)
 
> winter is coming, as the young people probably no longer say

Man, I remember thinking the first of those books was great, and then the second was a decent followup apart from a touch of Middle Novel Syndrome... but then the third was more of the same, the fourth was tedious, and the fifth sat on a shelf for months before I finally admitted to myself I wasn't interested anymore.

I'm honestly not sure how much of that was the author's fault and how much was just that it was a decade later and my tastes had changed.

The sentiment behind "winter is coming" and "night falls and now my watch begins" still resonates quite a bit, though. I grew up in Los Angeles but my family's all from the coldest parts of Poland and Romania and I feel a lot more at home in the killing winter than I ever did in SoCal.