[Hawk]

Between books 4 and 5 together, I think there is plenty to get them through next season. But they won't really stretch much beyond that, so he'd better hurry with book 6.

Books 4 and 5 weren't as well received as book 3, but they were still excellent. It's just that book 3 was as good a book as I've ever read, so the next two just didn't quite measure up to that lofty standard. Book 3 was action packed with great twists and surprises and tons of significant events. It had a lot of fun payoffs. They have done two full seasons of the show off that one book now, and there are still a couple of events they held for next season. That's pretty amazing if you think about it.

Books 4 and 5 were not as action packed throughout, so they suffer by comparison. On the other hand, they contain a lot of great hidden details and spawned a lot of theories and discussions. Besides, the show won't suffer from the main problem with books 4 and 5, and that was the weird structure of them.

Book 4 came out five years after book 3, but it did not pick up all the story lines, there were no chapters for Tyrion, Jon and Dany in the entire book for example. People who waited so long to get it were highly bummed to find this out, so that really hurt its reception. Then 5 more years later (10 years after book 3 came out) he finally released book 5 that continued those story lines from the end of book 3. So the first 2/3 of book 5 takes place at the same time as book 4, but just covers different characters. They all come back in by the end of book 5.

That's why it's better to read those books together as one giant book using one of the chapter lists on the internet. It helps the timeline make more sense and you get all the characters at once that way. And of course that is what the show will do and has already started doing this season with some material from both books 4 and 5 already being included. If GRRM had done them that way, they'd have been better received.

In the end, books 4 and 5 are set up books. He ended book 5 right before some very big payoffs. That also hurt the reception of book 5, but on the other hand, given where the story is at after all the set up in books 4 and 5, book 6 has a legit chance to be just as awesome as book 3 was! Write GRRM, write!!!