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Originally Posted by mr. tegu
Awesome, thanks! That explanation makes a lot of sense as well. It must have really sucked for the people who read the books as they came out and had to wait a decade between books three and five to find out what happened even though in the story time line basically no time had passed for a lot of the characters.
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Yeah, I came into the books when Book 5 was just about to come out, so my wait wasn't too long, but I can imagine how pissed I'd be if I waited 5 years after Book 3 for Book 4 to come out, and then he releases it and there's no Jon, Dany or Tyrion chapters in book 4 at all. Then wait another 5 years for book 5. So it took 10 years after book 3 was released to get any more story on those three main characters. Pretty messed up.
Having read book 4 first before book 5 came out, and then reading book 5, and then having re-read them both all together as one big book using one of the chapter lists on-line, I can say that I STRONGLY preferred reading them together as one book, so I highly recommend that approach. It's just a lot better that way IMO. Everything flows better that way.
Book 1 that you're on now is very similar to the show. They really followed the books pretty closely that first season. Things diverge more in book 2, and even more so in book 3, then the show went almost completely off book for seasons 5 and 6 (books 4 and 5). I mean there are still a lot of book things in the show, and the major characters mostly end up in the same general places, but the story is very different. I think this will actually make it easier for you to read books 4 and 5 though since it won't be quite as familiar to you.
Books 4 and 5 provide a lot of fodder for theories and include a lot of world-building, so they have less action than book 3 (which was by far my favorite). If you enjoy all the theories, etc., then you will like those books. If you just want the action spoon fed to you, they may be harder to get through. I really liked them, but I love all the theories and such.