[quote=mbl]
I'd say most of the slowdown from going from a 3 book series to a 7 book series happened by the second book; book one featured considerably more plot progression than any later books. The main problems with books 4 and 5 is that they are just one book split in to two with a bunch of filler thrown in. Sure, it is possible that what was originally planned as book 4 featured too much content to feasibly fit in one book (#Doubtit), but the way they handled it just wasn't the way to go to keep the series' artistic integrity intact. It made them more moneys, but it added two sub-par books to the series as apposed to one possibly-ok book. I both hope and expect the sixth book to bring the series back to where it should be, but if they try to continue sellout tactics in the last two books the series will likely be ruined for me.
[/quote]

The writing in 4/5 suffered a lot, too. There are too many things in motion, and GRRM has to overplay all his foreshadowing in these little controlled bursts just to keep up with everyone being all over everywhere.

[hider=Book one is like] Cat meets Ned with Littlefinger while they're hiding from Varys to say Tyrion tried to murder Bran. [/hider]

[hider=Book five is like] John Snow knew crazy shit was happening so he opened a letter to say more bad shit was happening, so he locked up his wolf even though he remembered he wasn't supposed to lock up his wolf and then bad shit happened.[/hider]

We're gradually losing all the inter-woven-ness of the characters, as they split apart all over the various unknown parts of the world. As they become more isolated their stories become flatter and more predictable. The quality of the writing directly corresponds to how many characters are in the same holdfast. So I'm hopeful, now that Dany's retinue has expanded, and I'm hoping that the Baratheon camp continues to grow.

[hider=and]Fie on you, he's not dead, Ramsay Snow is full of shit.[/hider]