Reading A Dance With Dragons

One of the joys of reading A Dance With Dragons has been reading the comments on Tower of the Hand for each chapter.  Since ADWD is full of political intrigue, plot lines that had been left dangling two books ago and many, many characters, it's been very helpful to read the commentary by the hard-core readers of A Song of Ice and Fire.  Additionally, it's been great fun to see everybody's reactions to events taking place within the story.

I wish that every book had a similar forum, broken up by chapters or sections or some other marker.  How great would it be to open the book's site, go to the section that you've just read, and read other reader's comments?  I wish something like that had existed when I read Infinite Jest or one of the many times I've tried to read Gravity's Rainbow.  Maybe if something like that existed then I might have been able to finish Gravity's Rainbow by now!

I've been taking a long time to read ADWD.  Mostly because I'm enjoying it so much and I want to take it in slowly.  I'm enjoying the time I'm spending with each character, marveling at the latest plot developments and laughing at the jokes.

George R. R. Martin is no David Foster Wallace, nor is he Harkuri Murakami or even Dave Eggers, but he's an author that I've come to love.  Much like my admiration for Stephen King... Reading King is like snuggling up with an old friend.  He's comfy and familiar and nicely worn.  Martin is kind of the same for me.