I started reading George R. R. Martin’s unfinished seven-volume series “A Song of Ice and Fire” a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve made it part way through book three, “A Storm of Swords”. The first book was delightful; the writing sparkled, and it’s always fun to discover a well-imagined fantasy world. As the story has unwound, though, it has become almost unbearably grim, a relentless litany of betrayal and misfortune, and I’m not sure I will bother to finish it.

The dark tone may be a function of the story’s great length, as book three is only approaching the middle of the tale, and one expects the tension to build up toward some climax. There’s a flow to a good story, like there’s a flow to music. You build up to a small peak, ebb back for a rest, build up to a bigger peak, ebb back again, until you push across the crest, then all the threads of the tale cascade together as you ride down the far side.

In “Song of Ice and Fire”, though, there’s plenty of tension, but never a moment to stop and breathe. Every glimpse of apparent peace just sets someone up for a new betrayal; every near accomplishment is merely preparation for a greater catastrophe. I find myself detaching from the characters, unable to care about their troubles and hopes, because the author seems determined to inflict so much pain on them that there will be nothing left to celebrate when the conflicts are finally resolved.

Part of what made the first book so much fun was the strength of the author’s novel perspective on the whole fantasy-adventure idea, but it’s come to seem less like he’s reinventing fantasy and more like he’s simply demolishing it. Let go of romance, he seems to say, let go of all those pretty myths; forget all those notions about the Knights of the Round Table. Let me show you what it’s really like. It was fun, at first, but it’s grown stale. The misery has become predictable and is no longer interesting, and I’m growing impatient for the payoff. What is it I’m supposed to be enjoying about this story? Why should I slog through thousands more pages of this if the characters I like are only going to fail, suffer, and die? If the author wants to keep the story going he needs to start throwing in some surprises where things actually go right for a change.