Yeah, this. I feel like he's lost track of what the plot was supposed to be, and has now settled on just writing whatever nonsense comes to his head with no intention of actually completing any of the random subplots, except maybe by killing off everyone involved. Another series that I liked when I was a kid, A Series of Unfortunate Events, met a similarly disappointing end.ravenshrike said:
Also, judging even by his first three books, I'd say he's an excellent writer at the "tactical" level (i.e., individual scenes and dialogue) but pretty mediocre at the strategic level (i.e., narrative structure). In hindsight, many chapters in his books were irrelevant in the long-term, both to the central narratives and to the development of major characters. It'd be like if in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien randomly branched off for one hundred pages to talk about the barmaid at The Prancing Pony, going into needless detail about her relationship problems before killing her off in a freak accident involving a horse-cart and a barrel of rum. Even before the series turned into a TV show, I remember thinking "these books read like a TV show." Which isn't a compliment.
