Why I am Finished with Game of Thrones

I made it through two books and I thought to myself, Okay -- that's enough. This would make a pretty good TV series, but I don't need to read it anymore. Then, the TV series came out and I though, Hm. This is pretty good, but I can see it wearing thin after awhile. Well, it wore thin. Last night I decided that I have had quite enough of Game of Thrones, in whatever form. 

Many people don't know that George R.R. Martin was a pretty reputable (and award-winning) science fiction writer before he began writing the A Song of Ice and Fire books (the series of which A Game of Thrones is the first novel). He's a pro and certainly no fresh-faced youngster breaking through with an accidental literary phenomenon. But...I like his sci-fi better than his fantasy.

A friend of mine stopped reading the series because he found it ugly. He quickly got sick of the preponderance of sexual content and the ruthlessness of some of the characters. He stopped after the first book. I went through the second, but bailed out after that.

The story started to mushroom out into directions that, instead of making it feel complex, made it, to me, feel diluted. I still question whether Martin can (or will even attempt to) draw his various lines to any kind of conclusion. There is always the argument that good literature doesn't seek out neat endings "because life just isn't like that"...that not every novel has to wrap up as neatly as a Dickens book...but, as in music, my mental ear needs to feel as if melodies are going somewhere...anywhere. I just didn't feel any sense of direction from the first two novels.