Since no character is sacred to George R.R. Martin, the experience of reading his books is quite unique. As I read this book, I gradually stopped feeling like the characters were fighting against one another, and started to feel like they were fighting against the author.

In games, this type of meta-reading is quite common for me. Since obstacles and challenges are created by the designer, and since the player often has direct control of the protagonist, it's easy to conflate the game world with the game designer, and the protagonist with myself. The game then becomes a competition between me and the designer.

In A Storm of Swords, Martin first fosters empathy with his characters. He then puts his characters through miserable injustice. Finally, the characters emerge from their injustices either dead, in dire straits, or occasionally the champions of their own fate. It was an emotional experience for me. It was often a pleasurable one. But the abstraction that I experienced also made the book feel manipulative and sometimes malicious.

Update: Months later, I've added the fifth star. While this wasn't as good as Clash of Kings, it was still pretty goddamn excellent.