Authors ruining reading for you

[Eponine]

ASOIAF ruined me on multi-book unfinished epic fantasies, both for good and bad reasons - but then again, I didn't love epic fantasies pre-ASOIAF anyway. I started ASOIAF when I was fairly young and somewhat less discerning in tastes, and I haven't found any recent epic fantasy that I care about half as much. That's not to say that there's none better; it was just the perfect combination at the right time in my life to catch that balance between youthful exuberance for something new to me and mature writing that retained its interest as I got older. I have abandoned every other unfinished fantasy series that I started, for a number of different reasons (WoT felt like I outgrew it, SoT because it was awful, Rothfuss - lost interest, Bakker - three was sufficient, JV Jones - that one I might actually read if it ever finishes, but don't care enough to stay on top of it until then), but something with ASOIAF keeps me going to the next book, even when I'm not as enthusiastic as I once was, even if GRRM might decide to stop writing, even when the story isn't any better than other series that I've long ago abandoned.

But that's the only set of books that I feel defines a whole sub-genre for me and leaves me totally satisfied with what I've read in that sub-genre. With most other good books, it makes me want to read more that's similar or in the same vein, but I feel like I've sampled enough epic fantasy and only really liked about 10% of it that I'm not going to spend a lot more time trying to find other things I like as much in that particular category.