I just read books 1-4 and wish I had the time back I spent reading them. By book 3 it was becoming clear that the narrative was spinning out of control but I read book 4 thinking he was going to pull it together. He didn't. Feast for Crows was awful. The author completely loses control of the narrative and appears to just be making it up as he goes along. No way I'll ever read book 5 or anything else he writes. Don't waste your time.

The bloodbath didn't strike me as "realistic", though, it struck me as being overly violent for the sake of violence -- and to "shock" the audience. His characters also seemed really shallow to me compared to, say, Hobb's creations, though I do appreciate his "world building" skill and liked the scale of his fictional world.

LeGuin is one of my favourites, too, and I had mentioned Rothfuss already as a new, rising star, if he doesn't stray from where he started with the first book. A true wordsmith (judging by the second book, he's also a Go player or at least quite familiar with the game). I've also come to enjoy the novels by Andrzej Sapkowski, but those have only been fully translated to German so far (from Polish). "The Witcher" video games are based on his fantasy writings (but don't compare, at all) and I hope that at some point more than his short stories will be translated to English (and in the same high quality as the German translation).

I'm starting to think that some people like the book for some reasons, and other people dislike the book for some reasons, where some reasons may or may not be the same for both groups.

I find this shocking.

Although it has been many years by now, I still vividly remember the almost traumatic shock when for the first time I realized that people on message boards use them for discussing their views and expressing their personal opinions!