Strange; everyone else I've spoken to is in love with the show. Some of my coworkers - who I would never expect to be interested in something like GoT - have been asking questions about the show and are starting to read the books. Ride the NYC subway and invariably you'll see someone reading the books.
I'm glad I've read them first though because I think that without reading the books character motivations would not be clear. Even in the books all the connections are introduced kind of slow (and don't even get me started on the characters that travel in the far lands for the fifth book now :)
I also think that he killed too many characters too aggressively and by the fifth book he had to slow down. :)
Fifth book took forever to be written. On the light side there is a good chance we'll see last two books within 5 years - most likely contract with the HBO has specific dates preset, they have to finish the series with or without Martin.
