Rules of literature

[pktechgirlbackup]

You're allowed to have novels with strong characterizations but weak world-building, why not the reverse? Twice in the last month I've read books with really interesting settings, settings I would happily have read novel-length descriptions of, but found anything involving the characters' actions or emotions terminally dull. Come to think of it, that's how I read Song of Ice and Fire: I gave up on the novels, but I will spend hours on wiki pages explaining the world. And yet I don't want to name the two books I'm thinking of now, because describing them as "Awesome if you just skip the 1/3 of the book where things happen" feels mean.