Currently Reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Abraham's The Dragon's Path

I am currently in the process of reading two different books: Leo Tolstoy's late nineteenth century classic Anna Karenina and, much more recently written, Daniel Abraham's initial book in his ongoing fantasy Coin and Dagger series, titled The Dragon's Path.  I am a third of the way done with each book...both are very well written but I'm experiencing different reactions so far to each of them.  In Anna Karenina, I find myself in the unenviable position of being committed to reading a long novel that, at least for myself, contains no characters for whom I feel any sense of empathy.  They're all obnoxious, self-absorbed scoundrels, from what I've read so far! But I'm ready to give Tolstoy the benefit of the doubt and see what he has in store for the rest of the book.  Empathy is no problem at all, though, with Abraham's The Dragon's Path.  My problem here is that the author apparently has set out to recreate the dynamics of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, with the names and locales changed.  There's a Tyrion-like character in it, as well as one resembling Ned Stark...along with another reminding me of his daughter Arya.  And there's a counterpart here to the troublesome Lannister family as well.  But it's fun reading and I'm prepared to see how the author will make his series distinct in character from Martin's...