Reviews - A Dance with Dragons

5.93k reviews for:

A Dance with Dragons

George R.R. Martin

4.19 AVERAGE

alicemirabelle1997's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

metaphorosis's review against another edition

3.0

A Dance With Dragons

George R. R. Martin

Song of Ice and Fire, #5

( 3.5 / 1-5 stars )

This companion to A Feast for Crows tells the contemporaneous stories of the other characters - the ones who just didn't fit into that massive volume.

I've never been that excited about A Song of Ice and Fire. I think George R. R. Martin is a terrific writer, but this series leans far too heavily toward the political for my taste. As with Katherine Kurtz' later Deryni books, it sometimes loses track of the fact that politics and pageantry are decorations for the story, not the story itself. Song stays just on the right side of that line by offering lots and lots of interesting characters, and telling us enough about them as people to keep us going. It also enthusiastically embraces reality by killing and hurting people as needed for the story, rather than going for the usual happy fantasy ending.

I find that Song doesn't make the most of what Martin does best, which is to deal with human relationships. They're in here, and they're generally well-handled, but there are simply too many of them. The books are too large and too complex to really get a handle on, and the location and point-of-view changes too frequent to really get caught up.

I like to re-read prequels before launching into the latest book in a series. Here, I didn't have that option, and I probably also just don't have time to re-read the previous 4,000 pages. Since it had been almost 8 years since I read Storm, I didn't remember details that well. That problem was compounded by having seen parts of the HBO series, which in part helped me remember, in part confused my memory by changing or omitting elements.

The result was that it took me almost half the book before I felt I'd found my footing and remembered the essential details about most of the characters. A lot of the color, however, and much of the genealogy didn't come back, and I didn't have the patience to read through the hundred pages of family trees in the appendix.

All that said, this book carries the story forward, continues to deal largely with interesting, human characters, and jumps nimbly from setting to setting. I had some qualms about how both Jon Snow and Daenerys were handled, with some of it seeming a bit out of character, but most was well done. That same setting jumping, though, stood in the way of Martin's writing strengths. The chapters are too short to make much progress in character development before they're interrupted by the needs of another character somewhere else. When we at last come back to the first viewpoint, it takes time to re-establish our empathy and interest.

Finally, the editing is good, but imperfect. What is it with talented writers and vocabulary these days? Martin makes the same misuse of 'whence' as Robin Hobb recently did (to indicate a destination, rather than an origin), and he misuses 'anon' from time to time. Both are experienced fantasy writers, so I don't quite know what to make of it. Carelessness, perhaps.

All in all, a solid continuation of the Song of Ice and Fire series, and a must for its fans. I hope it's obvious that newcomers should not start here. If you like dense, well-written political fantasy, this is the series for you. If you're looking for a fun quest with magic swords and dragons, look elsewhere (though the book has both of those items as well).

by Metaphorosis Reviews

mtully03's review against another edition

4.0

Great book like the rest of them but the plotline needs to be going somewhere already...

theshapeshiftingcrone's review against another edition

5.0

My favorite of the series so far! It's amazing to be immersed in the cultures and mythology George R.R. Martin developed (not that I'd want to live there!). I really appreciate deep worldbuilding, and this series is close to the top of my list for best fantasy of all time.

hmcgivney's review against another edition

4.0

My rating is really 3.5 stars.

I was happy to read about many of my favorite characters again, but then it was kind of like they hadn't returned at all because they were making really stupid decisions.

Spoiler

Why on earth did Daenerys plant herself in a hostile city rather than continuing towards home? Why would she waste herself on a marriage to a nefarious personage to protect that hostile city, and muzzle her dragons, her strength? Finally, why is she so obsessed with Daario, whose most interesting features are a gold tooth and a pointy beard?

Why can't Arya figure out what the Kindly Man and the Waif are trying to tell her about joining the Faceless Men? If she can't let go of her past and her stupid list of grudges, she doesn't belong there. At least they can see that she's not being entirely genuine...

And Jon. Poor, poor Jon. So bound by honor and doing the right thing that he can't see that he's making some very bad decisions, at least in the eyes of his men. Poor Jon. Et tu, Dolorous Edd? (I know Edd wasn't there, but I'm sure that if he were, he would have had something appropriately pessimistic to say.)

And not so much idiotic as annoying: why would Tyrion all of a sudden become obsessed with finding his wife of two weeks from when he was a teenager? I understand it was a formative experience, but I found it super annoying that he started asking everyone he saw where whores go.

I was glad to check in with Jaime and Davos, and to get to know Barristan Selmy. I was much MUCH less interested in spending time with Bran, Cersei, any of the Ironborn, Melisandre, or Quentyn the dumb Prince of Dorne.

The action in A Dance With Dragons is s-l-o-w and introduces still more characters with new plots to contest the throne of Westeros. I begin to grow tired of all of the set up, and I just hope that the payoff is worth it. And all of these dribs and drabs about Lyanna and Rhaegar and Robert's rebellion had better come to something. I hate it when authors spend time and energy laying a trail that doesn't go anywhere.

Now I get to settle in with the rest of the obsessed for the long wait until the next book, and to see if this thing is ultimately worth all of the time and effort.

caitcoreads's review against another edition

3.0

This may be an unpopular opinion, but about a third of the way through this book, I realized I truly like the HBO television series better than these books. The first three books in this series were incredible and exciting, but then they just started to fall flat for me. The characters seem to be remaining relatively stagnant, and much of the book has to do with these characters traveling, but never reaching their destination by the conclusion. There were chapters that really captivated my attention, but most left me feeling like I had to rush to get through it just so I wouldn't have to read it anymore. The lack of resolve and action left me feeling apathetic about the release of the next book in the series (whenever that's going to be).

amanda_noel's review against another edition

4.0

I feel like, after a Feast For Crows, I really should have loved and devoured this book since it finally got back to so many characters I love. Instead I felt like there was a lot of dragging and repetition only to explode with exciting and shocking events the last 1/4 of the book.

jemmm27's review against another edition

I'm giving up on these books. They no longer have the same appeal with endless new characters who I don't want to read about and the fact that every major character that I liked seems to have run off on their own or died. Will just be sticking to the show from now on...