Release date: October 29, 2013 | Series: Song of Ice and Fire
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE: BOOK FIVE In the aftermath of a colossal battle, Daenerys Targaryen rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But Daenerys has thousands of enemies, and many have set out to find her. Fleeing from Westeros with a price on his head, Tyrion Lannister, too, is making his way east—with new allies who may not be the ragtag band they seem. And in the frozen north, Jon Snow confronts creatures from beyond the Wall of ice and stone, and powerful foes from within the Night’s Watch. In a time of rising restlessness, the tides of destiny and politics lead a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves, to the greatest dance of all.
Don’t miss the thrilling sneak peek of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Six, The Winds of Winter
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“Filled with vividly rendered set pieces, unexpected turnings, assorted cliffhangers and moments of appalling cruelty, A Dance with Dragons is epic fantasy as it should be written: passionate, compelling, convincingly detailed and thoroughly imagined.”—The Washington Post “Long live George Martin . . . a literary dervish, enthralled by complicated characters and vivid language, and bursting with the wild vision of the very best tale tellers.”—The New York Times
“By turns thrilling, funny, scary, emotionally devastating, oddly inspirational, and just plain grand.”—Entertainment Weekly “One of the best series in the history of fantasy.”—Los Angeles Times
About the Author
George R. R. Martin is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including the acclaimed series A Song of Ice and Fire—A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and A Dance with Dragons. As a writer-producer, he has worked on The Twilight Zone, Beauty and the Beast, and various feature films and pilots that were never made. He lives with the lovely Parris in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
George R.R. Martin sold his first story in 1971 and has been writing professionally since then. He spent ten years in Hollywood as a writer-producer, working on The Twilight Zone, Beauty and the Beast, and various feature films and television pilots that were never made. In the mid '90s he returned to prose, his first love, and began work on his epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. He has been in the Seven Kingdoms ever since. Whenever he's allowed to leave, he returns to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lives with the lovely Parris, and two cats named Augustus and Caligula, who think they run the place.
Edited: 3/20/2013 (I re-read the book, wanting to give it another chance after watching the very well done television series, but my feelings generally remain the same with some new insights)
Warning: I do not give specific story spoilers, but some of my comments can be considered spoilers to the structure of the story.
So, to lighten the blow a little first, I will make it clear that I am a fan of the Song of Ice and Fire series. Like many others, I think the first three books were some of the best fantasy books in recent history. They held my interest like few others, took directions many other writers would not dare to take and had me itching to read the next. I'm a fan who checked on the status of this book at least a couple dozen times through each year to see how the progress was coming and I'm a fan who also believes in a writer taking the time he or she needs to do it properly. While I honestly was a little impatient to read the next book (which is a good thing, unless you're attacking the author over it), I could not fault someone for wanting to do other things with their lives.
As far as the positives for A Dance with Dragons specifically, Martin continues to show a strong and addicting narrative style with a great attention to detail without going too overboard most of the time. His use of language remains strong with some good character insights and quotes derived from it, and there are a number of moments in the book that were intriguing. These are the reasons why I gave it three stars and if a lesser writer had authored the book, I probably would have never finished it.
And before I go into my criticisms of the book, there is something I would like to note.... While I often take the side of artists in artistic work, we have to be honest in realizing that the book series is also a commodity. It is not something just written for artistic purposes. When something is put on the market for sale, it is subject to the scrutiny of its consumers.
That said, A Dance with Dragons (and A Feast for Crows) bored me in comparison to the first three books, and while I would like to read how the story ends, I am hesitant to invest more time and money into the book series. I may just be a customer, reader, and fan, so what would I know about editing, story-building, etc., and GRRM may be the professional writer and it went through professional editors, but they still made a cardinal writing error that I so often hear you should not make:
They did not keep the story moving. By the end of the book, I felt almost nothing happened.
I believe at this point in a book series' life, the story needs to be picking up faster and faster. You need down times of course, and a little exposition in each book to get everyone up to speed again is a good thing...but not through the majority of the book. Things need to happen and you need to have control of the story.
I'll give an example. Say you saw a fight at work and you are telling someone about it. You would probably give them a lead up and let them know it was at work between two employees who were not getting along recently, you would probably give them background information like the significant other of one of the employees was cheating with the other employee. You may talk about how another employee that was friends with both revealed that information and hence, betrayed one of those friends. Then, you would describe the fight and its aftermath.
What you would probably not talk about is how you stubbed your toe on the way to the car to get to work, the more scenic route that you happened to take that morning, or what you ate at breakfast, lunch, or dinner, or describe in exhausting detail your work duties leading up to the point of the fight. No one cares about these details and you are slowing the story down to a crawl. And say you do all this, even talk about the events related to the actual fight, then you do not actually get to the fight and say, "I'll tell you about the fight next time."
Now, imagine that fight being told by seventeen other people, including people who are near irrelevant to the story. This is what A Dance with Dragons felt like to me. The drawn out version of a story with a poorly handled cliffhanger.
I really feel that Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons are books that maybe shouldn't have been written or at the very least, heavily edited. I could even say that they could have been condensed into one book between 500-700 pages axed between the two of them (and still have time to put in events that could have made them better). I understand that the author originally planned a time skip by five years after Storm of Swords and honestly, I felt that would have been better. Between the two books, I just felt very little moved forward in terms of the actual story and they could have easily been left out without hurting the overall story.
Of course, there will be many people (probably the majority) disagreeing with me and that is their full right to do so. We're all entitled to our opinions. If you loved Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons or just love to soak up everything you can from the story's world, then that's awesome. If you felt you got your money's and time's worth, then that is great. I wish I could have enjoyed them as much as you. I really do.
But I didn't.
On that note, I hope that The Winds of Winter will be a return to form for Martin's writing. However, after the last two books, I know better than to purchase it on day one, and depending on the feedback it gets, I may opt to not purchase it at all and check it out from a library, instead. And I am not entirely sure I will even do that, I'm sad to say.Read more ›
I'm Varamyr Sixskins. I'm here for the prologue to set us all up for the impending horrors of the North and all the excitement to come...
I'm Tyrion Lannister, the most popular character in all of Westeros! I spend this book meandering down a really slow river, ruminating bitterly about my life, misplacing my former charm, eroding all the goodwill I built up in the other books, and wondering where the whores go. Though perhaps I should have been wondering where the plot went. I also observe turtles and women, play board games, mouth off to all and sundry, and coincidentally run into various characters like some wandering monster in a D&D campaign. Maybe I'll make it to Daenarys in the next book, but at least I ditched that pig.
I'm Asha Greyjoy. I don't have much to do, so I'll be the POV character keeping track of Stannis and his forces. At the beginning of Dance with Dragons, he's working his way towards Winterfell to take it back from the Boltons. At the end of Dance with Dragons, he's...working his way towards Winterfell to take it back from the Boltons. Hope that helps.
I'm Ser Davon Seaworth, the Onion Knight. I'm still running errands for Stannis and getting captured frequently. It's a living.
I'm Bran Stark. I am a tree.
I'm Daenarys Targaryen. I'm only a young girl, and I know little in the ways of war, governance, what have you. I used to think I said these things to misdirect people, but as of DoD it seems to be true. I spend my time taking baths, fretting, being wishy-washy, and mooning over this hot mercenary dude. In the end I learn that "you have to go back to go forward...." I would have thought that going backwards would be the last thing that this book needs, but I am only a young girl and know little of the ways of story advancement.
I'm Aegon Targaryen. I appear for the first time in book five as the long thought dead son of Prince Rhaegar and the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. I know, right? What a surprise! It's like I was just pulled from thin air! I spend much of the book traveling to Daenarys, but then I change my mind and go and invade Westeros without her. Sort of. No one important has noticed yet. See you in the next book!
I'm Griff, aka Jon Connington. I'm here to get Aegon Targaryen on the Iron Throne. I tried to tell that kid not to wait until the fifth book to show up if he wants to be king. Now nobody's invested in us. We're like, peripheral characters or something. Nobody cares. I (*sniff*) just want someone to care, you know?
I'm Theon Greyjoy. Turns out I'm not dead, though I rather wish I were. It's been rough. On the bright side, my chapters were some of the only highlights of this bloated beast of a book. I even got to be almost a hero at the end! Can't wait for the next book. Redemption arc ahoy! People like me now!
Tyrion: Settle down sailor. You're not really a major character, and people still don't like you.
I'm Jaime Lannister. I snuck in to steal a chapter just like I would steal a kiss from my sweet sister. Oh look, there's Brienne! She's not dead after all. Whatever could have happened? Oops, we gotta go now, so I'll guess we'll never know. Blink and you'll miss us!
I'm Ser Robert *cough*Gregor*cough* Strong *cough*not dead*cough*. Gregor SMASH!
I'm the Hound. You know, I strongly suspect that I might not be dead either.
Tyrion: Quiet, you. No one even mentions you in this book.
I'm Wyman Manderly. I'm a minor character, but I bring a bit of awesome anyway. I was last seen bleeding from a neck wound. I wonder if I'll die. Your guess is as good as the author's.
I'm John Snow. I command the wall and defend Westeros from the horrors of the North. I count sides of beef and sausages, receive messages, meet with my staff, greet newcomers, and find bedrooms for all the wildings. Seriously, am I a commander or a butler? It's the end of the book already, we need some action! I'll march on Winterfell and retake it from the cursed Boltons! Away we go! Oh, dang it. Stabbed from all sides. There goes that plan. It sure does seem like I'll die now...
I'm Quentyn Martell. I'm kind of a side plot that has no impact at all on the main story. Then I die. But the good news is that I really am dead for sure!
I'm Melisandre. I get a chapter where I play with fire and see things and act all cryptic with people. Well, I have to amuse myself somehow. It's booorrring at the wall.
I'm Victarion Grayjoy. Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main! This book will end Before I meet Daenarys Targaryen!
I'm Aero Hota. Don't worry, I don't really remember who I am either. Not much to see here, anyway.
I'm Cersei Lannister. I get two chapters of humiliation. I can has some of Theon's reader sympathy now? No? Well then. I won't forget this. A Lannister always pays his debts...maybe in the next book.
I'm Ayra Stark. I'm in two chapters, too, and I kill someone, like I always do. But this time it's different; this time someone told me to. That's progress. Maybe someday I'll kill someone who has something to do with the main story.
I'm Barriston Selmy. I putter around Meereen, trying in some small way to advance the plot. Alas, to little avail. I'm too old for this.
I'm Kevan Lannister. I waited a thousand pages for a POV and all I got was this lousy epilogue and a quarrel in the chest. Oh well. At least I'm well and truly done with this mess.
Varys: Maybe.
We're the Others. We are the horror of the North and theoretically the real Big Bad Threat in this series. It's five books in, and we still haven't really gotten to do anything yet. To be honest, we're too bored to bother any more. We're going to invade Canada instead and subdue them to our icy will. Apologies everyone!
Reality can be harsh to happy endings. Evil is not always defeated, the hero does not always get the girl, and nobody ever really lives happily ever after. That's fantasy.
Take, for example, the tale of a plucky fantasy author, battling to finish his life's work, who overcomes a six-year-long bout of writer's block to at last complete the fifth installment in his epic. It would be nice to think that the book thus produced was worth the wait. That would be the happy ending. But reality can be harsh to happy endings. "A Dance with Dragons" is not the book I waited six years to read, and to wish otherwise would be fantasy.
George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series was never mere fantasy, but with each new volume, it is becoming more and more a daytime soap opera.
Mr Martin famously spent the second half of the 80s working in television, and if I may jump to unwarranted conclusions, this experience seems to have helped him break new ground by infusing fantasy with some of the best aspects of TV--sharply-drawn, sympathetic characters, crisp, witty dialogue, and intricate plotting.
He's also made clever use of catchphrases and personal mottoes to provide a kind of leitmotif to each character's story and give a sense of continuity and cohesion to the tale: "A Lannister always pays his debts", "If I look back, I am lost", "You know nothing, Jon Snow." More famously, he's gotten good mileage from his willingness to kill off seemingly key characters at surprising moments.
Maintaining such a high standard of writing for even one book would have been an impressive feat. Mr Martin managed it for three, stumbled on the fourth, and after 20-odd years working on the series, the fatigue is beginning to show....
The personal catchphrases continue to get good airtime, with "a Lannister always pays his debts" featuring five times, "If I look back, I am lost (or doomed)" six times, and "You know nothing, Jon Snow" an impressive 13. However, much of the other writing has become simply repetitive and lazy. The phrase "words are wind" also pops up 13 times in various character's mouths, "much and more" (meaning "a lot") gets used as hefty 30 times, but this is pipped for the number one spot by "(s)he was not wrong", at a teeth-gritting 33 times. These phrases have become less a leitmotif, more a pianist banging the same three chords over and over again.
As part of the series' gritty image, Mr Martin has never been shy about including sex in his stories, but now he appears to be shoehorning it in, simply for its own sake. One character spends the night before a siege having graphic sex. Another pays a surprise visit to one of his generals--and interrupts the latter mid-coitus. A description of a man being burned at the stake takes time out to tell us what happens when the fire reaches his genitals.
The habit of killing off characters has likewise devolved into self-parody. Having already killed off most of the expendables, Mr Martin spends most of "A Dance with Dragons" only appearing to kill off characters, but not really. One is apparently executed, but isn't. Another appears to drown, but doesn't. Yet another seems to be beheaded, but--well, you get the idea. The effect is a bit like the boy who cried wolf, and cheapens the book's finale, in which two key characters appear to die, since by then the reader doesn't believe for minute Mr Martin will actually follow through.
The other major drawback to the wholesale slaughter among named characters is that Mr Martin spends much time introducing a slate of new characters in much the same way that the old Star Trek series used to introduce new red-shirts.
What is left? Plot, but not much of it. Most of the characters spend their time somnolently staggering from A to B. There are sporadic bouts of frenetic action, to be sure, but the story itself continues to plod along, fairly aimlessly as far as I can see. With no resolution to any of the major plot lines anywhere in sight, it's increasingly hard to care about any of the latest crop of characters, knowing they probably won't live much longer than halfway through the next book (when and if it is ever published). It's only in the handful of chapters that "Dance with Dragons" shakes off its lethargy and wraps up in a number of cliffhanger endings.
I would like to believe the series will get better, that all questions will be answered, all the plot lines will come together, but if there's one thing Mr Martin has taught me, it's not to believe in happy endings.Read more ›
I think the mass-market paperback is the smaller (in size, not page count) version, and would match your set. The trade paperback should be about the same size as the hardcover.
