A Dance with Dragons Mass Market Paperback – October 29, 2013

To preface this review, I wanted to inform you that this is a review of the unabridged audio-book version of A Dance With Dragons (ADWD). Every word of the book is read to the listener in an unabridged reading with the actor changing his voice slightly for different characters and using a neutral voice for narration. I have listened to all of a A Song Of Ice And Fire (ASOIF) in audio-book format as I simply don't have time to sit down and read such lengthy novels. I highly recommend this type of "reading" for people who have to commute a lot or spend lots of time working with their hands on mindless tasks (for me this entails renovating my 1850 home and landscaping the backyard).Not wanting to write a spoiler review, let me just say "wow, I did not see that coming!" I think you will be shocked toward the end of the book - I was both saddened and very curious to know more. I can't say more than that without spoiling it. A Dance With Dragons is better than night soil!In regards to how long it took for Martin to write this book, I agree with Brent Weeks' opinion post that George's readers probably shouldn't have to wait almost 6 years for the release of a book, but on the other-hand I can understand why it would take so long to write a book like ADWD. It seems to me the average author takes one to two years to write a book. ADWD is fully twice the length of the average novel that comes out - it is truly epic in both scope and words. In addition, George was working on other books in that time-frame as well as dealing with the HBO adaptation of A Game Of Thrones. With these considerations, I see how it could take between three and six years to write the sequel (or in this case parallel) to A Feast For Crows (AFFC). Still, I just wish it didn't have to take that long. Now that the initial push with HBO is done, with all the publicity and now Hollywood behind him, and a horde of new fans bugging him, I think we can expect to see the next book in the Song coming along within two years - but really, who am I to say?All that out of the way, now onto the meat of the review. ADWD is an exquisitely written gritty tale, peppered throughout with colorful terms such as "night soil" pulling its readers a little deeper into George's imagination with every page turned. Simply stated, Martin is just an excellent writer and his huge world is highly organized. The scope is vast with so many plot-lines, sub plot-lines, and side plot-lines keeping the reader entertained and always guessing. His story contains many players - both main and side characters - and you never really know which ones are going to die next. George revisits some of the characters that we didn't see in AFFC just enough to keep us up to date on what is going on in their lives, while he focuses more on other characters and developing their stories more fully. You will find yourself falling in love with characters you hated in previous books, and you will despise some characters even more! George does a great job with getting us to know his characters, understand what is in their minds and hearts, what motivates them and gets them to do the things they do and even why they repent. It is a joy to watch martin break his characters both mentally and physically as he does it so fantastically. George really knows how to tell a tale and ADWD will leave every epic fantasy reader satisfied that they got their money's worth.This tale stretches across two continents and really beings to bring the whole story we've been reading thus far together. And the dragons, wow! These are some ferocious beasts. These creatures are not the little dragonlings that were crawling on Daenerys' shoulder on the HBO version of A Game Of Thrones. These creatures are huge behemoths that can spout large gouts of flame effortlessly and endlessly to consume their prey and foes. These dragons are nasty, nasty creatures - there is not much controlling them as they are truly wild beasts.As with the other stories in the Song, ADWD does move along rather slowly compared to many other authors out there. You are however rewarded with richer detail, but not so much as some authors I've read who make you want to skip five pages just to find out what is going on. George balances description with plot very well - perhaps balanced more on the description side, but not too much that he keeps you from wanting to read further. It is a page turner and you won't want to put it down.The only true downfall I can put on this book is that it is actually only half of a story. A Feast For Crows and A Dance With Dragons are mostly written parallel to one another as the scope of the series has become so vast, Martin simply can't capture a section of a timeline in one book. While I knew this before I even started ADWD, I ended up missing my favorite characters like Samwell, Brienne, and of course Jaime. We do catch snippets of them, but I miss reading them especially after we've been waiting more than 5 years. ADWD and AFFC being the whole of a single book also begs the question, will ASOIAF be eight books long now (previously the series was estimated to be 7)?George seems to be holding true to his philospohy that evil always triumphs over good, chaos over order, falsehood over truth, and darkness over light. But as always he leaves the door open just a crack so that at the end of this series (however long it may be) the good guys could still possibly win out and may indeed triumph. But time is running out. Winter is here. It is a fact that can now be seen even on the Dothraki Sea. Are the dragons going to be the power that defeats the mysterious god of ice we've barely heard mention of? Who is Varys actually working for? Lots of questions arise from reading ADWD and hopefully they will begin to be answered in the next book.Recently ADWD was voted on goodreads.com to be the best fantasy novel of the year by readers like you and I. This is definitely deserved. I voted for Patrick Rothfuss' The Wise Man's Fear and even after having finished ADWD I would not change my vote. It was a tough year for Pat going against George. I am sure Wise Man would have won had there not been the media hog (deservedly so) that ADWD has become because of HBO. I'd bet 80% of the votes for ADWD would have gone to Rothfuss had ADWD not been in the running, putting it probably on the top, closely contested with Erin Morgenstern's breakout novel (which is definitely now in my to-read list). But those are the breaks - they WERE released the same year and even if both ADWD and TWMF are excellent stories deserving of the number one spot, "there can be only one"! I am very happy to give A Dance With Dragons 5 out of 5 stars!

Deep, deep breath. I have been among the legion of fans who have had to sit the entire wait of YEARS for this book. I got A Feast for Crows on day one, and on day one many years later came A Dance With Dragons. I really, really didn't want to read it. Bare with me, a review is coming, but to understand the hate and vitriol in the other interviews this explanation is necessary. Before AFfC, Martin's brilliant novels were running on fewer, tighter plotlines, and a major revelation awaited in each one. Often more than one major revelation actually. Then AFfC came out, and despite being warned, we all cried foul to see that many of our favorite characters simply weren't involved. So there we were, having finished a book that seemed to have shorted us a bit, with a promise of the next book to be delivered after a short wait. Six years later we get what is essentially AFfC part 2, with an addendum containing the beginning of the next book.We started this leg of the journey very angry with AFfC, and over the years, and delays, we became more angry. We began to lose hope that the series would finish at all. And if nothing else, that sort of passion and hopelessness should let you know just how amazing this series is at connecting directly into you. Expectations were high. Just four months shy of six years after AFfC it's here: A Dance with Dragons. And that six years is the problem...A Dance with Dragons brings back the missing characters from AFfC, and as it begins there is nothing to complain about. Taken as a whole the book is clearly the middle of the road between acts two and three of the story entire. Having that in mind I think you'll enjoy it very much. Especially if you are a true fan of the series. So those of you who are, and who may be thinking about not buying (you know you will eventually), go ahead and buy it. It's Martin. It's his writing, it's his characters, and it's the same world you fell in love with over the rest of the four books. Stories as long as this have parts that may not seem to do much, but that's because the major consequences of the things that happen in A Dance wont be fully known until the start of the NEXT book. Dance is the literary equivalent of the story slowing down to stretch it's legs for the sprint. But it being written by Martin, as long as you keep that in mind, you can take a longer view and realize exactly what it is he's setting up. And what he's setting up is a MASSIVE shake-up in nearly every political, religious, and even supernatural facet of the world he's made. He's laying the path for events that will change things to such an extent that I think it may turn out to be unprecedented in fantasy literature.Let that sink in for a bit.A Dance With Dragons features less epic style action, and more personal, small conflicts. It takes the characters away from what they know, and it puts them in the thick of places they might not even belong. It's a growing experience for each and every character in the book. The problem is that these new paths are not the end of old paths.You see we as fans have wanted conclusions to some very major story points, we collectively assumed that Martin wouldn't be expanding his story any further, only staying with what he'd begun and starting to wrap it up. He didn't do that. So all of us who were reading with baited breath to find out, for instance, about Jon's parents were left in the dark. We end a Jon chapter and find that a new character is being introduced, and it seemingly has nothing at all to do with what was hinted at before. This makes us angry.But take a deep breath. The reason we were all here in the first place is precisely because of Martin's writing. This man, undoubtedly, knows what he's doing. He's 5 of 7 into what I think is going to be recognized as possibly THE fantasy series for mature audiences. We should not be angry that he didn't write what WE would have written. It's not our story to finish. It's his. And you can even take it a bit further. Re-read the first books and you'll notice how many small hints are dropped about Valyria, then come back to Dance to find that there is now a journey TO Valyria. I believe he's trying to tie up more than just the stories of the great houses we've been following. I think he's trying to tie up the bulk of his entire mythos by the end. And read more. Notice that until Dance with Dragons we had no idea that there would be a SINGLE commander of the white walkers and the things beyond the wall (and that it may be the very one who is training Bran). We didn't know the people of the forests were alive.No, I think Martin is right on track. I think he's doing brilliantly. I think I'm more than happy to give my patience and trust in him not leaving us in a lurch.A Song of Ice and Fire will have an ending. Please just take a deep breath and realize how stupid it would have been of him to start tying off all those incredible loose ends with two more books to go. Westeros just took a deep breath (and I took one with it), the next book will be the beginning of the plunge, and the last will be the plunge itself.But this book. This one stands as a worthy addition to the story. It didn't go precisely where all of us wanted, in fact it spent a lot of time in a place that was as unpleasant for us as it was for a few of the characters in it. But there is a real sense of the slow beginnings of inertia near the end. When even more characters start popping in and when the dual storylines running parallel in AFfC and ADwD finally do end... you can feel it start to move. By the end I was left feeling that all of that spreading out of story and plotlines and character arcs was about to start converging. Dance, along with Feast, are very singular events in publishing. They only came about because we, the fans, demanded Martin not skip forward several years. We wanted to know what happened. And he gave it to us. The last two books were those written precisely so that we wouldn't feel cheated. Martin cared so much about fan outcry that he wrote two extra books. I for one am greatful. The more I read from him about this world the better.For five books now we've said it along with all the Starks: "Winter is Coming." By the end of this book... winter is here. And NOW the fun begins. Just don't take another decade to finish this George. Please.