A Dance With Dragons
I finished reading A Dance With Dragons last night (staying up way too late to do so). My verdict: probably on par with A Feast For Crows, which means that it's both a good book and something of a disappointment.
I got the first inkling of trouble in the prologue. As with the previous novels, it focuses on a character or characters who are seen little if at all in the rest of the novel. However, whereas I thought the prologues of the previous novels were interesting, this one was dull. It featured a character I didn’t care about mostly just dying slowly while waiting for another character to return. Unfortunately, it sets the tone for the rest of the book.
My main problem with the novel is that everything moves along slowly, and very little happens until the end,. Basically, there are three major plotlines running through the novel:
-Tyrion tries to get to Mereen to meet Daenerys.
-Daenerys deals with the problems of ruling Mereen and the threats posed by various enemies marshalling against her.
-Jon Snow dealing with his new position, the Wildings, the threat of the Others, the presence of Stannis, and so on.
There are several other smaller plotlines running through the novel focusing on Bran, Arya, Cersei, Davos, Theon, Asha, and Victarion. There’s also the more general plot involving Stannis’s campaign to become king, and there are two other plotlines focusing on entirely new characters - Quentyn Martell of Dorne and the sellsword Griff. Almost none of them get resolved (and one of them only gets half-resolved, since we learn about the resolution through a letter, rather than witnessing events firsthand), but that’s not the problem - I didn’t really expect most of them to be resolved. My problem is that they don’t really move forward much, and when they finally do, it’s not enough to be satisfying. Tyrion travels. A lot. Daenerys frets over making some difficult decisions. Jon works on integrating the Wildings into the North in the face of disapproval from his men. It’s not that these things aren’t interesting, it’s that they go on for too long with nothing much happening. I felt like the time spent on each plotline could have been cut in half without much. What’s more, the novel tends to get a bit repetitious. I really didn’t need a detailed description of every meal, or to read the phrase “You know nothing?” or “Where do whores go?” for the fiftieth time.
By the end of the book, I felt like only Jon’s story ended in the right place, with a big cliffhanger. Feast was also slow, but I felt like pretty much all the plots stopped at the right points, with one arc ending and the next poised to begin. In contrast, Daenerys’ plotline ends too soon on a kind of semi-cliffhanger, with no resolution to the Mereen storyline. Tyrion’s doesn’t even get that far. Daenerys’ story is like a heist movie that ends just after the thieves break into the bank, whereas Tyrion’s is like one that ends just before. Meanwhile, Davos’, Asha’s, and Victarion’s plotlines end just as they were getting interesting, whereas Bran’s and Arya’s don’t even get that far. Bran’s plotline is just kind of meandering and boring, and Arya, who used to be one of the most interesting characters in the book, now just seems to be adrift. As for the two new major characters, Quentyn’s plotline gets resolved, but I never found him to be that interesting to begin with, and while Griff is more interesting, his plot involves a twist which comes out of left field, and thus feels kind of forced.
Now, with all that said, I did actually like the book. While some of the plotlines felt too drawn out, the individual chapters themselves were fascinating and fun to read. Martin has a gift for characterization, and for bringing his settings to life, and both were evident in the novel. I found myself eagerly hoping that the characters I liked would triumph, sympathizing with characters I had previously disliked, and despising the villains who were even worse (seriously, Joffrey seems almost likeable when compared to Ramsay Bolton). And the epilogue is shocking and fantastic and makes me want to read the next book now. I just hope we don’t have to wait six years for the next one.
I got the first inkling of trouble in the prologue. As with the previous novels, it focuses on a character or characters who are seen little if at all in the rest of the novel. However, whereas I thought the prologues of the previous novels were interesting, this one was dull. It featured a character I didn’t care about mostly just dying slowly while waiting for another character to return. Unfortunately, it sets the tone for the rest of the book.
My main problem with the novel is that everything moves along slowly, and very little happens until the end,. Basically, there are three major plotlines running through the novel:
-Tyrion tries to get to Mereen to meet Daenerys.
-Daenerys deals with the problems of ruling Mereen and the threats posed by various enemies marshalling against her.
-Jon Snow dealing with his new position, the Wildings, the threat of the Others, the presence of Stannis, and so on.
There are several other smaller plotlines running through the novel focusing on Bran, Arya, Cersei, Davos, Theon, Asha, and Victarion. There’s also the more general plot involving Stannis’s campaign to become king, and there are two other plotlines focusing on entirely new characters - Quentyn Martell of Dorne and the sellsword Griff. Almost none of them get resolved (and one of them only gets half-resolved, since we learn about the resolution through a letter, rather than witnessing events firsthand), but that’s not the problem - I didn’t really expect most of them to be resolved. My problem is that they don’t really move forward much, and when they finally do, it’s not enough to be satisfying. Tyrion travels. A lot. Daenerys frets over making some difficult decisions. Jon works on integrating the Wildings into the North in the face of disapproval from his men. It’s not that these things aren’t interesting, it’s that they go on for too long with nothing much happening. I felt like the time spent on each plotline could have been cut in half without much. What’s more, the novel tends to get a bit repetitious. I really didn’t need a detailed description of every meal, or to read the phrase “You know nothing?” or “Where do whores go?” for the fiftieth time.
By the end of the book, I felt like only Jon’s story ended in the right place, with a big cliffhanger. Feast was also slow, but I felt like pretty much all the plots stopped at the right points, with one arc ending and the next poised to begin. In contrast, Daenerys’ plotline ends too soon on a kind of semi-cliffhanger, with no resolution to the Mereen storyline. Tyrion’s doesn’t even get that far. Daenerys’ story is like a heist movie that ends just after the thieves break into the bank, whereas Tyrion’s is like one that ends just before. Meanwhile, Davos’, Asha’s, and Victarion’s plotlines end just as they were getting interesting, whereas Bran’s and Arya’s don’t even get that far. Bran’s plotline is just kind of meandering and boring, and Arya, who used to be one of the most interesting characters in the book, now just seems to be adrift. As for the two new major characters, Quentyn’s plotline gets resolved, but I never found him to be that interesting to begin with, and while Griff is more interesting, his plot involves a twist which comes out of left field, and thus feels kind of forced.
Now, with all that said, I did actually like the book. While some of the plotlines felt too drawn out, the individual chapters themselves were fascinating and fun to read. Martin has a gift for characterization, and for bringing his settings to life, and both were evident in the novel. I found myself eagerly hoping that the characters I liked would triumph, sympathizing with characters I had previously disliked, and despising the villains who were even worse (seriously, Joffrey seems almost likeable when compared to Ramsay Bolton). And the epilogue is shocking and fantastic and makes me want to read the next book now. I just hope we don’t have to wait six years for the next one.