Reviews Literature / A Dance With Dragons

Winter Comes

This novel combined with A Feast For Crows hammers home the fact that all of the characters have never been closer to their respective destinies and the perils that surround them. Though it's like AFFC in that it is going at a slower pace and exploring more of this world's vast history, it is mainly setting up the final deadly conflicts in this game of thrones before the long-coming world of magic returns in full swing.

We get our Daenerys, Tyrion, Jon, and Bran points of view back, but they are just as slow and about as thrilling as the last book in which they didn't appear.

Dany's chapters are particularly hard to read through, since there is an abundance of foreign politics, confusing names and lack of progress. This is sort of the point, however. After all, ruling a kingdom is an overwhelming task to take on.

On the run after his last tragic misadventure in King's Landing, a very morose Tyrion is now in league with several new enigmatic allies. Looking past Tyrion's understandable dreariness, there's a lot of good stuff to come out of this arc yet again. Especially toward the end.

Bran and his True Companions finally make it to their fabled destination, but what they find there only raises bigger questions.

Jon Snow, in his new role as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, must make one difficult decision after the next as he navigates the fragile alliance between the NW, the defeated wildlings, and Stannis Baratheon's army. Meanwhile, he is powerless to stop the reign of House Bolton and the Ironborn rebellion that is plaguing the North, as seen through the eyes of Theon and Asha Greyjoy.

In the south, the Lannisters have never been weaker and Cersei is finally facing the consequences of her evil scheming. Or is she? And Jaime, against all odds, is finally making headway in peacefully quelling the rebellion in the Riverlands. Or is he?

We get several new characters and locations, as well as juicier developments on the Greyjoy and Martell storylines. And there is still plenty of exquisite detail and huge twists.

A Dance with Dragons gives us a sense that everything that GRRM has been building up to is finally coming together, the scattered characters we love being first and foremost. Whether we will like the outcome or not is difficult to say. We'll have to wait till Dark Santa finishes the next book.