I wanted so much more from A Dance with Dragons, I really did. What I got was a rehash of Feast with a tiny nibble towards the end of the book.

The hardest part about reading this book was that I had already read a lot of it. Most of it takes place during Feast so at best it was what someone else was doing and at worst the exact same chapter with the thought bubbles reversed. It wasn’t until Martin caught up with himself that the story started getting interesting again. Of course he does away with the only piece of information in Feast that was worth while. So you could skp Feast and get most of the pertinant information, though it might be worth while to read Arya’s chapters and and the end of Cersei’s.

As for Dance, the profficy continues, I’m not sure whether John is justified or not and frankly, I cheered for Greyjoy when he jumped the wall. There is no doubt that Martin is a great writer, but he can’t seem to separate the wheat from the chaff in his own writing.

I saved reading this book until the next came out and I was warned. And while I remained hopeful, Feast of Crows could have been summed up (and was summed up in Storm of Swords) in much less time. The important points could have been summed up.

I’m on the fence on whether or not they should have been.

Overall, good writing continues. I think we could have had much less of Cersei. I mean, we know she’s crazy and stupid, I don’t need hundreds of pages of reminders. I thought it was funny that the answer to every questions, comment and prophecy was Daenerys. Seems like a tiny bundle though if that’s going to be end of this opus.