Martin excels at delivering disappointment. He builds characters up to the point where you think you know what is coming next, and typically want to see it happen, and then introduces dramatic changes that take the character either in a completely different direction or directly into the grave, all without seeming arbitrary. His style is a bit annoying in that almost every chapter ends with a dramatic discovery, which is a bit frustrating, especially given the breadth of the narrative and the amount of time it takes to get back to a particular character. This works a lot better when he clumps the viewpoints by location, as it is really interesting to see the same events unfolding from multiple perspectives, which Martin handles very well. The pacing of this book also feels a bit glacial, a lot of it is spent wrapping up threads from the last book or looking in on characters as they contemplate long, relatively uneventful journeys. I am looking forward to the next book in the series, which almost feels like a mistake given how long this one took to arrive, I really hope that the divergent narratives will start to come together in the next entries into the series.