From the Bookshelf of Shut Up & Read…

A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5)

George R.R. Martin

Start date: February 1, 2017

Finish date: February 28, 2017

Discussion: Book of the Month

Find A Copy At

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 17 topics — 2,083 comments total

Book of the Month

Vanished in the Mountains, by Tanya Stowe
By Leigh , ⚔️ Wonder Woman ⚔️ · 4 posts · 62 views

last updated Nov 13, 2023 04:15AM

Hooked on You, by Kathleen Fuller
By Leigh , ⚔️ Wonder Woman ⚔️ · 4 posts · 35 views

last updated Sep 28, 2023 03:57AM

showing 10 of 11 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Apr 02, 2015 Lauren⁷ 💜 rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, library-has-a-copy, fantasy-science-fiction

Boy oh boy, what a book this was! I already knew about Jon's death and Cersei's walk of shame because of the media fervor surrounding those two events, but I was largely in the dark about all the other plot lines and I'm glad I was. This book had so many twists and turns and some great surprises. Such as (view spoiler) Even though those cliffhangers are the definition ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 01, 2011 Sasha rated it it was ok

Since I only just started this book series last year, I didn’t have to wait a long time in between books. This turned out to be a good thing, because it was six years between the last book in this series and this one, which, if you ask me, is an unusually long time to wait (and I’m not a very patient person). Beware, slight spoilers and slightly more ranting to follow.

While absence may have made the hearts of some readers grow fonder, it certainly hasn’t for me. A Dance with Dragons suffers from Since I only just started this book series last year, I didn’t have to wait a long time in between books. This turned out to be a good thing, because it was six years between the last book in this series and this one, which, if you ask me, is an unusually long time to wait (and I’m not a very patient person). Beware, slight spoilers and slightly more ranting to follow.

While absence may have made the hearts of some readers grow fonder, it certainly hasn’t for me. A Dance with Dragons suffers from many of the same things as its predecessor, A Feast for Crows. For one, the length. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a lazy reader by any means. A thousand pages is not a daunting thing for me to read, especially if I enjoy the story. But there are just too many words! Martin really needs to learn to get to the point.

For example, I could care less about the extensive feast descriptions that pop up, it seems, once per chapter. See, Mr. Martin, I can do it too:

“The table was covered end to end with dishes overflowing: lamprey pies slowly congealing in the tepid air, tender roast mutton whose meat looked like to drip off the bone, tail of dog soup, caramelized cranberry steak tartar, blood pudding served with steaming buttered loaves of sour dough bread, Dornish wine glittering in crystal decanters, broiled pig stuffed with dates and walnuts, food, more food, some more of that food we were talking about, did I already mention food? Well here’s some more, let me describe it to you in exhaustive detail if you don’t believe me…”

And five years later we get back to the story, but I’ve already forgotten what we were talking about. And now I’m hungry. Awesome. I felt like I was reading a medieval Martha Stewart cookbook. I’m sure some would call this overabundance of description “details,” but I think it is unnecessary and something that hinders the progression of the plot. If you say that they’re having a feast or dinner or whatever, Mr. Martin, I believe you. I promise! Now please use that page space for furthering the plot instead.

I don’t have all negative things to say about ADwD. I do love the POV characters. Well, okay. Most of them, the ones that actually add to the story. But those one-off, fringe characters that easily could have been shafted from the final draft? Those characters get on my nerves. Why waste a chapter on The Iron Suitor when I could read more of Arya, or Jaime? The POV characters who got significant face time in this book were, thankfully, very interesting, although Tyrion is starting to wear out his welcome. I’ve always been fond of Bran as a character, so I really looked forward to reading his share of the chapters. I liked that Theon had his chance to shine, and I do love reading about the Wall and the North through Jon’s POV.

Here’s my main problem with the series however. No amount of clever wording, surprisingly exciting (but few and far between) chapter installments, or intriguing character development can mask the fact that not a lot has happened over the course of these five books. I feel like I’m watching one of those television shows where each week they have some exciting, self-contained little adventure that adds absolutely nothing to the overarching plot.

Argue with me all you want to the contrary, I’m sticking with that assessment. I’ve been so blinded by the idea of this being an epic fantasy book series that I’ve ignored the fact that there has been very little follow-through in that regard. This series has been overhyped. There, I said it. It’s still a tremendous body of work, sure, but if Mr. Martin churns out hundreds of pages per installment and can only move the plot along at a snaillike pace, maybe I’m not getting enough bang for my buck, and that disappoints me. I want this story to be worthwhile.

And I want to see how this all ends. I do. But it’s going to be a wearisome struggle to get there. Is it really worth it? ...more

Like · see review

Nov 06, 2016 Tani rated it liked it

Shelves: male-author, sff-2016, sff-award-2016, 2016-novels, epic-fantasy

I took a long time to read this book - I had it for a couple of years before I picked it up, and once I did, it still took me almost six weeks to read it. It's a long book, certainly, but I've read books of equal length in much less time, so I have to conclude that the fault lies with the book on this one. I liked it, but I also had some serious issues with it.

First, a little about my history with these books. I read the first three books while I was still in high school, and I loved them. They I took a long time to read this book - I had it for a couple of years before I picked it up, and once I did, it still took me almost six weeks to read it. It's a long book, certainly, but I've read books of equal length in much less time, so I have to conclude that the fault lies with the book on this one. I liked it, but I also had some serious issues with it.

First, a little about my history with these books. I read the first three books while I was still in high school, and I loved them. They had a complexity and a depth that was hard to find in fantasy at the time, especially in those days, when I relied mostly on chance to find my next great read. Goodreads tell me that I read the fourth book in 2007, while I was in college for the first time. Today, almost ten years later, I am a married woman of 30 who works full-time. So much has changed in my life that I feel almost like I am a different person entirely from when I first read the books of this series. Perhaps that has some influence on how I have rated this one. I'll admit, having read the fourth book such a long time ago made this one very intimidating to me. I don't particularly care for the show, so I had to go and synopses of each book, just to remember what had happened. Again, this is probably a factor in my enjoyment of this book.

A bigger factor, I would say, is that it feels like the series escaped Martin in this book. I've seen it happen before, where an author makes events too complex and just doesn't know how to maneuver himself out of the traps that he's set for himself. I won't say that Martin gets overwhelmed by this, but he definitely falters. In the first 2/3rds of this book, not a lot happened. We learned a lot about the political situations of each character, of their hopes and fears, but we just didn't see a lot of advancement of the plot. If I had read this book right after the other books in the series, maybe that wouldn't have been such a big deal. But with so many years of space between us, it was almost like I was meeting a lot of these characters for the first time. And I just didn't care enough to want to see all the minutiae that this book gave to me.

And then I hit the point where the story surpasses what happened in A Feast for Crows, and the entire storyline begins to move again. I'll admit, I was annoyed. I was 600 pages into the book, and all of a sudden a bunch of different characters were cropping up. I really questioned the choice that was made here. Would it have hurt anything to have ended the book at 600 pages? I don't think so. I didn't really like the choice that was made to reintegrate the storylines in this way. A minor point, maybe, but after reading so much of so little happening, I would have been much happier to have just been done with the book. Not to mention that, having seen that so little happened in that portion of the book, I had to wonder if a good editor couldn't have just squashed the whole thing back together and created a faster-paced experience. Did I need to see all the details of Tyrion's travels? The despair of Theon's situation? The difficulties that Daenerys faced in Meeren? Jon's tough choices? What about Quentyn's whole storyline? Did I need it from his perspective, or could I have gotten it from Daenerys instead? I'm not sure. Certainly they aided in the building of those characters, but this is book five, and of these characters, only Quentyn was new to me. I already know them, and I think that their stories could have been told more briefly. I think this even though Daenerys, Tyrion and Jon are some of my favorite characters in the series.

I will admit, I was also disturbed by the rampant misogyny in this book. I was young enough when reading the last book that I didn't really notice it, but this time around, I definitely noticed it. I can't say it's not realistic to the world that Martin has built, it still made me sad. The casual sexualization of every woman that appears on the screen is one of the reasons that I've given up on watching the TV show, but I had soothed myself with the thought that the books weren't as bad. They aren't quite, but they're still pretty bad, and that was a disappointment to me.

On the bright side, Martin is a master of character. Despite my general disenchantment with the pacing of this book, I was still very interested in the character journeys that I got to see. It was so interesting to see Tyrion manipulating everyone around him, to see Theon struggle with Reek, to see Daenerys learn just how far good intentions will get you, to see Jon face the reality that sometimes there are no good choices. I loved the political machinations, and Barristan Selmy ended up being my favorite character from the last third of the book. It was also a pleasure to get reacquainted with all of these characters from my past. I came to them a different person, but I still loved them, just the same. I sincerely hope that we will see the next installment in this series in the near future, and that it will live up to my fond memories of the earlier books in the series. ...more

Like · see review