Book Review Dance with Dragons

I finished A Dance with Dragons, fifth in the Song of Ice and Fury series by George R.R. Martin.

Like most of his books in the series, it was a long slog. He writes extremely long, extremely compelling books and this was no different than the rest in that respect. He moved the major story line forward, he created some incredibly moving second or minor story lines, and threw some open ended issues into the mix to keep the reader hungry for the next installment.

That being said, there were some things I didn't like. I didn't like some of the minor characters that were involved in the story. In some cases it seemed like he was adding them just to take up space. I didn't like the constant allusions to Blood and Fire (see my previous posts for more) it seemed like in some cases he was just mailing it in.

What's worse? I didn't highlight a single passage or vocabulary word. Unlike Barry Eisler's books where I find myself highlight every third paragraph, there wasn't a single word or passage I felt needed to be remembered. Not a good showing in that regard.

Nevertheless, it was as good as the others and added to the overall story well. I look forward to the next book in the series, which if he holds true to form won't be out till 2020 or so. By then I should have been able to reread books one through 4 again though.