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A Song of Ice and Fire (5) - A Dance With Dragons: Book 5

The reaction to this book seems to be quite mixed. I still maintain that book 4 was the low point of the series as it featured less of the characters I like and the plot was slower and less interesting than I would have liked. I believe book 5 improves upon that. It probably the longest book of them all, and in a few places the story drags. I was satisfied with the plot progression although would have preferred more, I think this is what distinguishes the first two (perhaps the first three) books from the latest ones is the amount of plot points.

There are fewer plot twists now and so the plot progression is more settled (and linear). This really isn't a bad thing, I prefer not to have too many plot twists but just enough to stay guessing (without stressing). Another improvement over book 4 is that this book  has more of the characters I like and there are some interesting character revelations which are pivotal to the development of the series as a whole. That is to say that there are important plot points in this book which I felt were mostly missing in book 4. It is hard for me to comment on the character revelations without giving away too much plot.

This book is a solid and enjoyable read but doesn't quite hits the peaks of book 1 and book 3, if you have got this far in the series then I'm sure you are bound to read it. Admittedly I wasn't waiting as long as some of the older fans of this series, so I do appreciate some of the disappointment after such a long wait.

Now I'm waiting as patiently as possible for book 6 but you can look up the author's website and read the first sample chapter. Looks good so far!