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A Dance with Dragons

(A Song of Ice & Fire, Book 5)

By George R.R. Martin

(508)

| Hardcover | 9780002247399

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Critics

A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 5

As I predicted in my review of HBO's A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin's popularity has skyrocketed. Legions of new fans are marching to their bookstores (if they can find one) and libraries to get caught up with this series and my personal copie ... (read full critics)

sfsite published on Mon, 17 Oct 2011

A Dance with Dragons, By George RR Martin

It is hard to accept that something that enormous and that popular can be as good as people tell you it is. A Song of Ice and Fire, George RR Martin's vast fantasy epic – simply reading that phrase will close some minds instantly – has been appearing ... (read full critics)

independent published on Fri, 22 Jul 2011

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13 Reviews

11 people find this helpful

A huge disappointment: the Song of Ice and Fire started out as a brilliant, breath-taking epic, with elements of political struggle and cynical realism seldom found in the genre.
In this latest novel, along the same line but much worse than the one before it, we see a sad acceleration on the downwar ... (continue)

A huge disappointment: the Song of Ice and Fire started out as a brilliant, breath-taking epic, with elements of political struggle and cynical realism seldom found in the genre.
In this latest novel, along the same line but much worse than the one before it, we see a sad acceleration on the downward spiral that is leading the saga to the level of a soap-opera.
The few characters that survived the previous books' massacres have lost their credibility and vitality, and are now surrounded by shallow new entries unable to lift the story from its sorry state.
A stagnant novel, purposelessly floating for hundreds of pages. The Song of Ice and Fire should be euthanized as soon as possible, lest it degenerates into an endless and ridiculous TV-show script.

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Matteo F. said on Jul 18, 2011 | 1 feedback

1 person find this helpful

*** This comment contains spoilers! ***

is the grass that hides the viper from his enemies and shelters him until he strikes

Terribile.
La serie mi è sempre piaciuta molto, ma questo libro non aveva quasi niente di salvabile. Martin, perché ci fai aspettare sei anni per questa roba?

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Arianne said on May 6, 2012 about the eBook edition | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

“Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born.”

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Cerridwen said on Apr 8, 2012 about the Mass Market Paperback edition | Add your feedback

a long dance, too long probably. I would like some closure.

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Stefano said on Apr 22, 2012 about the eBook edition | Add your feedback

It's not as good as the previous four. Too many unnecessary twists and the going is too slow. The parts about Tyrion and Jon are quite good in the first half. The second half? Well, it's safe for us to say that any chapter without a character's name as the title could be considered neglectable.

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jhwangus said on Mar 2, 2012 about the eBook edition | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

Ok, maybe 2 stars is a little severe, but compared to the previous books of the series I could not give it more than that.
This book can be compared to a watered down soup. It may be somewhat tasty, but it’s not at all as it should be. There are too many filler lines, filler paragraphs, and filler p ... (continue)

Ok, maybe 2 stars is a little severe, but compared to the previous books of the series I could not give it more than that.
This book can be compared to a watered down soup. It may be somewhat tasty, but it’s not at all as it should be. There are too many filler lines, filler paragraphs, and filler pages. It’s a bridge book, full of fluffy stuff with a few gems hidden here and there. Here Martin had to add new characters, and expand the role of secondary characters in order to write almost 1,000 pages. Some of the main characters have a very little or no role at all, probably to save them for the next books. It’s not near the grandness of the first 3 books of the series.
This is not surprising since the material that was imagined for 3 books has to be spread across 7 books (!) now. I hope that the editor and Martin don’t become too greedy and increase the number of books even further.
The first half of the book tells about events that happen in parallel to those told in the fourth book, and this can be confusing sometime.
I will lower my expectations for the sixth book, which may be another filler book before the seventh, and hopefully final book.

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Doppelganger said on Jan 2, 2012 | Add your feedback