“Well? Was it worth the wait?” was the first thing a friend asked upon hearing I’d finished A Dance with Dragons. The questioner immediately followed with: “No. Don’t tell me. Not anything. No spoilers.”With the success of Game of Thrones on HBO, anticipation for the next book in George R. R. Martin’s series, A Song of Ice and Fire, had never been greater. And yes, A Dance with Dragonswas worth the wait. For those of you who haven’t read A Song of Ice and Fire you were warned: here be spoilers.
Love or hate Martin’s narrators, no writer in fantasy gets you deeper into a character’s head. Martin can manage to make even the vilest of them relatable and sympathetic. In book three, A Storm of Swords, readers came to love incestuous regicide Jaime Lannister. Over the course of A Dance with Dragons, Martin succeeds at the impossible again, this time with turncoat prince Theon Greyjoy. Theon returns as Reek (it rhymes with meek, or bleak, or sneak as he constantly reminds himself and the reader) a broken, tortured and partially flayed puppet, struggling both to remember and forget his true identity. And while A Dance with Dragons follows many characters, readers will be pleased that most of the narrative is driven by Daenerys, Jon, and Tyrion.
Daenerys, who once existed as a thing to be traded for her family’s lost power, is now Queen of the city of Meereen. Jon Snow, a bastard of the Stark family has become Lord Commander of the Night Watch. Along with the soldiers he commands, the Night’s Watch, he protects the continent of Westeros from what dwells beyond the Wall: the mysterious Others, wights that rise after death to hunt the living when winter comes. Both young leaders are struggling to use their power wisely and to shape their new subjects rather than be shaped by them.
In conquered Meereen, “A poor city that once was rich. A hungry city that once was fat. A bloody city that once was peaceful,” Daenerys has abolished the practice of slavery. As the city and region’s wealth came primarily from such activities, she has made many enemies. But in her mind, Meereen is now “a free city of free men.” Daenerys’ three dragons grow increasingly difficult and when Daenerys sees the blackened bones of a child, she cages “her children.” In doing so, she has lost the will to enforce her changes and Meereen spirals further out of her control.
Where Daenerys’ subjects endorse practices that are anathema to her, the men of the Night’s Watch are just as foreign to Jon. Despite being a bastard, Jon was raised among his father’s true born noble sons and the men who serve at the Wall are largely bolstered by the criminals of Westeros, given the choice to serve or die. Beset on all sides by threats both within and without, Jon is caught between a king’s demands and raiding Wildlings. His decision to use Wildlings to man the Wall against the Others does not sit well with his men. Many of them insist he “As well make peace with wolves and carrion crows.” In trying to lead his men against their true foe, the Others, he distances himself from them, losing their support when he—and Westeros—need it most.
While the stars of Jon and Daenerys are rising, Tyrion Lannister, once a Hand of the King and a scion of Westeros’ wealthiest family, must adjust to being powerless and penniless. Tyrion’s presence in A Dance with Dragons, and his japes serve to lighten the grim tone of the series. “All dwarfs are bastards in their father’s eyes,” he opines. And “The only thing more pitiful than a dwarf without a nose is a dwarf without a nose who has no gold.” He has fled Westeros with a price on his head after murdering his father, a crime, Tyrion acknowledges “in the same tone a man might use to say, ‘I’ve stubbed my toe.’” He has resolved to lend his talents to Daenerys Targaryen, and makes his way towards their inevitable meeting in Meereen, manipulating as goes, hoping to help the young queen wrest the throne from his viperous sister and her brood.
Martin has been called “The American Tolkien,” and he shares at least one trait with modern fantasy’s great progenitor; an invented world so fully realized readers may completely lose themselves within it. World-building, a common word in the fantasy vernacular, is the act of bringing verisimilitude to invented cultures and locales. Martin’s world-building is simply the best currently being produced, the minutiae of life in a medieval world lushly on display. One of my favourite tidbits is a song that crops up in various forms, and from many characters, called “The Dornishman’s Wife.” The song tells of a man who slept with another man’s wife, and dying from wounds received from the cuckold, considered it a fair trade.
Brothers, oh brothers, my days here are done,
the Dornishman’s taken my life,
But what does it matter, for all men must die,
and I’ve tasted the Dornishman’s wife!
“When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die,” is another common refrain in the series, and Martin means it. In his novels, politics are as dangerous as magic or swords. Daenerys’ decision to abolish slavery sees her followers targeted for murder and brings a war to her gates. Jon’s efforts to better his men result in their betrayal. They deliver unto Caesar his due in Jon’s bloody final chapter. Martin does not shelter his protagonists, and so it is possible Jon Snow, whose fate has been left uncertain, is dead. No one has plot immunity, and sometimes heroes die.
Much of A Dance with Dragons runs concurrently with its fan-maligned predecessor, A Feast for Crows, but Dance overtakes Feast in chronology, weight and execution. These two volumes, originally meant to have been one, have had readers waiting for a combined eleven years. Much of the delay involved Martin’s attempt to untangle what he came to refer to as “the Meereenese Knot,” a complication that arose when he abandoned his original plan to advance his plot by five years after the close of A Storm of Swords.
As A Dance with Dragons overtakes A Feast for Crows in the series timeline and features not only Jon, Tyrion and Daenerys, but also chapters from Jaime, Cersei, Arya, the new book feels more like A Song of Ice and Fire novel that A Feast for Crows did. And while the plot doesn’t advance as swiftly as some readers might like, there are many exhilarating moments. Daenerys finally sits astride a flying dragon, for example, and young Bran Stark has completed his journey to the Three-Eyed Crow, a mystical emissary that has haunted his dreams since the boy was crippled in A Game of Thrones.
If a complaint could be made, A Dance with Dragons, like A Feast for Crows, has a feeling of setting things in place, of manoeuvring characters like chess pieces. Where A Feast for Crows failed (at least in fan expectations) for showing pawns & knights, A Dance with Dragons succeeds. Here it is Martin’s kings and queens taking the field. I would have liked to see Tyrion’s arc intercept that of Daenerys. Her story, while it hangs like a Sword of Damocles over the continent of Westeros, has also forever seemed separate from the bulk of the action happening there. However, A Song of Ice and Fire has two more volumes to follow A Dance with Dragons, and so finite conclusions can hardly be expected.
Martin spent some of his youth organizing chess tournaments—he has even created an analogue for the game in his novels: cyvasse—and is accustomed to plotting his moves well in advance, and I am confident the payoff for his efforts will be as worth the wait as A Dance with Dragons was. The motto of House Stark, “Winter is Coming,” has hung over the series for years now, but with only two more books to windup his series, Martin has served notice: winter is here.
‘A Dance with Dragons’ by George R.R. Martin
Book Reviews
“Well? Was it worth the wait?” was the first thing a friend asked upon hearing I’d finished A Dance with Dragons. The questioner immediately followed with: “No. Don’t tell me. Not anything. No spoilers.”With the success of Game of Thrones on HBO, anticipation for the next book in George R. R. Martin’s series, A Song of Ice and Fire, had never been greater. And yes, A Dance with Dragons was worth the wait. For those of you who haven’t read A Song of Ice and Fire you were warned: here be spoilers.
Love or hate Martin’s narrators, no writer in fantasy gets you deeper into a character’s head. Martin can manage to make even the vilest of them relatable and sympathetic. In book three, A Storm of Swords, readers came to love incestuous regicide Jaime Lannister. Over the course of A Dance with Dragons, Martin succeeds at the impossible again, this time with turncoat prince Theon Greyjoy. Theon returns as Reek (it rhymes with meek, or bleak, or sneak as he constantly reminds himself and the reader) a broken, tortured and partially flayed puppet, struggling both to remember and forget his true identity. And while A Dance with Dragons follows many characters, readers will be pleased that most of the narrative is driven by Daenerys, Jon, and Tyrion.
Daenerys, who once existed as a thing to be traded for her family’s lost power, is now Queen of the city of Meereen. Jon Snow, a bastard of the Stark family has become Lord Commander of the Night Watch. Along with the soldiers he commands, the Night’s Watch, he protects the continent of Westeros from what dwells beyond the Wall: the mysterious Others, wights that rise after death to hunt the living when winter comes. Both young leaders are struggling to use their power wisely and to shape their new subjects rather than be shaped by them.
In conquered Meereen, “A poor city that once was rich. A hungry city that once was fat. A bloody city that once was peaceful,” Daenerys has abolished the practice of slavery. As the city and region’s wealth came primarily from such activities, she has made many enemies. But in her mind, Meereen is now “a free city of free men.” Daenerys’ three dragons grow increasingly difficult and when Daenerys sees the blackened bones of a child, she cages “her children.” In doing so, she has lost the will to enforce her changes and Meereen spirals further out of her control.
Where Daenerys’ subjects endorse practices that are anathema to her, the men of the Night’s Watch are just as foreign to Jon. Despite being a bastard, Jon was raised among his father’s true born noble sons and the men who serve at the Wall are largely bolstered by the criminals of Westeros, given the choice to serve or die. Beset on all sides by threats both within and without, Jon is caught between a king’s demands and raiding Wildlings. His decision to use Wildlings to man the Wall against the Others does not sit well with his men. Many of them insist he “As well make peace with wolves and carrion crows.” In trying to lead his men against their true foe, the Others, he distances himself from them, losing their support when he—and Westeros—need it most.
While the stars of Jon and Daenerys are rising, Tyrion Lannister, once a Hand of the King and a scion of Westeros’ wealthiest family, must adjust to being powerless and penniless. Tyrion’s presence in A Dance with Dragons, and his japes serve to lighten the grim tone of the series. “All dwarfs are bastards in their father’s eyes,” he opines. And “The only thing more pitiful than a dwarf without a nose is a dwarf without a nose who has no gold.” He has fled Westeros with a price on his head after murdering his father, a crime, Tyrion acknowledges “in the same tone a man might use to say, ‘I’ve stubbed my toe.’” He has resolved to lend his talents to Daenerys Targaryen, and makes his way towards their inevitable meeting in Meereen, manipulating as goes, hoping to help the young queen wrest the throne from his viperous sister and her brood.
Martin has been called “The American Tolkien,” and he shares at least one trait with modern fantasy’s great progenitor; an invented world so fully realized readers may completely lose themselves within it. World-building, a common word in the fantasy vernacular, is the act of bringing verisimilitude to invented cultures and locales. Martin’s world-building is simply the best currently being produced, the minutiae of life in a medieval world lushly on display. One of my favourite tidbits is a song that crops up in various forms, and from many characters, called “The Dornishman’s Wife.” The song tells of a man who slept with another man’s wife, and dying from wounds received from the cuckold, considered it a fair trade.
Brothers, oh brothers, my days here are done,
the Dornishman’s taken my life,
But what does it matter, for all men must die,
and I’ve tasted the Dornishman’s wife!
“When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die,” is another common refrain in the series, and Martin means it. In his novels, politics are as dangerous as magic or swords. Daenerys’ decision to abolish slavery sees her followers targeted for murder and brings a war to her gates. Jon’s efforts to better his men result in their betrayal. They deliver unto Caesar his due in Jon’s bloody final chapter. Martin does not shelter his protagonists, and so it is possible Jon Snow, whose fate has been left uncertain, is dead. No one has plot immunity, and sometimes heroes die.
Much of A Dance with Dragons runs concurrently with its fan-maligned predecessor, A Feast for Crows, but Dance overtakes Feast in chronology, weight and execution. These two volumes, originally meant to have been one, have had readers waiting for a combined eleven years. Much of the delay involved Martin’s attempt to untangle what he came to refer to as “the Meereenese Knot,” a complication that arose when he abandoned his original plan to advance his plot by five years after the close of A Storm of Swords.
As A Dance with Dragons overtakes A Feast for Crows in the series timeline and features not only Jon, Tyrion and Daenerys, but also chapters from Jaime, Cersei, Arya, the new book feels more like A Song of Ice and Fire novel that A Feast for Crows did. And while the plot doesn’t advance as swiftly as some readers might like, there are many exhilarating moments. Daenerys finally sits astride a flying dragon, for example, and young Bran Stark has completed his journey to the Three-Eyed Crow, a mystical emissary that has haunted his dreams since the boy was crippled in A Game of Thrones.
If a complaint could be made, A Dance with Dragons, like A Feast for Crows, has a feeling of setting things in place, of manoeuvring characters like chess pieces. Where A Feast for Crows failed (at least in fan expectations) for showing pawns & knights, A Dance with Dragons succeeds. Here it is Martin’s kings and queens taking the field. I would have liked to see Tyrion’s arc intercept that of Daenerys. Her story, while it hangs like a Sword of Damocles over the continent of Westeros, has also forever seemed separate from the bulk of the action happening there. However, A Song of Ice and Fire has two more volumes to follow A Dance with Dragons, and so finite conclusions can hardly be expected.
Martin spent some of his youth organizing chess tournaments—he has even created an analogue for the game in his novels: cyvasse—and is accustomed to plotting his moves well in advance, and I am confident the payoff for his efforts will be as worth the wait as A Dance with Dragons was. The motto of House Stark, “Winter is Coming,” has hung over the series for years now, but with only two more books to windup his series, Martin has served notice: winter is here.
Bantam | 1040 pages | $38. | cloth | ISBN #978-0553801477