100 by 30 Book 69: A Dance With Dragons

So this book can be blamed for the massive amount of shorter books I've been choosing. At almost 1200 pages, this is a lot of book to get through. So what did I get for my 1200 pages in the world of Westeros? Well, for starters, we get more walking and slow traveling than the entire written works of JRR Tolkien combined. Interspersed with all that nothingness are flashes of brutal, horrific violence and more major character deaths. The book does accomplish what George RR Martin seems to have been trying to do since the end of Storm of Swords, which is to get the narrative back under control and get our characters closer together so we can have a more focused story moving forward. By the end of the book, our major groups of characters are in about 4 locations (the wall, Winterfell, Kings Landing, and Meeren) instead of several dozen. We still have a few outliers, but at least by the end of the book, I felt like we had recovered from the disarray of the wars and the next book promises to be much more focused than either A Feast for Crows or A Dance With Dragons. The sneak preview of The Winds of Winter hints at an absolutely amazing battle sequence if that book ever gets published.

On a side note, there is a sequence involving dragons that I quite loved because it was a slow build to a result worthy of a Darwin Award. I think it's the only time I've laughed out loud during a horrific death scene, and I refuse to feel bad about it 'cuz that character totally asked for it. What. A. Dumbass.

So now that I've officially read all of the books in the Song of Ice and Fire series so far, would I recommend them? Yes, I would, to a point. The books offer a wonderfully intricate world full of exciting and interesting characters who make you cheer for them and hate them as they go through this unforgiving and brutal world. On the other hand, the latter 2 books tend to have a lot of dull moments (think 800 or so pages of Ron, Harry, and Hermione Camping in the last Harry Potter book)

Then there is the troubling amount of sexual abuse and violence toward women, specifically very young women. While it always seems to be designed to cause distress to the reader (and quite successfully I might add. Then again, these books have never been for the faint of heart), the frequency and level of detail seems to be more than is necessary for us to understand the brutality of this world. It's something everyone should be aware of before reading these books. While I still think this series has a lot to offer readers, I do sometimes feel like I'm enjoying a nice steak diner while somebody randomly drops dog poop in my water glass.