Dances With Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire (Book 5) by George R. R. Martin

What can I say? GRRM has given us the fifth installment of seven intended books in the series. As we have seen in the past, GRRM does not try to follow all of his cast of thousands. In this book we follow Tyrion (the feared dwarf), Daenerys (the dragon queen), her three dragons, Jon Snow (the bastard on the Wall), Stannis (one of the kings), Cersei (a queen in jail), and Quentyn. However, GRRM did not tell us much about Jaime (What is he doing and what is he going to do?), Briennie (Is she dead or alive?), Arya (When will her training finish and when will she emerge as a principal character?), and Bran (When will he emerge now that he has his "green" powers?).

It is a long complex book that one can easily lose track of the larger themes of the book. It is not a book for those who wants a quick easy read with a happy ending because it has a complicated plot in which the characters are pictured in exacting detail. It is not a warm and fuzzy book where everything turns out great in the end, but we have already seen this in his previous books of the series. I believe that this book cannot be judged alone. It can only be judged at the end of the series. It is like seeing the third half hour of a two and half hour movie!

I do like that all of GRRM's characters are flawed and often misguided. I am sure this will put off many readers, but this is true of his characters and ourselves. I also like that good does not always triumph over evil. Dances With Dragons shows that we cannot have light without dark. This and his other books also shows us that we and his characters do not "live in the best of all possible worlds!"