A Dance with Dragons: Dreams and Dust (A Song of Ice and Fire Series, book 5A)

By George R. R. Martin

Blurb: 
In the aftermath of a colossal battle, new threats are emerging from every direction.

Tyrion Lannister, having killed his father, and wrongfully accused of killing his nephew, King Joffrey, has escaped from King’s Landing with a price on his head.

To the north lies the great Wall of ice and stone – a structure only as strong as those guarding it. Eddard Stark's bastard son Jon Snow has been elected 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. But Jon has enemies both inside and beyond the Wall.

And in the east Daenerys Targaryen struggles to hold a city built on dreams and dust.

Review: 
This is a shorter review as there’s not much to say that I haven’t already said in A Feast For Crows review. This is more about the plot than the quality of the writing, since that has already been discussed in the previous book. Also worth mentioning that I read A Dance with Dragons in two parts, I know some people read it as one big book. But I read them separately so I’m going to review them separately. 

A Dance with Dragons part 1, takes place at the same time as A Feast for Crows but it is the characters that weren’t written about in A Feast for Crows. So you are aware of some things that have already happened and they get built up on and there’s still new information. This book includes characters like Daenerys, Tyrion, Jon, Davos, Reek etc.

A lot of this book takes place in the North and across the sea to Essos. This means we’ve got a lot more exotic named characters which is really hard to remember and understand who’s who. This is especially so in the Daenerys chapters as she has a lot of people around her that have very similar names. 

Another thing to say about names is sometimes characters will go by different names on the chapters either they’re pretending to be someone or they see themselves differently. One character for some reason that kept confusing me was Frog/Quintyn Martel. I just kept forgetting who Frog was, I think it’s because the chapters were so far apart.

I found this book a bit funnier than the last due to Tyrion being in it and he has some good sassy lines. But also at the Wall there is Dolorous Edd, who I found really funny in this book and often talking about turnips. I enjoyed his character in the book a lot more than in the TV series.

I briefly mentioned in the last review that George R. R. Martin has a habit to repeat people’s thoughts in the Jaime chapters. This was done a lot more in A Dance with Dragons. It’s done really well as it shows the characters mental health declining. It just a really cool way to show character development. It’s seen a lot with Tyrion and Reek. Tyrion is constantly thinking of his fathers and Shae’s death. It is to show him as seeing himself as a monster. Whereas Reek is constantly reminding himself of his new identity by repeating a poor rhyme of his name Reek. It’s to show how much he has deteriorated from the torture Ramsey has put him through that he doesn’t want to forget that he is now Reek. For these reasons Tyrion and Reek chapters were the ones I enjoyed the most.

Two very specific chapters I enjoyed was having a Melisandre chapter which gave us a big backstory on her and her current thoughts. The other was the Tyrion and Penny story, I just liked seeing them together as fellow dwarfs.

I would say overall I didn’t enjoy the plot as much as the previous one but it is still worth 4 stars.

*SPOILERS*
One thing I really want to mention that happened in this book that has not happened in the TV show is that one of Rhaegal’s children is still alive. Everyone believes the children to both be dead, killed by the Mountain. However, Aegon is alive and was on a boat with Tyrion. It would be really interesting to see where this goes and whether Jon Snow in the books will be Targarian or not after all.

Quote: 

“The night is dark and full of turnips” 

- Pyp, A Dance with Dragons

Rating: 4 runes out of 5

written by Lauren

Check out my review of Book 5B: A Dance with Dragons: After the Feast