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Tuesday 30 June 2015

Book review: A Dance with Dragons I: Dreams and Dust

Well I've been reading them on and off since last October but I'm now almost up to date with George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice books, at least those published so far. But not quite, as A Dance with Dragons is another one of those so long it had to be split into two parts. Reading them more or less continuously has meant individual installments haven't always stood out, and I do sometimes wish the story would move on a bit quicker. But Dreams and Dust does have one interesting development in that Melisandre has become a POV character; there's only been one chapter from her perspective so far but it's a bit of a twist to have one of the most mysterious and scary characters become the nearest thing to a narrator the books have. Already we see a bit more insecurity from her once we're in her head, but there'll need to be a lot more twists in the rest of the story if I'm going to sympathise with her. After all, she's still a religious loony whose default response to any problem is "let's burn someone alive!"