A Dance with Dragons

A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5

By: George R.R. Martin

Narrated by: Roy Dotrice

Length: 48 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

Dubbed the American Tolkien by Time magazine, George R. R. Martin has earned international acclaim for his monumental cycle of epic fantasy. Now the number-one New York Times best-selling author delivers the fifth book in his spellbinding landmark series - as both familiar faces and surprising new forces vie for a foothold in a fragmented empire.

In the aftermath of a colossal battle, the future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance once again - beset by newly emerging threats from every direction. In the east, Daenerys Targaryen, the last scion of House Targaryen, rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But Daenerys has three times 3,000 enemies, and many have set out to find her. Yet, as they gather, one young man embarks upon his own quest for the queen, with an entirely different goal in mind.

To the north lies the mammoth Wall of ice and stone - a structure only as strong as those guarding it. There, Jon Snow, 998th Lord Commander of the Nights Watch, will face his greatest challenge yet. For he has powerful foes not only within the Watch but also beyond, in the land of the creatures of ice.

And from all corners, bitter conflicts soon reignite, intimate betrayals are perpetrated, and a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves, will face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Some will fail, others will grow in the strength of darkness. But in a time of rising restlessness, the tides of destiny and politics will lead inevitably to the greatest dance of all.

Enchanted? Check out the rest of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.

©2011 George R.R. Martin (P)2011 Random House

Critic reviews

"Filled with vividly rendered set pieces, unexpected turnings, assorted cliffhangers and moments of appalling cruelty, A Dance with Dragons is epic fantasy as it should be written: passionate, compelling, convincingly detailed and thoroughly imagined." (The Washington Post)

"Long live George Martin...a literary dervish, enthralled by complicated characters and vivid language, and bursting with the wild vision of the very best tale tellers." (The New York Times)

"One of the best series in the history of fantasy." (Los Angeles Times)

Where do Whores Go?

This is the fifth book in the series, if you have not read them do not start here. This is the best Fantasy series being written today, so go to book one and enjoy.

For those that have read the earlier ones, I placed this third in the series of what I liked. Book 3 was the best then book 1. This is a character driven series and has some of the best characters of any series written. The book starts with Tyrion who is my favorite of all characters of all books. Tyrion is as witty or more so in this book, unfortunately he is about the only main character who does anything and even his character does not seem to have a purpose. There is no plot to this book, it just a tie-up of what each character is thinking. With the exception of Tyrion and Reek, everything else is just Wind. The exploits of Tyrion and Reek make this book worth the credits and 49 hours of listening. Reek is kind of a new character, you have to read the book to find out what I mean.

Daenerys and Jon two good characters are featured in this, but they don't do anything until the very end. Samwell is sent away early in the book, so has no impact. Arya and Bran are in this fleetingly, but are interesting when they are. Asha Greyjoy has a couple of good chapters. Cersei has a good chapter toward the end. We get to know Ser Barristan Selmy a little more in this book. Penny is a new character that could be interesting. There is some here on Sellswords and Free Companies, but I found them mostly a distraction.

G.R.R. M. likes to remind us that words are wind and there is a lot of wind in this. A lot of talk about things that happened hundreds to thousands of years ago. There is a lot of talk about who is related to who, etc. Boring stuff I wish GM would quit forcing on to us.

About the narrator. This is the first book of the series that I have listened to. I understand that this was a hard one to read with the dozens of characters that are in it. But I believe it to be a crime to screw up, one of the main characters and the butchery that the narrator does to poor Daenerys is unforgivable. She is supposed to be a young beautiful queen. (Check out her looks in the HBO series, which if you have not watched you should) The narrator makes her sound like a granny from the Ozarks. There were times when I not only was confused on which character was talking, but I could not even tell what gender they were. I have listened to hundreds of audio books and this the worst butchery I have ever listened to. All of the characters sound like they are over 70, with most of the men and some of the women sounding like pirates, I keep expecting him to end the sentences with RRRRR.

With all that being said, Martin at his worst his better then most writers at there best, so you want this book. You will want to become a part of these characters lives and you will thanks to Martin.

We're Back

After slogging through A Feast For Crows, searching for nuggets (with limited if satisfying success), I got up several times in the middle of the night to see if A Dance With Dragons had been released yet. At 3:15 EST, there it finally was. I stayed up despite work looming in the morning to listen to the prologue, and was thrilled to find myself back (a feeling seldom evoked by AFFC).

Part of it is undoubtedly due to having Roy Dotrice back again, but it goes much deeper than that. It already seems that the previous volume was GRRM getting his housekeeping done, and now he finally ready to get back to the real story. I had to stop myself before I was swept into the Tyrion chapter as I knew I would have lost the rest of my night's sleep.

I am grateful that if they had to change readers for a volume it was for AFFC, bundling my disappointments together so that it can be left behind. However, I would gladly pay a generous premium if they had Roy read that book as well. But for now, I look forward to savoring each chapter and taking my time to enjoy what has taken so very long to craft. I am eternally grateful to G R R Martin, and trust that he will invest appropriate time and care with what is yet to come.

So Glad Roy's Back (Well, Sort Of....)

Very "Feast For Crows" in style - awesome compared to the other fantasy out there, but just so-so compared to the other books in this series. Again the story meanders through character threads and locations you don't have much interest in, at the expense of characters and storylines you DID want to hear about; but manages to be mostly fascinating just the same. A note about the narration: I was so excited to have Roy Dotrice back, after losing him for "Feast" - but boy has he changed! Since when is Dany an elderly Scottish woman? It's jarring!

Please rerecord the narrator for this book!

Like every other review so far, I was excited to see Roy Dotrice was returning as Narrator after skipping the last book. Yet after the first paragraphs he read, he seemed much weaker in his reading than previous books recorded 6-7 years earlier. His earlier efforts offered more varied voices for characters and in this book he makes Daenerys speak with his "common old wench" voice and Mellisandre sound more like Daenerys.

Roy Dotrice is too old to put any effort into his reading and could care less, I really hope they replace him for the upcoming books. A little effort by Roy to match his earlier character voices would be too much to ask, we only have to listened to his annoying laziness for FIFTY HOURS which really ruins this great story everyone has been waiting 6 years for. The people responsible for the narrator's recording and the book publisher really should of listened to this reading for the first few hours at least before releasing this subpar mess.

This book needs to have the narrator rerecorded. I have not finished listening to the book, just under three hours in but I'm so angry with the narration I couldn't stand it and had to write my review now.

Very sad the narration was so horrific

What did you love best about A Dance with Dragons?

I have loved this series from the beginning. Was so excited to listen until I heard Roy's performance, was very sad what they did to this book.

How could the performance have been better?

I think the narrator aged to much to do the female voices. Everyone sounded like an old man with the same tone of voice. I never knew who was talking in conversations, and rarely did you understand the end of sentences. Run-ons and same voices, very disappointed in the performance.

Fantastic book, but the narrator bugs me.

G.R.R.M. has finally released this long awaited continuation of his celebrated series, and it is as great as I had hooped it would be.

My only complaint is that unlike some other reviewers I am not a fan of Roy Dotrice's version of the book. During the narrative portions of the book he is delightful, his natural voice is like old scotch, smooth and smoky. Its in the characterization that he falls apart. I understand that a book of this scope would be nightmarish to try and give everyone a distinctive voice, and maybe I'm interpreting this in a different light than others, but what I get is everyone either sounds like they don't have two brain cells to rub together, like they have a crippling facial deformity, a heavy sinus infection, acute emphysema or a combination thereof. Supposedly educated and well bred people have guttersnipe accents, and visa versa. Anyone over the age of 50 is given a voice that is nearly unintelligible; high, quavery and slobbery. Anyone described as overweight has a deep voice and sounds like they have jell-o for lips even if described as having an uncharacteristically high or twittery voice. Some characters change drastically over the course of the story, for instance one character who I won't name changes from a growling harelipped thug, to a clipped brusque drill sergeant, to a snobby upper crust aristocrat with a plugged nose. Some of these changes even occur MID SCENE. And verbal tics have been ad-libbed in, such as; stutters, slurps, and cockney slang words added in to places the author did not indicate a character as having a stutter, having a drooling problem, or being British.

For me, and this is my opinion only your mileage may vary, the poor characterization was painful to listen to and really broke the suspension of disbelief. That being said, the story itself is fantastic, and if the narrator's quirks are not a problem for you, you will love this one. I just recommend any newcomers listen to the preview first.

Why or why were the voices so bad?

Just like everyone else, I have been waiting for this book for way to long, and I was really excited that it has finally been released. But I waited to listen to it; so, I could enjoy it on my road trip across the country. What is better than a fantastic and excited road trip with a wonderful audiobook? So, imagine my disappointment when I heard the female voices. They are horrible and distracting. I was crestfallen. Besides the narrator???s unfortunate choice to switch up the female voices, the book is good, but focuses on some of the characters in which I have always been least interested e. g. Dany and crew. All in all, A Dance with Dragons is worth a read or listen, but Martin does not really recap what has happened which left me confused in parts. So if you have time, you might want to reread A Feast for Crows before delving into this tome.

Bummer

Any additional comments?

Five books 216 hours and the Story still isn't finished... When does book 6 come out ???

Perfection

I don't like fantasy novels. I find the entire fantasy genre to be kind of annoying.

However, the Game of Thrones show on HBO got me hooked pretty fast, and I got impatient waiting for new episodes to trickle out once a week.

So, I started buying the Song of Ice and Fire audiobooks, and quickly found myself sucked into George R. R. Martin's world.

The series is amazing. The character development is outstanding. The writing is nuanced and mature. The plot is perhaps one of the greatest of all time.

The scope of the story is epic- with so many characters, I wonder how the author manages to keep them all straight in his head. I often have to follow along with the game of thrones wiki online. I would begrudge this, except that I have grown to really appreciate that exceptionally rich world the author has built.

This series makes most of the other novels I'm reading seem shallow and small by comparison. Martin has raised the bar on what I want out of a story.

Martin torments his characters mercilessly, or kills them off suddenly. He takes villains and turns them into heroes, and shows us in a thousand ways that there are no distinct boundaries between good and evil. In the end, you never know what will happen next in the story. The only certainty is that you will be entertained and delighted.

I must also say a word about Roy Dotrice's narration, which is hands down the best I've ever heard. It is hard to imagine being able to follow the story without his masterful vocal nuances reminding us which of Martin's hundreds of characters are doing the talking.

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I give this book, and this series my highest possible recommendation.

Why did the voices have to change?

Would you listen to A Dance with Dragons again? Why?

Yes, I loved the book

Who was your favorite character and why?

Dani and Jon Snow are my favorite characters...and I hope upon hope that Jon's fate will be corrected in the next book!!

What three words best describe Roy Dotrice’s performance?

Not a fan

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me cry and it made me angry

Any additional comments?

I don't like that RD made all of the women in the book sounds like hags. The last books had wonderful voices for the women, but this one left much to be desired.