Review of The Tempering of Men by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear
Aug
16
2011
The Tempering of Men
by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette
304pp (Hardcover)
My Rating: 7/10
LibraryThing Rating: N/A/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.33/5
 

The Tempering of Men is the second book in the Iskryne series co-authored by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette.  The first book is A Companion to Wolves, which began as a fun parody of the concept of animal companions and evolved into a novel. A third book, An Apprentice to Elves, is supposed to be released in 2013. The Tempering of Men was released today as a hardcover and an ebook.

Since this is a review for the second book in a series, there will be spoilers for the first book.  If you want to read about A Companion to Wolves instead of spoiling yourself reading about its sequel, that book review is here.

The queen wolf Viradechtis has selected her mate and her human companion Isolfr’s helpers in a rather unconventional manner – by choosing two mates and therefore two men to lead the men of the wolfheall.  While the three wolves are quite fond of each other, this choice ends up being much more problematic for the three men bonded to the wolves.  Vethulf and Skjaldwulf could not be more different.  Vethulf is hot-tempered and outspoken while Skjaldwulf is quiet, introspective, and slower to speak his mind.  To make matters worse, both of them are quite taken with Isolfr despite the fact that he has no romantic interest in either of them.  When the two must go out to war together against the trolls, they’re pushed together by their wolves.  They may even be starting to put aside their differences once they’ve succeeding in destroying the trolls, but will it last or is it just a temporary reprieve due to the tragedy of war?

The two will need to learn to get along, especially as the wolfheall is facing an even tougher challenge then the foes they’ve faced: the possibility of becoming obsolete.  The wolves and their warriors have always fought against the trolls, but now that they’ve vanquished them, there’s concern among the various wolfhealls about whether of not they’ll be useful anymore.  While there will always be threats to men, the wolves are not concerned with being conquerors or the wishes of wolfless men.

When a godsman comes to the wolfheall wanting to record the account of Isolfr’s vision of Freya, he invites Skjaldwulf to journey back with him, thinking he will appreciate their extensive archives.  After thinking about it, Skjaldwulf believes it may be worth taking a look through to see if there is any knowledge that will help the wolfhealls plan for the future.  He considers the offer, and when one of the brothers of the wolfheall decides to leave to help his trueborn sibling against an attack, Vethulf arranges for them to travel together with the godsman.  When traveling south Skjaldwulf learns more of this army and is prominently involved in the decision on how to respond to the threat, beginning the process of stepping into his own new role and possibly changing that of the wolfhealls.

After finishing The Tempering of Men, my first thought was that it was just as enjoyable as A Companion to Wolves. I found it had a slower start, but by the end I was really enjoying it.  Since rereading parts of both books and letting it sink in a little more, I’ve decided that while the sequel is certainly worth reading and had a greater number of well-rounded characters, the first book worked better all around.  It was easier to become immersed in and I preferred the focus on just one main character for a novel of this relatively short length.  Also, The Tempering of Men did feel like a middle book since it isn’t quite resolved by the end and much of what did happen is setting up a bigger story.

It did take me a little while to get involved in The Tempering of Men and really want to find out what happened next.  There seemed to be a larger frequency of Norse names to stumble over for a bit, and it took some time to get going, partially because there were three main characters to focus on instead of just one.  While the previous volume was mainly about Isolfr, this book shifted him to the background and moved his two wolfjarls, Skjaldwulf and Vethulf, and Brokkolfr, another man bonded to a female wolf, to the forefront.  By focusing on Isolfr and his experience with becoming a companion to a wolf and eventually a leader, the first book served as an introduction to this world.

In contrast, this book is about three seasoned wolfcarls, albeit ones that need to adjust to new roles within their community.  Skjaldwulf and Vethulf have already been bonded to wolves for a while, but the two have been thrust into leading men by the choice of Viradechtis. They have to come to terms with their new duties, competition with each other, and preparing for the wolfheall to change with the trolls gone.  Brokkolfr’s part of the story mostly involves a discovery he makes while exploring one day, but he too is learning to step into new responsibilities as he counsels Isolfr – and puts it upon himself to tell him hard truths that he may not want to hear.  He certainly admires his wolfsprechend and finds a lot to commend about him, but there are some cases where Brokkolfr sees Isolfr’s discomfort with aspects of his role getting in his way when it comes to preparing other men bonded to female wolves.  This book is arguably just as much about the characters and their growth as it is any events, and of the three, it’s mostly Skjaldwulf’s story.  He’s the one who takes it upon himself to instigate change and makes the most difference in the end.

This would not be a Bear and Monette book if there was no emphasis on gender and sexuality, although they are part of the story rather than exposition on issues.  Since it has moved away from the coming of age story and introducing a new boy to what it means to be companion to a queen wolf, there’s less emphasis on mating in this one.  I thought this was a good choice since it’s covered pretty thoroughly in the first volume and it might seem excessive if it was also prominent in this book.  That’s not to say it’s ignored, but like Isolfr, it’s more in the background and comes up less.  Also, many of these men are gay, combating the stereotype of the “manly” Viking warrior who lusts after the buxom lasses.  That’s not to say the authors went the route of deciding every man in this all-male society was gay, either.  Some of them still prefer women, and some of them even have children. This creates a new layer of conflict since one of these men is Isolfr, who is coveted by many (and whom Skjaldwulf desperately wishes didn’t seem to prefer women).

I also found it interesting that they included a woman who became heir to her father, a war leader, because he had no sons to be his heir.  For all intents and purposes, she became a man – dressing like one, acting like one, and always referred to with male pronouns.

The Tempering of Men is different from A Companion to Wolves.  While the latter was more of an introduction to the world through the eyes of a young person being initiated into it, the new installment is about more experienced members of the society.  It’s a bit more epic in feel with more main characters and some questing.  I appreciate the fact that it does take the story in a new direction, but I also found the first book a little bit stronger just because it was easier to pick up and become immersed in.  Plus these are not very long books, so just having one main character worked a little better, although we do know some of these characters going in so it’s also not by any means a bad choice to have more than one main character. It also had a middle book feel since the things that did happen seemed like they’d be more important in the next book.  While I enjoyed it very much, I did enjoy the previous book a little more; however, it has not at all dampened my enthusiasm any for more books set in Iskryne.

My Rating: 7/10

Where I got my reading copy: ARC from the publisher.

Read Chapter One

Other Reviews:

Reviews of other books in this series:

  1. A Companion to Wolves
Review of Naamah’s Blessing by Jacqueline Carey
Aug
09
2011
Naamah's Blessing
by Jacqueline Carey
610pp (Hardcover)
My Rating: 8/10
LibraryThing Rating: 4.13/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.11/5
 

Naamah’s Blessing is the final book in Jacqueline Carey’s companion trilogy to the first two trilogies comprising Kushiel’s Legacy, which began with Kushiel’s Dart.  This newest trilogy takes place well after the end of the first two and can be read without first reading the books that came before (I’ve only read Kushiel’s Dart myself, although I really enjoyed it and should get on reading the rest of them).  The books in the Naamah trilogy before this one are Naamah’s Kiss and Naamah’s Curse, respectively.

There will be spoilers for the first two books in this series in this review. If you have not read them, but are interested in learning more about the series, here’s my review of Naamah’s Kiss.

Moirin returns to Terre d’Ange with Bao with a mixture of joy and grief.  While she is elated to be reunited with her father, the death of Queen Jehanne brings her great sorrow and impacts the kindgom as a whole.  King Daniel is so upset by his queen’s loss that he’s no longer an effective ruler and has another performing most of his duties for him. Now that Morin has returned, the king asks her to do what he cannot – care for his daughter, Desiree, who reminds him too much of Jehanne for him to be around.  Moirin agrees and vows to do so publicly, although she also reminded him beforehand that her diadh-anam may not allow her to stay in Terre d’Ange.

This is indeed the case. When news comes of Prince Thierry’s disappearance in Terra Nova, Moirin discovers it is her destiny to journey overseas and find him herself.  While she’s hesitant to leave the princess, it becomes clear to her that the best thing she can do for Desiree is to find her half-brother and bring him home.  However, there is another purpose for her presence in Terre d’Ange – Moirin is destined to once again meet Raphael de Mereliot, who used her powers selfishly and recklessly in order to gain more power of his own.

At first, I was a little worried that I wasn’t going to enjoy Naamah’s Blessing as much as the rest of the trilogy. While it was still elegantly written, it did take quite a while to get going since there was a lot of reminiscing about events from the first two books for quite a while. Also, it took about a third of the book for it to really feel like it was getting to the plot that had been set up toward the end of the previous book, Moirin facing Raphael de Mereliot once again.  However, once it did pick up, this ended up being my favorite book in the trilogy.  I just loved how it came around full circle back to plots and people from the first book, the beautiful writing, and how different cultures and beliefs were portrayed with such compassion.

Throughout the trilogy, it’s gone from different parts of an alternate Europe to Asia. This book added the Americas to the world tour with Moirin’s journey to Terra Nova. Fortunately, most of the mundane parts of what would have been a lot of traveling were left out so what we did see showed a grand sense of adventure and danger. Terra Nova did indeed come across as the most lethal place Moirin has visited, and there was one scene in particular involving a snake that just might give me nightmares even though I’ve never really been prone to fear of snakes (probably because living in Maine I’ve only ever seen garter snakes which are pretty small, harmless-looking, and could never swallow a creature the size of a capybara whole).  There were some completely creepy scenes involving ants as well, but at least that was not based on reality, so while well done it wasn’t as terrifying.

As much as I enjoyed seeing Moirin traverse the jungles, what I loved most about seeing her visit distant lands was the cultures.  Carey handles all the different beliefs and ways of life so sympathetically.  Even the Aztecs, whose basic belief system was not changed for the purpose of the novel, were not portrayed as bloodthirsty savages but as people with reasons for their actions.  Their convictions had value, and even with Moirin’s deities being so important to the story, Moirin’s gods and goddesses are not the only valid ones in the universe.  When she encounters new cultures, Moirin always tries to learn something new from the other people she encounters instead of belittling them – even when she has some difficulty accepting it on principle, as she did in this book, which really put her to the test.

Moirin did face a big dilemma related to whether or not to trust in what she was told had to be done when it conflicted with her own values.  These types of struggles are one of the reasons I like Moirin’s character, in spite of her not being as flawed as I generally like my main characters to be.  In a lot of ways, she almost seems too perfect – she’s kind, compassionate, always tries to do the right thing, and everyone seems to love her or come to love her unless they don’t seem to be a decent person.  That’s not to say she doesn’t have human traits like a sense of humor or occasional bouts of recklessness, but she doesn’t seem to have any big, glaring personality flaws. Normally, this would be a hindrance to my enjoyment of a series since I prefer my characters to have more bad traits than Moirin has. However, I can find a generally good character like Moirin interesting when she is given difficult obstacles that show what she’s made of and the thought processes she undergoes in her attempts to do right.  That is certainly the case with Moirin, even if I do think that the resolution to some of her problems is wrapped up too easily without her having to act on a choice.

In spite of the tendency for a lot of things to work out too neatly in her favor, everything is still not easy for Moirin.  As we’ve seen before, being used by her deities is both a blessing and a curse.  They lead her around (often on very long, tedious journeys to other continents), she follows, and at times it does cause her great sadness.  They took her away from Jehanne when Moirin had a gift that could have saved her life had she only been there. Knowing what she had to do, Moirin can’t regret it completely because she saved many lives, but she does feel guilt over not being there for Jehanne and agonizes over whether she’d be alive now had she just been there.  In addition to not having a 100% wonderfully god-blessed, luxurious lifestyle full of riches and relaxation, Moirin has committed actions she must pay for.  When she goes across the ocean, she has to correct a mistake she made when she was younger and more naive – and a different person than she is now. While she basically has the same nature as at the beginning of the trilogy, Moirin’s experiences have still shaped her into a more mature young woman than the one we met at the start of the trilogy. I appreciate the fact that she has developed, and I do love her open-minded spirit that allows her to acclimate herself to other cultures and absorb their beliefs so easily.

In spite of a slow start with a lot of recap and inclinations for some convenient resolutions, Naamah’s Blessing was an excellent conclusion to this trilogy.  It was resolved very neatly with a satisfying ending for Moirin, and it was wonderful to see just how far she’d come since the first book. Her story in this book clearly showed the contrast between the very young, unworldly girl she was when the gods first call her away from her homeland and the more knowledgeable young woman she has become.  Combined with lovely prose, entertaining adventures, and a broad, open-minded view of different cultures, Naamah’s Blessing was simply beautiful.

My Rating: 8/10

Where I got my reading copy: Review copy from the publisher.

Other Reviews of Naamah’s Blessing:

Reviews of other books in this series:

  1. Naamah’s Kiss
  2. Naamah’s Curse
2012 Book Lust: Range of Ghosts, The Scar, and More
Aug
08
2011

One of my most anticipated books of 2012 has been Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear ever since she mentioned it in an interview I did with her earlier this year.  I love her books, and the way she described this novel in the interview made it sound especially fantastic:

 

I just handed in the first novel of my first real epic fantasy trilogy. It’s called Range of Ghosts, and it forthcoming from Tor in 2012. I’m a little in love with this world–it’s a cod-Medieval Central Asian fantasy in the mode of the cod-Medieval European fantasy we see so much of. It’s fascinating to me that there are these vast empires and amazing trading societies, socially and technologically advanced, the history of which is almost absent from the Western psyche except when they are invoked as boogeymen–Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun. My Cossack ancestors claim descent from the Golden Horde, and it was incredibly interesting to bury myself in that history.

These are not, I hasten to say, historical fantasies. They’re high fantasy, but they draw their inspiration from sources usually ignored–or cast as the invading enemy–in most of the Western fantasy tradition. And it’s a largely unvisited realm, outside of the adventures of Conan the Cimmerian. The far East gets some attention, but not the vast empires of the Himalayas and the Steppe.

So I was thrilled to see on her blog today that it now has a cover and blurb in the Winter 2012 Tor Catalog!  Here’s what it says about it:

 

Temur, grandson of the Great Khan, is walking away from a battlefield where he was left for dead. All around lie the fallen armies of his cousin and his brother, who made war to rule the Khaganate. Temur is now the legitimate heir by blood to his grandfather’s throne, but he is not the strongest. Going into exile is the only way to survive his ruthless cousin.

Once-Princess Samarkar is climbing the thousand steps of the Citadel of the Wizards of Tsarepheth. She was heir to the Rasan Empire until her father got a son on a new wife. Then she was sent to be the wife of a Prince in Song, but that marriage ended in battle and blood. Now she has renounced her worldly power to seek the magical power of the wizards.These two will come together to stand against the hidden cult that has so carefully
brought all the empires of the Celadon Highway to strife and civil war through guile and deceit and sorcerous power.

I can’t wait!  Range of Ghosts will be released in March 2012.

Actually, I’d highly recommend checking out the whole catalog since there are some great sounding books here, even if a frustrating number are sequels to books I’ve been wanting to read and haven’t read yet.  Some of the books mentioned are:

  • Touchstone by Melanie Rawn (February 2012)
  • Among Others by Jo Walton (coming to paperback in January 2012 – this looked really good!)
  • Girl Genius Omnibus Volume One: Agatha Awakens by Phil and Kaja Foglio (January 2012)
  • The Scar by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko, translated by Elinor Huntington (February 2012)
  • Shadow and Betrayal by Daniel Abraham (omnibus of first two Long Price books, coming out March 2012)
  • The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi (sequel to The Quantum Thief, to be released in September 2012)
  • Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal (sequel to Shades of Milk and Honey, coming out April 2012)
  • Blue Magic by A. M. Dellamonica (sequel to Indigo Springs, will be released April 2012)

That’s just a few of them – I could spend all night writing about all the books that look good.  I’m really excited about The Scar, which I hadn’t heard of before now.  Here’s the description for that one:

 

Reaching far beyond sword and sorcery, The Scar is a story of two people torn by disaster, their descent into despair, and their reemergence through love and courage. Sergey and Marina Dyachenko mix dramatic scenes with romance, action and wit, in a style both direct and lyrical. Written with a sure artistic hand, The Scar is the story of a man driven by his own feverish demons to find redemption and the woman who just
might save him.

Egert is as a brash, confident member of the elite guards and an egotistical philanderer. But after he kills an innocent student in a duel, a mysterious man known as “The Wanderer” challenges Egert and slashes his face with his sword, leaving Egert with a scar that comes to symbolize his cowardice. Unable to end his suffering by his own hand, Egert embarks on an odyssey to undo the curse and the horrible damage he has caused, which can only be repaired by a painful journey down a long and harrowing path. Toria, the woman whose fiancé Egert killed, hates Egert, and is saddened and numb, but comes to forgive the drastically changed Egert. Plotted with the sureness of Robin Hobb and colored with the haunting and ominous imagination of Michael Moorcock, The Scar tells a story that cannot be forgotten.

Eek, there’s too many books from 2011 I still want to read to be drooling over next year’s books!  Are there any books coming out next year you’re excited about already?

The Leaning Pile of Books
Aug
07
2011

This week brought two review copies, one of which I’ve already talked about in my BEA post so I won’t talk about it in detail again (The Magician King by Lev Grossman, which apparently changed significantly between the ARC and finished copy so I’m going to read the final copy instead of my ARC). Also, I raided my local Borders sale and ended up with 4 books I’ve been wanting to read.  If I had no self control, I could have ended up with a lot more but I tried not to go overboard and kept putting books back.  I even thought about putting some of those final four back, but the friend I was with said not to do that because Borders only closes once and how am I to argue with that logic?

Acacia by David Anthony DurhamAcacia: The War With the Mein by David Anthony Durham

The first novel in the Acacia series is by the author who won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2009.  I remember hearing about this book a lot when it first came out, but I just never picked it up for some reason.  When I was looking through the sale books yesterday, I picked it up and saw the very first line mentioned an assassin – and I was hooked.  From the back cover, it sounds like it’s not actually about an assassin but instead the results of an assassination. Oh well, it sounds really good aside from that anyway! An excerpt is available on the author’s website.

There is a second book in the series, Acacia: The Other Lands.

The ruler of the Known World, Leodan Akaran, presides over a land of prosperity and apparent harmony. On the sheltered island of Acacia, this gentle widower raises his four children, shielding them from the dark realities and dangers that lurk nearby. But all his plans come to naught when a foreign chieftain invades and kills Leodan, causing upheaval throughout the kingdom. By a carefully laid plan, all four offspring escape, moving in different directions, settling in different host nations. This hastily enacted dispersal sets the stage for David Anthony Durham’s fourth novel, an epic fantasy of grand dimensions.

Steal Across the Sky by Nancy KressSteal Across the Sky by Nancy Kress

When I told John I was going to the Borders sale, he told me to pick up something good.  So I picked up this one specifically because it’s by the same author who wrote some of his favorite books (the Beggars trilogy starting with Beggars In Spain). I think it looks pretty interesting as well, though.  An excerpt is available on the author’s website, but beware of the super-bright blue background!

The aliens appeared one day, built a base on the moon, and put an ad on the internet:

“We are an alien race you may call the Atoners. Ten thousand years ago we wronged humanity profoundly.  We cannot undo what has been done, but we wish humanity to understand it.  Therefore we request twenty-one volunteers to visit seven planets to Witness for us.  We will convey each volunteer there and back in complete safety.  Volunteers must speak English. Send requests for electronic applications to [email protected].”

At first, everyone thought it was a joke.  But it wasn’t.

This is the story of three of those volunteers, and what they found on Kular A and Kular B.

Among Thieves by Douglas HulickAmong Thieves by Douglas Hulick

I’ve had my eye on this book ever since it came out earlier this year.  Yes, mostly because it has a thief and I expect books about thieves to be lots of fun!  This is a debut novel and the first book in the Tales of the Kin series, which will be at least three books long. An excerpt is available online.

Drothe has been a member of the Kin for years, rubbing elbows with thieves and murderers in the employ of a crime lord while smuggling relics on the side. But when an ancient book falls into his hands, Drothe finds himself in possession of a relic capable of bringing down emperors-a relic everyone in the underworld would kill to obtain.

Children of Scarabaeus by Sara CreasyChildren of Scarabaeus by Sara Creasy

This is the sequel to Song of Scarabaeus, a debut science fiction novel which I read and reviewed earlier this year. While I really enjoyed the first 2/3 of the book, I was less excited about it by the time I finished it. However, I did still like it enough to want to find out how the story ends and figured that a sale was a good excuse to get a hold of the second half of it. An excerpt of the first few chapters is available online.

The crib is everywhere . . .

Edie Sha’nim believes she and her bodyguard lover, Finn, could find refuge from the tyranny of the Crib empire by fleeing to the Fringe worlds. But Edie’s extraordinary cypherteck ability to manipulate the ecology of evolving planets makes her far too valuable for the empire to lose. Recaptured and forced to cooperate—or else she will watch Finn die—Edie is shocked to discover the Crib’s new breed of cypherteck: children. She cannot stand by while the oppressors enslave the innocent, nor can she resist the lure of Scarabaeus, the first world she tried to save, when researchers discover what appears to be an evolving intelligence.

But escape—for Edie, for Finn, and for the exploited young—will require the ultimate sacrifice . . . and a shocking act of rebellion.

Outpost by Adam BakerOutpost by Adam Baker

This post-apocalyptic debut novel was just released in the UK this month, and I saw that there is a Kindle edition on Amazon US.  Reviews on Goodreads mentioned zombies, so I’m not sure it’s really my type of thing, but it sounds like it’s supposed to be pretty good if you do like that sort of thing.

They took the job to escape the world.
They didn’t expect the world to end.

Kasker Rampart: a derelict refinery platform moored in the Arctic Ocean. A skeleton crew of fifteen fight boredom and despair as they wait for a relief ship to take them home. But the world beyond their frozen wasteland has gone to hell. Cities lie ravaged by a global pandemic. One by one TV channels die, replaced by silent wavebands. The Rampart crew are marooned. They must survive the long Arctic winter, then make their way home alone. They battle starvation and hypothermia, unaware that the deadly contagion that has devastated the world is heading their way…

The Magician King Winner
Aug
07
2011

The Magician King giveaway is now over and random.org has selected a winner.  Since I’ve heard back and know where to have the book sent, it’s official that the winner is:

Travis from Pennsylvania

Congratulations, I hope you enjoy the book!

Review of A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin
Aug
02
2011
A Dance With Dragons
by George R. R. Martin
1016pp (Hardcover)
My Rating: 9/10
LibraryThing Rating: 4.16/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.16/5
 

As quite possibly the most talked about fantasy release of 2011, A Dance With Dragons probably needs no introduction.  Just in case you somehow haven’t heard of it for some reason, it’s the fifth book in the series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, which has gained a lot of popularity this year with the airing of the first season of Game of Thrones on HBO.  The first four books in the series are as follows: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows.  Two more books are planned, but with the fourth book being split into two, I wouldn’t be surprised if a third book ended up being necessary to complete the rest of the story.  There is not yet a release date for The Winds of Winter, the sixth book, which will not even be started until next year.

Ever since I discovered it about ten years ago, A Song of Ice and Fire has been my favorite fantasy series, although I can understand that it is not for everyone.  This series is certainly not a light, happy read nor a quick read with its sprawling nature and attention to detail. Also, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who is offended by graphic violence, sexual content, language or – well, pretty much anything, really.  This is a harsh world with some very flawed people. In spite of that, I do think that most of the main cast of characters remain very likable and even those who aren’t necessarily people you’d want to befriend are very compelling to read about.  I love the unexpected plot twists, the careful attention to all the little details, the amazing dialogue, the way I can hate a character in one book and then love that same character later, and the sheer brilliance of how it all comes together, but my favorite part of this series is the characters.  There is such a wide variety of them, and they’re among the most complex, well-developed characters in epic fantasy.  In my opinion, this is the very best multi-volume epic fantasy series there is, and A Dance With Dragons just reinforced my opinion on this after some disappointment with the previous volume.


There will be big, bad spoilers for the previous four books in the series from this point forward.  If you’re someone who has read the previous four books but doesn’t want to know ANYTHING at all about A Dance With Dragons right now, you’ll also want to avoid this review.


A Dance With Dragons runs parallel with events in A Feast for Crows for a while, then continues both stories toward the end.  Most of the focus throughout this particular volume is on Jon, Daenerys, and Tyrion, but there are also a few new faces as well as old favorites.  The majority of the point of view chapters are dedicated to these three and most other characters only get a few chapters with the exception of Theon.  To my great surprise, Theon’s chapters were actually the ones I enjoyed the most in this installment.  He’s not a character I’ve ever been particularly fond of, but he’s an observer for some of the more interesting events in the North and he goes through some rather interesting personal developments in this book.  I never thought I’d see the day, but I actually felt a lot of sympathy for him (not that I should be surprised after the introduction of his perspective in A Storm of Swords made Jaime Lannister of all people one of my favorite characters in the series!).

Aside from Theon, I thought interesting events happened to each and every character, although there were a couple of them with fewer chapters I thought we could have done without.  These would be the one Dorne chapter and Quentyn’s chapters.  While the last Quentyn chapter was fantastic, the ones before it were a bit dull and that final chapter probably could have been told via another perspective without losing much.  Davos was one of my favorites in this one as well, but any perspective dealing with Manderly and events in the North was rather riveting.  As for the main three in this book, I enjoyed them all but was surprised that I didn’t enjoy Tyrion’s chapters as much as usual until close to the end.  After he learned the truth about Tysha and murdered his father, he’s not quite been himself.  He’s been drinking a lot and more passive than normal, and while it was humorous the first couple of times he asked “Where do whores go?” it started to get annoying after a while.  Such behavior is pretty understandable given the circumstances, but I was glad to see him starting to act more like himself later. Jon Snow continues to struggle with being Lord Commander and how much he can do while still remaining an impartial brother of the Night’s Watch.  Likewise, Daenerys is adjusting to her leadership role in Mereen where she freed the slaves. Her attempts to create a society based on her ideals are admirable, but she still has a lot to learn, and she’s also facing a new problem – her dragons are growing and becoming harder to control.  What began as the occasional snack on local livestock progressed to one of them consuming a child, and Daenerys can’t have that as a compassionate person who highly values human life.

Now, I want to make sure I put emphasis on the fact that above all I love these characters.  I have always felt that while there was plenty of plot these books were about the characters first and foremost.  Every chapter is the name of a character and every single character is unique and adds perspective to the story as a whole. This is probably part of the reason I’m not one of the people particularly disappointed in this volume, which seemed like it was very much focused on the different character arcs while getting the various people to where they need to be for the rest of the story.  That’s not to say I believe nothing happened because I don’t think that’s true at all, even if it doesn’t move at the breakneck pace of A Storm of Swords. However, I do think this book is far more rewarding for people interested in the people involved and a lot of the subtlety and little details that gives them a lot to speculate about.  I read it very carefully and picked up a lot more than I did in the other books, but there were still little things I missed.  The parts I did catch, though, added a lot to the story and these really aren’t books that are best read on your own.  So much of the fun comes from discussing and theorizing with other people. (If you have read the book and want to read or share theories on it, I highly recommend visiting the discussions about A Dance With Dragons that are going on at Westeros.org.)

I do think it’s true that it was setting up a lot of events that will be happening more than major plot developments and the cliffhangers at the end were certainly infuriating, but there were so many great moments with the different characters and I felt like we learned a lot about some of them.  They weren’t all just focused on Jon, Tyrion, and Daenerys, either, even if they were the main three characters:

A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons are basically bridge books in the series.  Initially, George R. R. Martin had planned to skip over 5 years between the end of A Storm of Swords and the next book.  He ended up deciding this wasn’t going to work very well, and after reading A Dance With Dragons I’m glad he didn’t go this route.  While A Feast for Crows still remains the weakest book in the series, I loved A Dance With Dragons about as much as the first two books and I think the series would have suffered if it had skipped over most of these.  A lot of it would have had to have been told through flashbacks and it may have been confusing to meet up with the characters again later because these are not people who remain stagnant from book to book.  They develop and grow and we would have had to get to know them all over again.  Also, while slower paced than the first three books, I felt definite progress was made toward an end and that it’s ramping up for a definite conclusion.  We saw prophecies being fulfilled and did get to see some events we’d been waiting for happen.  With how this book ended, the next book should take right off.

All the hints and clues we are given are brilliantly executed.  There’s so many cases where it seems as though there could be one explanation, but there’s another one that makes about as much sense so with each book one needs to carefully examine so many little details.  I love how there are so many possible scenarios and how it does reward paying attention to try to fit all the puzzle pieces together.  There were so many of these tantalizing clues given in this particular volume and I can’t wait to see more of how they all come together.

This book is much more expansive than the previous volumes.  While there are still parts that take place in Westeros, we also get to see a lot more of different parts of the world aside from there.  The characters are spread out more so for those who loved watching various characters interact, this particular aspect is missing.  Personally, I loved seeing more of the world, although I could understand feeling a sense of loss with everyone spread so far apart – but I suspect more of them will be coming together soon in the near future.

Although I do think this is an outstanding book, especially when taking into consideration that it is essentially a setup book, it isn’t perfect.  It did show that it was rushed since there were a number of typos and missing quotation marks, some of which were quite distracting.  It did also start off slowly for the first few chapters, even though in general I didn’t mind that it wasn’t terribly fast-paced.  Due to the size, some of the end was cut off as well, meaning there were some DIRE and EVIL cliffhangers.  Other than the fourth book, the first three books did leave me curious about what happened next without really feeling like it was leaving me hanging.  On the other hand, I have actually been having quite a bit of fun thinking about just how the major cliffhanger will be resolved, so once I got over my first rant (consisting of lots of cries of “Nooooooooooooo! Don’t do this to me, George, you evil man!”) I ended up not minding it as much as I’d expected.  I think we’ve been given enough clues to at least get a general idea of what will happen.

Some may not think it worth the six year wait, but I did because I enjoyed reading about the characters, seeing more of the world, and keeping an eye out for little details to obsessively speculate about.  I thought it was much better quality than A Feast for Crows and had more progress toward setting up the final books. A Storm of Swords is still the best book in this series, but I liked this as much as the first two books. I think readers who are reading the series for the characters and the mysteries, the brilliant setup and dialogue as opposed to the plot twists will enjoy it (although there are a few of those, too, but we may be a bit spoiled in the fast-paced plot department after the number of jaw-dropping events in the third book).  It was very well-written with memorable scenes, lines, and characters.  I absolutely loved it and while it may not be the best-executed book I’ve read this year, it’s still pretty close considering it’s half a middle volume. It’s the book I got the most personal enjoyment out of reading due to my proclivity toward books about the people in them and a slow-build up of hints and mysteries.

My Rating: 9/10

Where I got my reading copy: I bought it… and then waited in line for hours and hours to get it signed.

Other Reviews:

Note: I’m just adding a little note here to warn that some of the comments made below discussing the book are VERY spoilery. Read at your own risk if you have not yet read A Dance With Dragons!