I used to be an avid fantasy reader. Then as I got older, my reading focus changed to spending most of my time with the “classics.” I abandoned the multitude of fantasy series from my childhood, unable to keep up with all of the incomplete series that I had begun. I found that pleasure in literature was not just isolated to exciting story lines, political intrigues, fantastical monsters, outbursts of magic, and plot-twists, but pleasure and enjoyment could also be derived from pondering philosophical ruminations of characters, considering conflicts of social class, exploring encoded symbols, and aesthetic textures in a text.  I realized enjoyment could be found in both a fun page-turning story and a deep intellectual one.

A Dance with Dragons is the fifth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series.  For those new to this series, the central overarching stories running through the series as whole are a civil war over the throne of the Seven Kingdoms, a supernatural war between the sacrifice-loving god of fire and a cold demonic god of ice who brings back the dead to be his servants and hunt down the living, as well as a coming-of-age story of a young girl who rises to be a Queen after birthing three living dragons long extinct from the world in order to win back her father’s lost throne (the same throne the five kings are fighting a Civil War over) and presumably to fight the evil god of ice who keeps bringing back the dead and wants to cast the land in an eternal winter. The novel chapters rotate between different character point-of-views reminiscent of William Faulkner, but written in a more straight forward prose and without the stream-of-consciousness that defines so much of Faulkner’s works.

As I read through the pages of A Dance with Dragons, the long-awaited next installment of The Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, I remembered how much fun a fantasy novel could be. It was a real pleasure to get back to reading fantasy novels. Whereas A Feast of Crows, the fourth book in the series, suffered from a slow-pace, no plot movement except to setup characters for later books, and focused heavily on the less interesting viewpoint characters in the series, A Dance with Dragons is a strong improvement. There are many reasons this book is better. In this book, we have the more interesting  and more established viewpoint characters from the earlier novels (Tyrion, Jon, and Danaerys), meanwhile viewpoint characters that I found boring in previous books in the series such as Theon and Davos were actually interesting; in fact, Theon probably had some of the best chapters in the book.

The novel picks up the plot more directly from where A Storm of Swords left off, making it feel more cohesive and natural than the previous novel. Most of the book is about the characters’ reactions to the consequences of the death of Tywin Lannister, the Red Wedding, and those trying to throw their lot in with Danaerys. Much of the story line is centered on the Northern Lords dealing with Stannis and Roose Bolton’s attempting to maintain control of his leal lords given the distrust from the Red Wedding. Although Jon has been elected Lord Commander of the Wall, he, too, struggles to deal with the consequence of the Red Wedding and Theon Greyjoy’s betrayal. Is he a Stark or the commander of the Night’s Watch?  Unlike previous books, a large part of narrative is spent exploring the Free Cities rather than Westeros. I really enjoyed the amount of time spent on the other continent, which offered a deeper exploration of this fantasy world. The running theme of this particular books seems to revolve around leadership, especially Jon and Danaerys, but also the Stannis plot-thread. This is a book where Jon and Danaerys attempt to kill the children in them in order to become the leaders their realms need, but given how the plot unfolds it is safe to say they fail or make some extremely poor decisions. Tyrion’s plot unfolds as expected, trying to find his place in the world after becoming an outlaw in the Seven Kingdoms and sailing overseas, but with lots of little twists in the narrative to keep it exciting and bring it in a direction the reader doesn’t quite expect. Nevertheless, there are major cliffhangers at the end from the new develops that happen in this novel that certainly will keep me waiting for the next volume. The most unexpected turn in the plot involves a new contender for the throne of the Seven Kingdoms. Overall, this is a pleasant return to form to some of the earlier novels. It reminds me that I should include more fantasy novels in my reading.

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