While I would often express my frustration at the author and the pace of the series (A Dance of Dragons taking over ten years to complete after the preceeding volume), I always thought I had the book to look forward to.  I hardly expected to be critical of the book, the author maybe, but not the book.  After all THIS was the follow up to a Storm of Swords!  One of the best fantasy books written in my opinion and which I highly reviewed for Amazon.

So, no spoilers... if you have followed this series you should read this, ahm, book, that much is plain.  There are a couple of gems within in terms of individual scenes, and some surprises/answers to set questions from the earlier books.  But there is no over-riding interest factor, and two thirds of the way through the book it was clear that there was no reason to continue reading other than that I had read all the previous books in the series.

At the rate Martin puts these things out, recently anyway, like one book every six years or so, I will probably not read the next one in the series, or I will wait till a day when I have the flu and it is in cheap paperback (or kindle).

After ten years of waiting with a excitement, I no longer care a wit about the characters or the plots in this series.
While I would often express my frustration at the author and the pace of the series (A Dance of Dragons taking over ten years to complete after the preceeding volume), I always thought I had the book to look forward to. I hardly expected to be critical of the book, the author maybe, but not the book. After all THIS was the follow up to a Storm of Swords! One of the best fantasy books written in my opinion and which I highly reviewed for Amazon. So, no spoilers... if you have followed this series you should read this, ahm, book, that much is plain. There are a couple of gems within in terms of individual scenes, and some surprises/answers to set questions from the earlier books. But there is no over-riding interest factor, and two thirds of the way through the book it was clear that there was no reason to continue reading other than that I had read all the previous books in the series. At the rate Martin puts these things out, recently anyway, like one book every six years or so, I will probably not read the next one in the series, or I will wait till a day when I have the flu and it is in cheap paperback (or kindle). After ten years of waiting with a excitement, I no longer care a wit about the characters or the plots in this series.