I liked it, though not nearly as much as SOS, probably more on par with AFFC. It truly felt like the companion to that book, which I guess makes sense, because it was. It was as well-written as any of the books, though certain aspects of the story really seem to have bogged down.
The Good:
- Pretty much anything to do with the North. Other than Jon on the Wall, we really haven't gotten a good luck at the North since the first book, and I'd say this book was the most vivid description we've gotten. And it was awesome.
In particular:
- All the ways in which the Northmen showed how beloved Ned Stark was (and still is). Manderly saying "The North remembers", and all of the hill tribes talking about saving "Ned's little girl." That stuff was awesome, the Stark name has pretty much been shat upon for several books now, and it's nice to hear people finally telling it like it is again.
- Theon. All the credit in the world to GRRM for taking a character I'd grown to despise (for good reason) and turning him into someone I actually sympathized with. He's never going to be fully redeemed, that's clear, and part of him will be Reek forever. But him finally getting the courage to shake off that persona was great. Moreover, it felt like his transformation back into Theon (as spelled out in the chapter titles) came along with him really coming to regret what he'd done to the Starks, which was good as well.
- Bran and Davos, two characters who in the past I could take or leave, both were more interesting in this book than they've ever been (the plots they're involved with if not the characters themselves, who remain pretty flat). If anything, I wish we'd gotten more of both, which is something I've never said in the past.
- Aegon/Griff. We didn't get a ton of exposition on them, but it was refreshing to see a group of characters that we meet, learn their motivation, and then they immediately act on their motivation rather than limping around for three books. Whether their invasion of Westeros will prove folly or not (I tend to think yes) remains to be seen, but the fact that they actually did something is worthy of note.
- Arya. She's probably my favorite character in the books, and though she didn't get many chapters they certainly didn't disappoint. Not much to say here, can't wait to see where her story goes.
- Barristan. I'm putting him here despite where I'll end up putting his Queen, because once we switched to his POV things actually started happening in Mereen. It seemed clear to me that GRRM figured out the only way these characters were ever going to leave Mereen was if Dany was out of the picture. The gallant and efficient Barristan will hopefully have this nonsense wrapped up in a few chapters in the next book.
The Just Okay:
- Jon. Which is a shame, because I really liked where his character was going for the first half of the book. Executing Janos, turning down Stannis, etc all showed that he was finally growing up and becoming a good commander. Then he took a hard left turn into "my way or the highway"-ville. I'm not saying that all his decisions with regards to the Wall weren't correct, in fact I agreed with most of them, but the way he continually "consulted" with the other brothers only to crap all over their opinions every time made the conclusion here pretty inevitable. The fact that he was warned by Melisandre and yet still seemed surprised when it got to murderin' time was just hopelessly naive. Then again, he
is a Stark.
I think he'll be back, as most do I'm sure, and at that point it'll be interesting to see what he does.
- Quentyn/Victarion/Tyion. I'm lumping these guys in together since their arc was essentially the same (get to Dany), only the paths were different. And since none of them concluded (except Quentyn's obviously), they're getting incomplete grades.
- Our brief looks at Victarion were awesome, and showed a level of badassery that only the Iron Fleet is capable of. I kind of wish he'd stopped at Sothoryos, since I've always been curious to see what's going on down there (plague and jungle, probably).
- Quentyn's quest was interesting in that they didn't delve too deeply into it and yet I still came to feel for the poor kid. I love a good example of a character who clearly thinks they're the hero of the story and doesn't realize they're not until the very end. His last thought was simply "Oh," which seems to be the moment he finally realized it.
- Tyrion's chapters were individually entertaining, as they usually are because he's a great character, though it became a bit silly to see how often the poor guy could be shuffled from one form of captivity to another. He does win the award for "total distance covered" though, which I guess is a plus in a book which was otherwise slow-moving. I also really liked the addition of Penny, since she's the first true friend he's had in the books who didn't have some ulterior motives, and that he's had to earn their friendship. Seeing Penny's innocence is frustrating to him, but I think also will ultimately help his character with a lot of his own demons.
- The AFFC Characters. Jaime, Cersei, whatever's going on in Dorne. They weren't any more involved that I expected, and the purpose of these chapters was just to remind us they exist and move them a bit further along the chessboard. All we really learned here was that Quentyn made a FrankenGregor (which was already pretty obvious), and that Brienne survived (which everyone assumed). "This is good to know" as the kindly man would say, but hard to give a complete grade with so little to go on.
The Bad:
- Dany. I didn't count, but Dany certainly seemed to have the most chapters in the book, and the vast majority of them were utterly pointless. This character is so obnoxious at this point that it's hard to root for her, but it seems like every book is now one step forward and two steps back for her. The fact that she continues to do so many stupid things and make such terrible decisions, even with good counsel, is maddening at this point (as I'm sure George intended to some extent). Her fixation on Daario just proves she's still an idiotic teenage girl at heart, not a true leader (as was pretty obvious by the end). Ultimately it became necessary to remove her from Mereen by force, since she was probably going to take three more books to leave at this pace. While sending her back to the Dothraki wouldn't be the choice I'd have made (though it does fit the motif of moving backwards to go forward), at least she'll have something to do rather than try (and fail) to play at politics and make goo-goo eyes at Daario, who is hopefully splattered on the pavement of Mereen for good.
So yeah, ultimately I thought it was an enjoyable read, though it certainly didn't advance the overall story as much as I would have liked. Since I only started reading the series last year, this is the first time I'm going to have to wait between books. Not looking forward to that at all...