Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Where oh where to start. I first picked up the series in 1997 and was blown away by Game of Thrones. I was delighted by Martin's amazing balance of juggling a variety of viewpoints while building what seemed to be a living, breathing world all around them. My delight grew into awe and then burgeoned into rapture by the time I read through A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords, because he managed to maintain a varied but limited cast and hop among them to highlight major developments while avoiding the lulls. After reading the stillbirth that was Feast and the nightsoil--one of the many new continuity-jarring words a variety of characters have inexplicably developed a fondness for--that is Dance, I am almost ready to give up hope on this series. What a shame. Here are the major problems: 1) characters seem to routinely ignore warning signs about which they became explicitly aware in previous books, in some cases going so far as to actively participate in muzzling the warning sign by their own hand WITHOUT EVEN A FLICKER OF RECOGNITION. 2) the story seems to be moving along for the first half of the book, only to see it completely stall out in the second half. Nothing happens in the second half that doesn't involve problem #1 3) Martin is starting to write like Steven King, with long, drawn out trips to Irrelevant Lane where the narrative meanders pointlessly around dish #7239 or decorative scrollwork #1218. The somewhat abbreviated meal descriptions of Game or Storm have now become chapters in their own right. 4) there must be at least 30 points of view, which would be alright if they showed anything of consequence. Unfortunately, they don't. In fact, I'm still waiting for this problem to combine with problem #3 to give us the Rasher of Bacon viewpoint. Don't laugh. At this rate, it's almost 50/50. 5) the long breaks between completion are starting to cause continuity problems. Characters we've seen for 3 books now constantly throw out phrases and words we've never seen before. I wouldn't mind if words like "nuncle" or "serjeant" were regional, but when series-long familiar characters like Tyrion begin bandying them about, it's a serious problem. 6) Martin's editor is apparently asleep at the wheel. The book could have been half as long, twice as enjoyable to read, and still accomplished everything it does. In fact, the worst thing about Dance is that the Martin of Game, Clash, or Storm could have told each character's entire story in Dance with 6 or fewer viewpoint chapters. That is how little development and how much rushing around to do nothing takes place. INEXCUSABLE for such a veteran. 7) Feast and Dance really screwed things up storytelling wise. There's still no way to skip ahead (which is why he wrote Feast and Dance in the first place), and now we're left with a host of shoddy, slapdash cliffhangers to clean up before we can even make any progress in Winds. The last two books were worse than irrelevant: they actually weakened the series for all the above reasons. Dance is an absolute shame, and I can only hope against the obvious that Martin realizes what a crap job he's done with the last two books and take to Winds with only 8 to 10 viewpoints to get some progress going again. For now, this series is drek.