So I’m finally done with the fifth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. It’s a monster of a novel at well over 1,000 pages and has been nearly six years in the making. It’s impossible to talk about it without tramping into spoilers so here are a few short spoiler-free comments about it before going into full-on analysis mode. Does stuff actually happen in this book, as opposed to say, A Feast for Crows? Well, yes, but less than you might expect from a novel of this length. Is it good? It’s decent but falls markedly short of the first three books due to lack of focus and poor prose. Does it finally tie things up? Not really.

Spoilers start here

The obvious shortcoming of A Dance with Dragons is that it is far longer than necessary. In a variant of Robert Jordan disease, George R.R. Martin spends many, many pages describing useless details, especially food. There’s a certain amount of charm in reading the extensive list of what Tyrion Lannister eats while he is a guest of Illyrio Mopatis in Pentos for example and the pies served by Wyman Manderly at Winterfell are a masterful allusion to Titus Andronicus. But do we need to know what Davos Seaworth ate at White Harbor and what Cersei Lannister had with her uncle Kevan when she was released?

In this category too are the endless descriptions of clothes just like Jordan’s Wheel of Time books. What color tokar Daenerys Targaryen decides to wear on any given day is not a detail that enlivens the story. Nor do we need to be constantly reminded of the sigils of each House by way of brooches, clasps and the patterns of their coats, tunics and cloaks. One could also say the same of the characters’ emo moments. How many times do we need to hear Tyrion Lannister’s refrain of where do whores go? Or to be reminded that Daario Naharis makes Daenerys wet. This is just plain bad writing that a good editor should hack away mercilessly.

Then there’s the lack of focus. I get that this is a sprawling, epic tale that takes place over a huge swathe of the world. But part of the effectiveness of the first three books were that we see that world through the eyes of a few key characters that the reader can strongly identify with and events, even important ones, can be handled off-screen when necessary. Do you know how many POV characters there were in A Game of Thrones? Nine. And how many are there in book five? Eighteen. If readers are feeling lost and stop caring about what happens to characters, well, that’s one reason for it right there. What’s worse is that some POV chapters seem unnecessary. I for one think that the Asha Greyjoy and Quentyn Martell chapters could be eliminated without harm to the story, with the events described in them recounted in summary form by other characters.

But the book is still an unmissable read for fans of the series and it’s great to finally get new scenes of key characters like Tyrion, Jon Snow and Bran Stark after a wait of more than 10 years. The advancement of the plot in the North is especially satisfying as we see Jon shaking things up and Stannis making moves to consolidate his hold. The Boltons make excellent villains and their treatment of Theon Greyjoy is so appalling that the reader feels sympathy for him again despite all that he has done. Wyman Manderly emerges as a fantastic though unlikely looking badass despite not having a POV chapter to his name.

Tyrion is always a fan favorite but it’s hard to like his scenes in this book when all he does is travel. One chapter he’s traveling on elephant back to get to Daenerys. Then he’s traveling by boat. Then he gets kidnapped and travels by ship. By the end of the book he doesn’t even get to meet Daenerys. You would think that Martin would know better after all the complaints of the Brienne traveling from one spot to another being terribly boring. The Victarion Greyjoy chapters are like this too, except that he gets to capture ships, kill people and have sex with his unnamed dusky woman along the way.

But the Daenerys chapters are the worst of all, even if she does finally get to ride a dragon. All of the Westerosi keep urging Daenerys to abandon Mereen and get going to Westeros already. So do all the readers of the book. No one cares what happens to Mereen. No one is amused by Daenerys’ uncharacteristic indecisiveness. And no one appreciates that Martin has reverted Daenerys to her love-struck teenager persona. The real reason for all this delay of course is that Martin needs to give the dragons time to grow up but enough already. If Daenerys needs to be tied down for a while, either give her more interesting problems to solve or pull a timeskip and explain what she did during all this time retrospectively.

As a fantasy series The Song of Ice and Fire is still one of a kind and this installment moves it along, slower than one might like, but it does move it along. But it’s clear that it won’t ever return to the quality of the first three books. Another thing is that with this book the series has completely abandoned any pretense of being historical fiction inspired by the War of the Roses. For better or for worse, it’s in full-on high fantasy territory now. And as contradictory as it sounds, this change makes it lose some of its magic.