Book 34 of 2013: A Dance With Dragons, Part 1: Dreams and Dust by George R.R. Martin

Dreams and Dust is the first volume of George R.R. Martin’s fifth book in the A Song of Ice & Fire series. This one has a bit of an overlap with the previous book as it continues from about the middle of that one and so picks up on events that have already been seen but this time from the other side of the sea.

I think I enjoyed this one a lot more than the last one purely because it had more of my favourite characters in it. I was pleased to see Jon, Tyrion and Daenarys again and there were also fewer new characters being introduced. I felt like the last one got bogged down under the weight of all these new characters who I barely knew and so I didn’t really care too much about what happened to them. I think the sheer quantity of my favourite characters cropping up in this book helped to make this one far more enjoyable.

I felt like the last book dragged a bit, probably because I didn’t feel particularly invested in many of the new characters. It seemed that the chapters in this book were a bit shorter so although the book was shorter (a whopping 704 pages) it felt like a much quicker read.

The way that the events of the book jumped back in time and then gradually caught up with those of the last book was a little bit jarring at times but I got into it eventually. I have to say that I’m not a fan of this style and I would’ve much rather things just continued in a fairly linear fashion. I’m hoping that the future books are a little more straightforward in terms of chronology if nothing else because due to the length of time between them being released might make things confusing if I don’t have time for a reread in between.

I’m glad that things picked up for me a bit with this book, after the last one I’d kind of been losing my enthusiasm for the series but this sucked me back in and I really enjoyed it. More importantly, it got me looking forward to the second volume of the story!