It was a great read, a page turner for most parts. It doesn't happen often that I read 960 pages in less than 2 weeks, so that says a lot.

That being said, there were passages where I thought: please let something happen and soon, this is not going anywhere! There is a looot of traveling. I once had a friend warn me of WOT because supposedly one of the books consists of an army just traveling to a battle without that battle still happening in that book. Yeah, now Martin's done that too. It's not that hard to summarize the main events in very few words. So, one has to wonder why he needs 6 years and 960 pages. Of course it's the depth he wants to give the books and that's fine, but personally I don't always have to know each character's name that runs through the picture just once, nor do I care what they eat.

Speaking of the names. I am not sure I quite got which Free City was at war with which and who was its leader or sellsword captain or slaver. There are just too many and the locals in Dany's court all sound the same. If you focus on the most important ones you get by without losing track of the main events, but it's hard to imagine anyone being able to keep them apart and having distinctive visual features in their mind while reading.

There is a LOT of Tyrion, Jon and Dany, so everyone who sorely missed them in the last book should be pleased. Thankfully, there are only few chapters of minor characters witnessing events around the main ones, something I always found a bit less interesting than the main character POVs.
The worst cliffhangers from AFFC get resolved, that's good, even if most of them hardly go beyond that. Of course we get about as many new cliffhangers here. And the book ends with quite a bang again. And deserves its title, thankfully.

Interesting side note: I hear Peter Dinklage's voice now when I read Tyrion's chapters, that speaks for the casting. Others (few) characters, I still imagine like I did before the TV show.
The TV show will have a killer budget for this book, if we ever get to that, that's for sure. The times of simple inns and castle walls are over.

There'll be plenty of fodder for discussions with this book, it'll keep the fandom busy for a while, but fact is that Martin should not make us wait another five to ten years. It's just too cruel.
One has to wonder how he will tie everything up in two books. I expected this one to go even farther when it comes to major characters meeting up. That would have given him less POVS for the next book, if he had a couple of them at the same place. As it is, it's hard to imagine how he could do justice to each corner of the world in the next volume without splitting up again.

I'll sleep over it and maybe reply with a few spoilers in the morning, expecting the fast readers any day now