When you get down to the meat of Dance, not much actually happens:

Victarion is heading toward Mereen....and is still heading there.

Mereen is beset by enemies, and is still beset.

The North is divided and at war, and is still at war.

Dorne is plotting, and are still plotting

Tyrion is trying to reach Mereen, and is still trying.

etc, etc.



I think the fundamental flaw of the book is that it's a story without a climax whatsoever. He spends hundreds and hundreds of pages building up to two major confrontations, the battle for Winterfell and the battle for Meereen, and then cuts off before we can even see them. I'm sorry, but that's not gonna cut it. I can accept lots of atmosphere and buildup if there's a payoff for it down the line, but this time there was no such payoff (or rather, the payoff was deferred until the next book). If the problem was that he didn't have enough room to fit the climax in, then he should have gone back and trimmed/condensed the previous chapters until there was enough room. In fact I feel Martin focused too many chapters on the big three, Dany's and Tyrion's especially could have been condensed. Sure, we may have lost some interesting or atmospheric chapters in the process, but all of that would have been in service of a much more important goal.

Don't get me wrong, there are some things that I loved in this book. But much of it I merely tolerated because I thought it was at least building toward something, which turned out to be wishful thinking. If George had included at least one of the climaxes he'd been building up toward, then I think this would have been considered a truly great book. As it stands, it's merely "ok".



I agree, especially in this book Dany, Jon and Tyrion plotlines have been dragged out to some extent. The book probably would have been better served if they didn't take up 50% of the chapters, especially since both Dany's and Tyrion's arc are in a state of limbo.