How interesting, it seems that critics had slammed Martin's previous novel "A Feast for Crows" (the fourth part of saga "A Song of Ice and Fire") and praised this, fifth part as "return to form" where personally I enjoyed previous novel much more than this one. In previous novel the focus were different characters and certain parts of kingdom, while here we have another perspective and the rest of characters - well, I had said this before and will say it again, I don't care a fig for Daenerys Targaryen and her chapters, it bothered me in TV serial and still bothers me here as it feels like completely another novel, with people far removed from the main story so to have her back again did not really improve my attention.
I am perfectly aware that diving into five books of saga might have been a overtly enthusiastic task and as I read one after the other, this last (so far) part felt more like a chore than as pleasure. In fact, I did read it only in order to finish what I had already started and since George R.R.Martin continued to introduce layers of the story on top of each other, even more characters in each chapter, my attention kind of wandered away and often I would find myself skipping the pages just to get on with the story - I probably skipped far more than I should have because at certain point honestly I couldn't recall who are those people (even worse, why should I remember them) and repeated mentions of historical past that happened centuries before current story always knocked me off to sleep. There are certain variations with TV serial and actually the differences are so big that I don't understand why it was done so, for example Sansa was not wed and abused by sadistic Ramsay Bolton (it was a completely another character) so how will TV producers get out if it interesting guess. The priestess Melisandre suddenly does not appear so frightening anymore, Tyrion spends most of this novel drunk and than meets dwarf lady who might become his love interest in the future, the "King-Beyond-the-Wall" Mance Rayder has actually not been killed as in TV serial but is alive and well in this novel, Jaime Lannister slowly gets disgusted with his sister and gravitates towards Brienne of Tarth and his uncle Kevan Lannister eventually takes over after Queen Cersei gets her well-deserved public humiliation and is probably pushed aside with no future involvement in rule. Again it was over a thousand pages and this time, for the first time I actually felt it, plowing trough it with determination more than joy, now when I am truly done with all five novels I feel heroic and definitely need a good break from not just George R.R.Martin but from the whole fantasy genre for a while - my next book have to be something completely different.
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