In A Dance With Dragons through all the lies, subplots, and well dragons, nothing can stop winter from coming. George R.R. Martin created a full fledged world in his “A song of Ice and Fire” book series and this fifth installment is nothing less than pure brilliance.

Martin’s storytelling and character development in this book and throughout the series is just marvelous as many characters “come out of their shells” and live up to who they’re supposed to be or end up six feet under along the way. The real kicker is you never know who it’s gonna be or when as Martin will kill off any of his most beloved characters without to further plot or create tension. He does this while also maintaining five different main characters all in different locations creating well established settings and movement that gives a real connected feeling to the world of westeros even though characters may be apart. Throughout the book the main connector to all these characters seems to be the one overarching phrase that “Winter is coming” which is repeated by many different people in many different locations and contexts.

George R.R. Martin also uses that main plot driver that “Winter is coming” to add a sense of realism and connectivity in a world with dragons, magic, and insane religions that all hold some form of truth to them. A reader can easily relate to winter and the hardships that it must bring to a world before large electronical advancement to be able to get more of a sense of what they’re going through. George puts his own twist on winter because throughout the story the implications of said winter are revealed with the discoverance of “white walkers” undead zombie like creatures who have been extinct for thousands of years and reduced to nothing more than fables in the world of westeros and although this is the overarching main source of conflict it is almost ironic in the fact that most of westeros does not even know it yet.

In A Dance With Dragons although Martin is able to create this large world with hundreds of characters each having their own plots goals strengths and weaknesses there are so many sub-plots and information to keep up with that just a casual reading of the series will leave you not understanding what's really going on. There are five main characters at this point to keep up with but this changes as power shifts occur and at any time a side character could play a major role in the plot and then all of a sudden they die and it sends a ripple across the whole world as the effects of their death are different for each character. Apart from just characters there are seven noble houses to keep up with each with their supporters and enemies and then many smaller houses whose alliances change constantly through lies and betrayal. Added into all of this are several complex religions with many supporters who can do unworldly things yet they all connect to the same prophecy that there will be one person to save the world known as “azor ahai” “eldric shadowchaser” “hyrkoon the hero” and many other names that can be difficult to keep up with the fact that they are speaking of the same person due to the dialect used in the book being medieval.

Overall deceit, complexity, and fantasy aspects all combine to form a magnificent story that is not only amazing on the first read but also prone to re-reads immediately after with over 1.6 million words in the whole series to read for extra details. I would recommend this book to anyone that has the time to read it and the ability to keep up with what's happening over a prolonged period of time as it is not a quick read.