Basileus777 said:
I thought it was still better than Feast. All the problems and flaws this book had, AFFC had even worse, except with even less interesting characters and storylines. Well except for the writing/prose which was better in AFFC. In that regard, GRRM had his moments of brilliance, but a lot of the writing was sloppy. Tons of bloat and unnecessary/clumsy repetition of words and phrases. ADWD badly needed some harsher editing.
I concur. The meandering plot was similar to Feast, but at least it featured characters I like better. So, Dance > Feast. Nevertheless, I thought Feast is the best written of them all (from a stylistic point of view). But personally I am more of a "plot" guy and neither of the last two books did much to advance it.
Question for all: Which characters do you think benefitted from Dance, which became worse?
for me:
Winners:
Ser Barristan (I feared his own POV would harm his mystique, but on the contrary. He is even more awesome now)
Bran (although I´ve always liked him)
Melisandre (big surprise for me)
Theon (unbelievable surprise!)
Connington (I think the only new character I really liked. I loved the Greyscale revelation)
Lord Wyman
Dragons!
Losers:
Dany
Tyrion
everyone and everything in Mereen
The Greyjoys (except Asha)
Martell
The others remained on the same level