Book of the week: A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin

(Bantam, $35)

In 2005, after reading George R.R. Martin’s novel A Feast of Crows, I wrote a review calling Martin “the American Tolkien,” said Lev Grossman in Time. Having just read A Dance With Dragons, “I’m happy to report that I was totally right.” The fifth novel in Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series further proves that the 62-year-old author is producing “the great fantasy epic of our era.” Written for “a more profane, more jaded, more ambivalent age” than Tolkien’s, Martin’s immense tale unfolds on the continent of Westeros, where seven kingdoms exist amid political chaos and scheming competitors are vying to ascend to the unifying Iron Throne. At over 1,000 pages and containing at least 11 major story lines, the new book is a work of staggering complexity. Yet it’s also perfectly paced and plotted. Martin’s “skill as a crafter of narrative exceeds that of almost any literary novelist writing today.”

Not since Harry Potter vanquished Voldemort have the stakes been so high for a fantasy novel, said Bill Sheehan in The Washington Post. Yet for Martin’s legions of fans, swelled by the popularity of the Ice and Fire–based HBO series Game of Thrones, the book delivers. It brings back several characters that the last installment disappointingly left out, notably Daenerys Targaryen—legitimate heir to the Iron Throne—who commands a trio of dragons, and Tyrion Lannister, the “sardonic dwarf who is perhaps Martin’s most vivid creation.” Meanwhile, Martin keeps the suspense level consistently high by establishing that everyone in his saga is vulnerable, that “any player, however important, can be removed from the board at any moment.” Factor in mind-expanding set pieces and “assorted cliff-hangers,” not to mention a fair amount of heart, and Dragons is a book that transcends genre.

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Those who prefer easy thrills might want to skip Martin’s series entirely, said Megan Wasson in CSMonitor.com. To catch all the subtleties and layers of Dragons almost requires keeping a “Song of Ice and Fire encyclopedia at hand.” Anyone new to the series also should be warned that the sex and violence in these books are far more graphic than anything in Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings. That said, readers who enjoy immersing themselves in wholly developed fictional worlds will find themselves at home in Martin’s. He has an uncanny ability to keep his audience on its toes. “Not even the most sharp-eyed of readers” will be able to guess where this series is going next.