A Dance With Dragons

A Dance with Dragons is the fifth volume of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Its opening stretch runs alongside A Feast for Crows, covering the same span of time with the characters that book set aside, before carrying the whole saga past it.

In the east, Daenerys Targaryen struggles to hold the freed slave city of Meereen, discovering that conquest is far simpler than governance, and that her dragons are no longer hers to command.

At the Wall, Jon Snow, now Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, tries to ready the order for winter and for the threat massing beyond it, making enemies with every hard decision.

Tyrion Lannister, a fugitive with a price on his head, is carried across Essos toward the dragon queen, while other exiles and claimants converge on her from every direction.

The novel braids many threads across two continents and pushes the story to a series of knife-edge turning points. It won the 2012 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel.