A Dance With Dragons And Dwarves And Daggers

Yay, boo, yay, boo, that is my feeling on finishing A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin, book #5 in A Song of Ice and Fire series.  Yay 'cause I finally got to catch up and know what everybody else knows, boo 'cause now I have to wait for a zillion years with everybody else for the next book to come out.  At over 1500 pages this was another long read, but went by much quicker then A Feast for Crows, but still not as awesome as the first three books.  I will try and sum up per character as best I can then ramble for a while, you ready?  Great, then as always SPOILERS AHEAD.

Since the book jumps all over the place I will sum it up per main character and try and fill in the rest the best I can.

Jon Snow/At the Wall-Our buddy Jon is continuing to try and hold the Night Watch together under horrible conditions.  Stannis Baratheon has brought his red priestess Melisandre (the amount of people being burned death has increased 1000x in this book because of her) and his army to help fight the wildlings and then decided to stay.  Jon struggles with maintaining his neutrality as the Commander of the Night Watch. Stannis takes most of his army and leaves to try and reclaim Winterfell from Roose Bolton and his bastard son Ramsey.  To this end Jon makes a deal with the wildlings and allows them to all come in from the North above the wall and make a home in the area's surrounding the Wall.  This horrifies the Stannis's Queen Selyse who is stuck at the Wall as well.  Melisandre continues to try and win Jon to her side, telling him the things she see's in the flames.  A note comes for Jon from Ramsey telling him that he has crushed Stannis and his army and has wed Arya Stark.  Jon decides to break his oath and ride to rescue Arya.  This does not sit well with the already disgruntled Night Watch and the book ends with Jon being stabbed multiple times.

Theon/Winterfell-Theon, who has been reduced to a fragile, broken, tortured soul is called Reek by Ramsey Bolton, the bastard son of Roose Bolton who has claimed Winterfell for himself.  Theon is cleaned up and use to help marry Ramsey to Arya Stark to try and legitimatize his claim to Winterfell.  Of course the girl Ramsey is marrying is not Arya, but Sansa's little friend Jayne.  Both Jayne and Theon are afraid of what would happen if anybody found out she is not Arya so they play along.  Much chaos ensues and Theon is enlisted to help spirit "Arya" away.  Theon is successful at the cost of the rest of his companions and Roose and Ramsey slaughter Stannis and his army who have been severely weakened by the oncoming winter.

Bran-Bran has traveled with Meera and Jojen in the company of a strange man, who appears to be one of the undead.  Bran has learned to inhabit the mind of most living things, using his new skill to ride with the slow witted Hodor or his direwolf Summer.  The three children end up under the mountains in the company of the Children of the Forest, long thought to be extinct.  They inform Bran that he is able to become a seer like entity, becoming one with the earth, animals and the weir trees.  Bran then learns to "ride" the weir trees and is able to see through various points in time.

Daenerys/Slaver's Bay-Our girl Dany has made a name for herself by freeing the slaves of Meereen (remember that about a thousand books ago?).  She is now the Queen of Meereen and is trying her hardest to keep the peace and settle the city before she takes of to conquer the Seven Kingdoms.  This is proving difficult as pretty much nobody wants her there.  She is beset upon by all the surrounding cities who just want slavery reestablished, and from within the city itself.  This is compounded by the fact that her dragons have graduated from eating sheep, to eating children and a bloody flux that is killing everybody regardless of what side they are on. Dany is forced to cage her white and green dragons to prevent further killings, but her biggest dragon the black Drogo escapes.  To try and keep the peace, and make things safe for her freed slaves, Dany agrees to marry Hizdahr zo Loraq a noble of Meereen as a concession to the nobles there.  As a wedding gift Dany reopens the fighting pits.  Hizdahr zo Loraq brings along a feast for Dany and her retinue, resulting in the poisoning of Strong Belwas one of her body guards 

when he ate all the honey locust meant for Dany.  During the fighting Drogo flies in and kills a whole bunch of people.  Dany then hops aboard and flies off, leaving the city of Meereen in chaos.

Tyrion-Oh my how I have missed my witty little man, he is by far my favorite character in this series and to go a whole long book without him sucked.  He is back with a vengeance, on the run after killing his father he makes his way to the Pentos where he is assisted by Illyrio, the same man who helped Daenerys and Viserion.  Tyrion is let in on a plan to bring Daenerys back to Westeros and assume the Iron Throne.  At this point Tyrion is on board with any plan that disposes his sister the Queen Regent Cersei.  He ends up on a boat with a group that turns out to include a young Aegon, who was just an infant when Robert Baratheon led his uprising and was supposedly killed by Tywin Lannister.  Turns out they were able to switch him out with a low born infant and was smuggled of by a knight loyal to the Prince Rhaegar until his death.  Tyrion is all ready to help Aegon until he is kidnapped by Jorah Mormont to take back as a gift to Queen Dany to prove his loyalty.  Along the way they hook up with Penny, a simple dwarf girl who performed with her brother at the then still alive King Joffery's wedding.  Her brother had been beheaded as a result of Tyrion's escape leaving Penny alone with her dog and pig.  The motley crew are then captured by slavers, the result being Tyrion (known as Yollo) being forced to do a comic act with Penny, jousting from the back of the pig and dog (I cannot wait to see this on the TV show).  Eventually our friend talks his way to not only his freedom, but the freedom of Penny and Jorah as well.  Meanwhile Aegon, his loyal night and a couple of companies of sell swords have landed in the Seven Kingdoms to begin their conquest.

 Cersei/Kings Landing-Queen Cersei is still imprisoned by the High Septon on charges of fornication and treason.  The Queen finally realizes the only way to see her son again is to confess at least to the lesser charges of fornication.  She does and her punishment is to walk shorn and naked from the sept, through the city to the castle.  She does this, humiliated and broken, but able to be with her son again.  She has been humbled, but her spark is still there.  As for the charges of treason, she is able to request a trial by combat, with a giant, unknown man as her champion.  She is allowed to dwell in the castle with her son until the trial is complete. Margery Tyrell has thrown herself on the mercy of the church and will have a trial by faith.  Cersei's Uncle Kevan is now essentially running the show, trying to maintain peace and balance as well as he can.  The book ends with him being stabbed by Vary's as he is told that all the secret council wants to do is maintain peace, and Aegon and Dany are the best hope they have of that.

We also get quick glimpses of Jamie, Arya, Davos, Brienne, the Martells in Dorne, Asha, Victorion and about a zillion other quick characters.  Some live, some die, some are left up in the air.

Okay that was a long synopsis and that did not even cover hardly any of the book, but again the book was 1500+ pages so we will leave it at that.  I have mixed feelings about this latest installment.  On one hand compared to the snoozefest of the A Feast for Crows this one actually had some action to it, on the other hand compared to the first three books  it is still overly blah.  I think these last two books suffer from too much detail.  The author describes in detail EVERY SINGLE THING.  If a lord walks into a room with his nine courtiers, all 9 of them get described in as much detail as the main guy...and then we never hear about any of them again.  I am all for adding bits of detail to round out a world, but after 5 books all clocking in at the 1000+ page range, I don't need to know what everybody was wearing.  The author also does a lot of redescribing, I got the first three times he told us that Jayne has brown eyes not grey like Arya, but every

single time she is mentioned, so are her eyes, it is just overkill. This especially happens with places, I know what the Wall looks like, I have known what the Wall looks like since it was so well described in book one, unless something changes  don't need to spend 3 pages at the beginning of each chapter the Wall is in being described to me.  I know this sounds petty, but I am pretty sure we could loose at least 300 pages if this was edited out a bit.  I don't know if I am just getting jaded, or I am nit-picking, or what, but these books are starting to get repetitive. A king/queen arises, they join the fight, sometimes they stick around, sometimes they get killed, minor lords are either super loyal or super evil and stuff happens accordingly, lather, rinse, repeat.  I guess I am just read for this epic story to go somewhere.  Now on to the things I really enjoyed.  Tyrion, every word of his story makes me smile.  His perspective is so different from most of the others, his attitude and the way he deals with things is refreshing.  Making him a slave for a little while and getting him out of Kings Landing just made me happy.  I still love Arya's story now that it has taken her to Braavos and am glad that she got a couple of chapters.  Reminding us that the overthrowing of the Targaryens is super recent and that a good chunk of the population was not only alive when it happened, but actively participated in it is so different and awesome when compared to most stories where it is if not ancient history, at least a couple of generations have passed. My favorite reveal in this book is the existence of Aegon, with Dany I thought we had our Targaryen faction, but this adding a legitimate contender for the blood line that can either be a rival or an ally for Dany is kind of exciting.  I am excited to see where we go from here as far as the story goes, this book did a lot to sweep away a lot of the little petty factions, and set the tone for a Targaryen comeback, if that actually happens we will have to see.  I hope these last two books concentrate on wrapping the story up, not everything has to be resolved, I just want it to quit dragging.  Hopefully the next book will be out before I forget what I have read in these five books.  I give this book 6 out of 10 Pretty Pigs.

Who is your favorite character in this series?  What do want to see happen?  Do you ever edit books in your head as you read them? Are you like me and very glad to have the e-format for giant books like this?

One Last Bit Of Winter Fun

Well folks today is the last day of February.  I have just finished reading my winter books and am ready and eager to move on to my spring books.  But before we trade the snow and ice for rain and flowers here are a couple of winter wonderland tidbits to remind you that winter is not so bad.

Book Snowman

How cute is he?!?

Book Page Snowflakes

What a great idea for next year

Book Snow Sculpture 

An alternate to the traditional Snowman

Snowlady With a Book

Book Sweaters 

So your books don't get cold during your winter reading.

See winter isn't that bad, in fact it is kind of fun to have an excuse to curl up with blankie, a cup of coffee, and a great book for hours on end.  Happy last of winter reading everybody!

Are you scrambling to finish up your winter books?  Are you ready for spring?  Am I the only one who now has the urge to come up with a whole wardrobe for my books?

Carrot Juice Zombie Infection

Hi Everybody (Hi Dr. Nick), sorry a bit of Simpsons humor, couldn't help myself.  How is everybody on this fine snowy morning?  Everybody got a big cup of hot coffee?  Everybody got there big fluffy blankies? Everybody got their ax in case of a snowy zombie attack? Oh...I'm being told it wasn't actually a zombie attack this morning, just a bunch of idiots who can't drive in the snow...well zombies are way more fun so lets talk about those instead.  Undead by Kirsty McKay is a YA book about zombies read because it was handed to me by my Hubbin who said "this looks cool, you should read it and tell me what happens", so I did.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD.

Bobby has it rough, she is a British native who was moved to the US because of her mothers job and then back to the UK for the same reason, this gives her a weird American/British combo slang accent that apparently is the basis for her having no friends.  Her concerned mother has sent her on a school skiing trip in Scotland to try and help her make some friends. This backfires and Bobby spends most of the trip being teased or ignored.  They are finally on their way back and have stopped at some little cafe in the middle of nowhere for lunch.  Bobby decides she has had enough of the teasing and stays on the bus while the others go in and eat.  Smitty a rebel without a cause is also staying on the bus as his bad boy attitude has gotten him in trouble. Their teacher goes into the cafe to get Smitty some food.  Bobby meanwhile needs to pee...bad, which we all know is one of the worst feelings in the world, she does not want to face her fellow students so she attempts to use the bus bathroom, but is informed by the bus driver that it is not usable when the bus is turned off. Bobby notes a poor guy in a giant carrot suit passing out samples of some veggie carrot juice to all of the kids and teachers.  All of a sudden the bus is hit from behind and the driver goes out to see what happened.  Meanwhile one of Bobby and Smitty's classmates, the popular Alice comes screaming out of the cafe, yelling that they are all dead and generally being incoherent.  As they look around they see the teacher that went to get Smitty food come out all slathering, hungry, and gross.  The kids barricade themselves in the bus until Smitty realizes that the driver has yet to come back.  Alice stays in the bus while Bobby and Smitty go drag him in, noting what looks like a bite mark on his arm.  Chaos ensues and the trio along with the

unconscious bus driver end up at a near by gas station where Bobby finally gets a chance to pee.  They meet up with the pale and geeky Pete who has been hiding in the bathroom, and the unsavory Gareth who is the local gas attendant.  More chaos and more zombies and the gas station ends up in flames, incinerating a good portion of the undead.  Gareth runs away with the only laptop and the kids discover that their cellphones don't work.  They head back to the cafe where the bus driver turns and more chaos.  They hunker down and do their best to barricade themselves in the cafe.  Bobby passes out from hunger, which while embarrassing is the sign for them to go find food.  being that they are in a cafe it should be pretty easy, the only problem is they don't know what it is that turned all of their classmates, teachers, and cafe workers into zombies.  Eventually they puzzle out that it was the carrot juice samples and tuck into their sandwiches.  They hood up with Lily and her 3 year old brother Cam who lost their mother to the carrot juice zombie infection.  They find a castle and break in, hunkering down for the night.  The next day as they are exploring they find what looks like cells, with a headless body in one of them and a locked tower.  The current occupants of the castle come home turn out to be not very nice, they make prisoners of the kids and continue with their plans. Lily reveals that she found the tower key and they withhold the information from their captors who are desperate to find it.  More chaos (are you sensing a theme yet) and little Cam turns into a toddler zombie who promptly turns his sister.  The rest of the crew make it up to the tower and watch the very convenient destruction of their captors.  They go through all of the papers and realize that the company responsible for this zombie menace is the same one Bobby's mom works for.  We also find out that Bobby's dad has recently died of cancer and that she has never had a good relationship with her mom.  So very conveniently Bobby's phone starts working and her mom calls to tell her where to find the antidote and how to escape and bring it to her.  Bobby and company escape and trudge across the ice, being chased by zombies to a little island.  They make Bobby's mom tell them what the heck is going on.  Apparently the zombie disease has been popping up in isolated instances all over the world and Bobby's mother's company was hired to find a cure.   Unfortunately human greed jumped into the mix and the rest of the team sold the engineered disease to some baddies who want to use it as a weapon.  The company itself was actually using the cafe and the carrot juice as a controlled test and have plans to wipe out the whole area once the test has been completed.  They try to escape, but Smitty goes through the ice and is bitten by underwater ice dwelling zombies.   Luckily Bobby uses the cure (that could save all of humanity) on Smitty and hopefully that cures him.  They flag down a school bus that is also returning from a school trip and hitch a ride.  As she drifts off to sleep, Bobby see's a carton of the zombie carrot juice...and it is empty.  The book ends with her screaming that they all need to get off the bus.

Eh, the book was ok.  It kind of felt like on of those movies on Disney or Lifetime that you don't look for, but since their on and the remote control is on the other side of the couch you may as well finish it.  I think the book was going for a snarky/comic feel, on review compared it to Shaun of the Dead (such an awesome movie), but I don't think it quite made it there.  The characters were all stock characters, slightly exaggerated, I think the author was trying to use them as satire, or parody, but she did not go far enough.  The situations were uneven and were resolved either in a cliche way or by some randomly convenient event.  The story itself was very straight forward zombie apocalypse, which sometimes worked really well, and sometimes just felt boggy.   The ending made it very clear that there was a sequel coming, so of course very little resolution was presented.  On the plus side, the author did a good job addressing things I always

wonder about in these kinds of predicaments...like having to pee, you almost never see or read about our hero's using the bathroom, but seriously when you gotta go, you gotta go.  One of the main things I teach my recruits at the fire station is that if you have to use the bathroom, especially in the middle of the night, don't wait 'cause their is nothing worse then doing CPR with a full bladder.  Things like eating, peeing, clothes getting sweaty and gross, hair and make going to heck, all of these things that we would have to deal with in real life usually get glossed over, but are addressed in this book.  I also loved that the three year old cutie was the requisite person to turn. In these situations somebody in the main group ALWAYS ends up a zombie and I love that she made it the kid. I also love that the disease was handed out as juice samples by a giant carrot.  I understand what the author was going for in this book, I think she was trying to make teenage zombie book in the vein of a parody, but the execution was not effective.  It comes across as mushy, predictable and a wee bit annoying.  Also the blurb and back of the book description are not at all an accurate representation of whats in the book, nor is the front cover.  Overall I think I may have actually liked this better as a cheesy Syfy channel movie and I give it 4 out of 10 zombie infected carrot juices.
What is the best vector for a zombie infection?  How would you feel if you found out your mother was working for a zombie company?  How horrible would it be if they infected the coffee supply?!?