Mr Martins needs to finish his own stories and not let someone else finish it for him.
936375
I rarely leave reviews or feel the need but here goes. In the beginning of Stormcaller, the story is certainly engaging enough, the characters engaging and a fun read. However, that said, somewhere about the middle of the story, it was as if Mr Martins suddenly left off writing said story and a 15 year took up his pen and finished it. To my perception there were two definite writing styles and frankly I wasn't thrilled with the last half of the story because just as frankly, I don't like the potty mouth. It is not necessary in telling a story, nor might I add is adding the gratuitious nudity that would appear to the earmark of a hormone ridden teenage boy.  I am usually a pretty forgiving reader and will finish a book once started. Unless it's pretty bad and a little more than half way through I found myself flipping on ahead just to see how the story ends and as I rapidly lost interest. Nor might I add would I allow any youngster to read this book either for the simple reason of the potty mouth writing.  Lastly the story itself is rushed, too much happens too quickly and never gives the reader a chance to catch their breath and while this style can be done and done well by an experienced author, not so much here. While the story itself was initially engaging, I cannot see myself actually paying for any further books in the series with the expectation of teenaged potty mouth writing.  I wish I could give it a better review, but I simply can't
2366262
This was one of my favorite series he has done and I hate the way he chose to end it. If any books follow the story will need to be completely different that what I enjoyed before.
1387072
How I wish that this author would flesh out her stories more. She has good ideas, but leaves too many unfinished ideas.  She has talent, but needs to learn how to pull all of the ends together.
1358470
While the writing is wonderful and the characters are well realized the author is a fat and tired old whore who never intends to end the story.  As he rails at the ones who press him to finish the series he negotiates with a MegaCorp. If you hope for completion of the series it will not happen...it will be completed by ghost writers or cut short with a peremptory ending by the Mega Corp that has purchased George R.R. Martin's name.  What is sad is that George R.R. Martin has elected to castigate loyal readers for dunning him for more and leaving what should have been his Magnum Opus incomplete.  I cannot recommend this series as much as I have loved it. Most webs are not worth being caught in...
4033204
This was a bit drawn out with page filler, which included not being honest, not speaking up, tongue tied or avoidance. These are cheap tricks to add pages instead of just writing a good story you want to read.  If you take all the page filler out you'd have a decent story. It's a shame the author messed up a good story by dragging it out.
2793233
Martin has a gift for creating character. He can make  you love then or hate them. Spinning either emotions as he sees fit.  Sometimes he tends to spend too much time telling about insignificant events, however it remains interesting to the end.
4230703
He's just phoning it in. I really enjoyed the first 2 books, but in this one you can tell he's really tired of writing this story.
405507
You can't finish a series without telling the end of the story .. thats dumb then I have to start a series of another book and read 3 books before I learn what happened at the end of the series I already finished.....angry
1813606
A lot of people criticised GRR Martin for the wait of this book. I was not one of them, if quality takes time then we as readers must wait. After reading the book, You just have to wonder why  it took him so long to write this book?. Nothing is really resolved, the book goes in circles and often becomes a soap opera more concerned about furniture placements rather than the progression of the story. I would not be surprised that in a later date, he will extend this book to a 10 book series, there is so much to tell if Dance is any indication of his pace.
All I can say that I am 44 years old and I am seriously doubting that I will read the conclusion of this series anytime in the next decade.
3174467
Hate having to read another book to get the end of a story. Otherwise good read
1102460
I have been a big fan of Martins but I fear after reading FOC he may be going down the road of Robert Jordan(hook you and string you along for the next ten years) I rushed out and bought the book immediatley but with the next book I will patiently wait for the library to have it available so I do not waste my money on a monotony of story lines.  Mr. Martin can we expect another eight books in this series?
4623480
thought he would say more, after a while it gets annoying
3687945
I think if you put a Feast for Crows into a single interwoven volume with Dance with Dragons, and if Dance had been 200 pages longer, there is a fine story there.

Without a doubt there are great story lines and good characters in Dance. What is lacking is any discipline on the part of the author to honor that unspoken pledge with his readers to "get the whole story out there" in manageable form. Just when things get interesting ... he ends it.

Feast had too much action. Dance not enough. Put them together and I suspect they balance out - if you could "sell" the public on a 2000 page or so book.

7 volumes should be enough to tell the story. But at the rate plot development is going, it seems like at least 12 volumes will be needed, unless things get totally rushed at the end.

I wouldn't care if Martin worked with a good writing panel (call 'em ghosts if you want) since he is a wonderful story teller (but perhaps not a wonderful writer). Then the "database" of character insights, backstory history, could be woven into a more compact, more disciplined book. Or books.

Things I didn't like about Dance:

Daenerys, the second best character in the series, seems incapable of being tough enough to rule, and ditzes around, then makes a horrible choice to avoid a war that is inevitable anyway. The "real" Dany only comes through in her last chapter....

We didn't get enough of Tyrion at his best, showing off what a wonderfully smart administrator and keen politician he is.

Jon Snow is acting like he is 20 years more experienced than he is, but makes some incredibly stupid choices at the end.

Arya, a really interesting character in the previous books, has chapters that seem "tossed off." What was arcane and mysterious, a "girl's best adventure" feel, that somehow seems mundane on this re-visit.

This book is about a 3, Feast was about a 2, the series is better than a 5. In this case the sum is much greater than its parts, but I no longer have hopes that Martin will ever finish it. Clearly he has other projects (not only HBO) and at the same time he seems unwilling to take guidance from his editors and just get the book out there.

On the other hand if he can get the next book out there in less than 2 years, he will certainly probably win me back. I mean Dickens and Dumas pounded out great pulp fiction, pulp fiction that was at the same time art, and Song of Fire and Ice clearly has that potential as well.
3326778
It ended too soon.  He should have completed his original intention to write the family chronicles through the 1970"s.
3267406
He needs an editor and a proofreader. He's politically biased  and it shows. But hey! he wrote it and finished it. That's somethin', I guess.
4025214
I adored the Abhorsen trilogy and was loathe to finish them, so I bought this. The short stories are okay, the author waxes on quite a bit about when he wrote each one and why, what he was thinking at the time, etc. It came across a bit like someone going through their own attic and pulling out stories that while considered good in high school, are not the best representation of what a writer does now. If I had read this first, I wouldn't have read any more of his work. That would have been truly unfortunate.
3287296
I'd still have rather had Martin more equally distribute the dynamic characters with the, well, LESS-than-dynamic ones if he was going for the "whole story for half the characters" approach.