It took me forever to consume this, in terms of my usual reading speed!

I think the problem was that the story is often lost in favour of expanding the world view. Thus, character chapters skip over half a dozen plot points, perhaps, and then you have 10 pages of (damn good, but still) scene setting.

As ever, I found my enthusiasm from the end of the last book disappointed by a slow creep through the story, only to be gripped nearer the end. Although I wasn’t entirely sure about Martin’s tendancy to bring in new characters – the Kraken’s daughter, etc – to tell other bits of the wider story, when so much of the current story wasn’t any nearer conclusion.

Also, several characters are ‘lost’ – and it wasn’t until the end that I read the author’s explanation that this is in fact one half of a book, and he’s chosen to tell all of some character’s stories (and by ‘all’ I mean nothing of the sort!) rather than half and half. Roll on A Dance of Dragons!!