A Dance with Dragons is the fifth novel of seven planned in the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire by American author George R. R. Martin.

Stannis executes Mance Rayder, the leader of the wildlings, for refusing to submit to him, and marches his army south to seek support in his bid for the throne.

Jon Snow, the newly elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, the order that defends the Wall, prepares the defense against the Others, hostile inhuman creatures from the far north.

Meanwhile, Jon's paraplegic half-brother Bran Stark, traveling north of the Wall, is led to the last surviving Children of the Forest, the non-human natives of Westeros.

Having killed his father Tywin, the Hand of the King, the dwarf Tyrion Lannister is smuggled out of Westeros to the city of Pentos by the spymaster Varys, where he is sheltered by the merchant Illyrio Mopatis.

Tyrion is sent south with a party ostensibly to aid the exiled princess Daenerys Targaryen, who controls the only living dragons, in claiming the Iron Throne.

Despite her sexual relationship with the mercenary Daario Naharis, Daenerys marries the Meereenese nobleman Hizdahr zo Loraq to secure an alliance to appease the Sons of the Harpy.

Quentyn Martell, the son of the Prince of Dorne in southern Westeros, arrives in Meereen in hopes of renewing the alliance between Daenerys's family and his, but he is unable to maintain her attention.

They escape from the Yunkish army besieging Meereen and join the Second Sons mercenary group, with Tyrion intending to secure their support for Daenerys.

Under Jon Snow's advice, Stannis wins the support of northern mountain clans by pledging to recapture Winterfell and fighting off the Ironborn.

With their support, Stannis captures Asha Greyjoy, Victarion's niece, and marches his forces toward Winterfell to attack the Boltons, but his advance is halted by heavy snowstorms.

Jaime Lannister, the uncle (and, secretly, father) of the young king Tommen Baratheon, negotiates the surrender of the last of the late Robb Stark's allies, nominally putting an end to the Stark–Lannister war in the Riverlands.

However, Varys reappears and murders both Kevan and Pycelle, revealing that he has been plotting for years for the Lannisters to destroy themselves so that Aegon Targaryen can take the throne, having been raised to be an ideal ruler.

Approximately one-third of the published A Dance with Dragons consists of material that had been written for the pre-split A Feast for Crows, although much of this has been rewritten by Martin.

[9] In early 2010, Martin noted that his intent for A Dance with Dragons was for the first 800 manuscript pages to cover the alternate characters in the same time span as A Feast for Crows, and that "Everything that follows is post-Feast, so that's where some of the cast from the last book start popping up again.

[10] Martin supplied a note at the end of A Feast for Crows explaining the reason for the split and promising that A Dance with Dragons would follow with the missing POV characters 'next year'.

"[16] On October 6, 2009, Martin said that his working manuscript for A Dance with Dragons had just exceeded 1,100 pages of completed chapters, plus "considerably more in partials, fragments, and roughs.

[22] By April 27, 2011, A Dance with Dragons was completed[23][24] save for incorporating requested changes made by his book editor and her staff copy-editors, suggested final draft notes from trusted friends and a line-by-line reread done to tighten and eliminate any unnecessary "fat" remaining in the manuscript.

Some critics mentioned that the narrative was a bit slow in the middle and the hundreds of characters were difficult to keep up with, but the vast majority said that it was an extremely entertaining read and the product of a genius storyteller".

[33] In September/October 2011 issue of Bookmarks, the book received a (4.5 out of 5) based on critic reviews with the summary saying, "When the smoke clears, A Song of Ice and Fire will be spoken about--and deservedly so--alongside J. R. R. Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, and may well surpass both".

The aspects of Martin's work that have endeared him to fans are abundant here – rich world building, narrative twists and turns, and gritty depictions of the human struggle for power.

Characters who were sorely missed in Feast – Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister, and Jon Snow – make up more than a third of the novel, and Martin is wise enough to give us at least a chapter from (almost) everyone else.

Weaknesses that have plagued Martin's previous books are also present: too much repetition, unexceptional prose, and characters who use the same idioms (and have sex in exactly the same manner) no matter their ethnicity, social class, or continent.

It does feel like I'm reading a bunch of separate stories within the same setting–the chapters are told through the eyes of various characters–but that doesn't really bother me as I love the setting and like to see it through various points of view.

Martin also manages to put in a few twists, but ends the book much like he did the previous one with cliffhangers instead of wrapping things up a little better so the next long wait won't hurt so much.

"[36] David Orr of The New York Times said, "A Dance With Dragons comes in at roughly 9,574,622,012 pages, and smart money says the final two books in the series will make this one look like 'The Old Man and the Sea'.

Similarly, when your novel's terrain stretches across hundreds of miles and your world lacks jet propulsion, as an author you face some basic problems of transportation that can result in conveyance via Rube Goldberg," but also wrote that "Still, 'A Dance With Dragons' is relentlessly entertaining.

In some chapters you suddenly find yourself in a strange land with a character you have little attachment to, wondering where this thread is going, as if you had stayed too long at a party after the friends you came with have left.

[38] The Washington Post's Bill Sheehan said, "Filled with vividly rendered set pieces, unexpected turnings, assorted cliffhangers and moments of appalling cruelty, A Dance With Dragons is epic fantasy as it should be written: passionate, compelling, convincingly detailed and thoroughly imagined.

Despite a number of overtly fantastic elements (dragons, seers, shape shifters and sorcerers), the book—and the series as a whole—feels grounded in the brutal reality of medieval times and has more in common with the Wars of the Roses than it does with The Lord of the Rings.