Werthead, on 03 June 2011 - 07:17 PM, said:
The 'revived characters' thing probably refers to a certain POV who's returning after a long absence and also to Davos, who was reported dead in AFFC (since we are rewinding to a point before his reported death, and of course reports of his death may be greatly exaggerated), rather than literal resurrections. More character resurrections would be lame at this point (undead wights and UnGregorstein excepted, the latter only if he smashes through the castle roaring, "GREGOR SMASH!").
I was expecting a slow-burning book putting a lot of pieces on the board and moving them into position for the Meereense Knot, the large-scale climax of the book. If that's the case, fair enough (that's also a reasonable description of ACoK and more than a few of SE's books). My ruler for success will be if Dany is still moping around in Meereen at the end of the book. If she is, that would be bad. If she's on her way back to Westeros, that's mission accomplished (at least as far as getting the books done in seven volumes is concerned).
Ok. I actually liked Davos. I wonder if revived refers to Brienne or Loras (was he dead or injured?) The POV you mention, I guess is Theon which is ok. I didn't enjoy him in the book too much, but he comes more to life in the HBO series. Gregor SMASH would be kind of cool -- for a while. Maybe a bit out of character for the series, but ok.
And yes, Dany has to get going in this book.
I just hope Tyrion kidnapped isn't pages and pages of sideplot with the only purpose to delay his arrival at Dany's.