A Dance with Dragons is the fifth installment in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire.

The story returns to the war-torn world of the Seven Kingdoms and the lives of a vast gallery of characters, some of whom have not been seen since the publication of A Storm of Swords in 2000. Tyrion Lannister, the notorious “imp,” takes ship for the lands beyond the Kingdoms in the aftermath of an astonishing act of paricide. Jon Snow, the bastard son of Lord Eddard Stark, slowly adapts to his new role as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, the “swords in the darkness” who man the Wall that guards the northern reaches of the realm. Brandon Stark, the crippled heir to Winterfell, travels beyond that wall in search of the three-eyed crow that haunts his dreams. Davos, the “Onion Knight” and former smuggler, continues—at great personal cost—to devote his life to the needs and ambition of Stannis Baratheon, one of many contenders for the Iron Throne. And Daenerys Targaryen, the last living descendent of the deposed King Aerys, bides her time in the distant city of Meereen, surrounded by a host of enemies and accompanied by three very young—and very lethal—dragons.