I've read quite a bit of negativity towards both
A Feast For Crows and
A Dance With Dragons, which I'm actually partly surprised about. Firstly, I really enjoyed both books. I recently read them both back-to-back, knowing that they are partially overlapped (until the latter part of
A Dance With Dragons). I got a real sense of the "Calm Before the Storm", and I think that's what George R.R. Martin was going for. With
A Game of Thrones, he put the story in motion basically. With certain character deaths, and particular events shaped the rest of the entire
A Song of Ice and Fire series. Then with both
A Clash of Kings and
A Storm of Swords we were given what I believe was "chaos". There were betrayals, deaths, and more terror around every corner. So, when you reach both
A Feast For Crows and
A Dance With Dragons you're left at a point that is now a bridge of sorts, between the chaos of the second and third book, and what I imagine will be full-scale anarchy in the final two books,
The Winds of Winter and
A Dream of Spring. And secondly, I think a lot of the negativity is actually towards the length of time George R.R. Martin takes to write the books. Over the course of six years we've had two books that was as I described as the "Calm Before the Storm", and we must wait now until the sixth book has been written. And I understand where a lot of readers can get a bit disgruntled with that, but I also think that it builds even more of an anticipation - we're left in a bit of a limbo now until
The Winds of Winter, and not only where the books giving me a sense of the "Calm Before the Storm" but this wait for the next book is like the readers going through the same experience.
So...basically, I really enjoyed it!