2.7 stars.
The last 30 pages were better and a great "teaser". But it is a pity to see so much building up to events while knowing that we might never see those unfold properly in printed form.

Also it is a pity that this book was, while building up to things, meandering about so slowly. Partly, I felt reminded of "Tristram Shandy" who feels the need to talk about his father winding up clocks before bedding his mother to beget him to start to tell his life's story and then digresses to his uncle's love life - and in the end never even gets to being born. Only I felt it wasn't intentional here.

Another "problem" of mine is that I suffered a Cersei-overdose who might have been a perfectly grand villain if only she had been allowed more intellectual capacities. As is the case here, the reader knows that all her grand schemes will only get her into more trouble long before she does.

There is the Maid of Tarth who could have saved the "honour" of her sex - but then again, she never is allowed to fully emancipate herself from "male help". Even she needs continuous saving and can't seem to get over her lack of feminine graces.

My hopes rest on the last part (ever to be published as a book, I suppose) as a source of saving graces after two weak volumes.