A CAVIL ON CHRONOLOGY

 It has been a while between books, I know. So a reminder may be in order.
 

The book you hold in your hands is the fifth volume of A Song of Ice and  Fire. The fourth volume was A Feast for Crows. However, this volume  does not follow that one in the traditional sense, so much as run in  tandem with it.
 

Both Dance and Feast take up the story immediately after the events of  the third volume in the series, A Storm of Swords. Whereas Feast focused  on events in and around King’s Landing, on the Iron Islands, and down  in Dorne, Dance takes us north to Castle Black and the Wall (and  beyond), and across the narrow sea to Pentos and Slaver’s Bay, to pick  up the tales of Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, and all  the other characters you did not see in the preceding volume. Rather  than being sequential, the two books are parallel … divided  geographically, rather than chronologically.
 

But only up to a point.
 

A Dance with Dragons is a longer book than A Feast for Crows, and covers  a longer time period. In the latter half of this volume, you will  notice certain of the viewpoint characters from A Feast for Crows  popping up again. And that means just what you think it means: the  narrative has moved past the time frame of Feast, and the two streams  have once again rejoined each other.
 

Next up, The Winds of Winter. Wherein, I hope, everybody will be shivering together once again.…
 

—George R. R. Martin