Slowly, oh so slowly

[catalyst2]

I've read another 223 pages of A Dance with Dragons and it is slowly getting better. As much as I like both characters, the Daenerys and Tyrion chapters are boooooooooooooooooooooooooooring! When we go back to the North, those chapters get interesting. I think the addition of the thread that goes with Tyrion's story (he said, very clumsily trying to avoid an enormous spoiler there!) is an error - it just seems (at this point, 489 pages in) an unnecessary, almost deus ex machina, move.