A Clash of Kings (1998)

What a fantastic book! George R.R. Martin is in my opinion the best fantasy author of our time! These books take very long to read, but it is absolutely worth it. I even liked the second book more that the first one, although I did not think that was possible! A must-read for fans of the show and the whole fantasy genre! ( )

The aftermath of the 1st book leads into a rivalry between the 5 who claim the throne. A great read with lots of surprises... the whole Daenarys part is kind of a back story again... not much going on there... ( )

Good. ( )

The second book in the Game of Thrones A Song of Ice and Fire series. I really enjoyed this first book and for about 250 pages I was worried that this was going to be a disappointment. It felt quite plodding and I just couldn't get into it for some reason. I initially thought that perhaps then sheer size of it was putting me off (900 pages) but in hindsight I think it was just the set up to bigger events that I found a bit slow. At the end of the book I felt satisfied with what I had read but I have to admit that I don't think I would feel that was if I hadn't watched the TV series. The reason for this is the sheer amount of characters. I just don't think my brain would be able to keep track of who is who without the previous mental image I have of some of them from the TV show. All in all a good book and I look forward to reading #3 in the coming months. ( )

My official rating would be a 3.25 or 3.5. There was a lot going on in life while I was reading this book so it took me a bit longer to read than I would have liked and due to all the things happening (not all of them good)I think my reading experience wasn't as good as it could have been. Had my reading experience been better, I think I might have liked A Clash of Kings better.

First of all, I still appreciate the writing style of George R.R. Martin. It is very dense and so at times it takes a lot for me to get through it, especially when there is a lot of crap going on in real life that makes focusing difficult, but I like the many dimensions of the text. I enjoyed reading the story through multiple characters points of view, but there were some characters that were a new point of view in A Clash of Kings compared to the first book (A Game of Thrones). Some of these new characters took me a little while to remember who they were, what side they were on, and why that character might have been significant. Davos was a character's POV that I didn't really understand or connect with in any way. I definitely understood why George R.R. Martin felt the need for there to be a character telling his story and POV (due to war time happenings later in the book), but it always took me a little while to remember who he was, etc. when coming across a chapter with his name at the top. Have to say that I still dislike reading through Sansa's POV (even though I felt I understood her a little better and felt more sympathy towards her in this book compared to the first) and I absolutely HATE Theon Greyjoy! Both reading through his character and him as a person. He is low life scum ball who deserves all that happens to him. (Mini-rant over.)

Overall, I love the scenes Martin creates for his readers, even though there were a few times that I found myself losing focus on the descriptions when times were difficult to focus. I found myself telling myself that it was okay that I didn't exactly follow a specific paragraph or had to reread a sentence or two, because it was all description and even though it was rich and wonderful, it wasn't necessarily moving the story forward. I think knowing that helped me not feel as bad about having my attention elsewhere at times. But even though it helped me feel better when I had a hard time focusing, it still obviously affected the rating that I gave the book overall.

I've heard the Martin likes to kill off characters that you start to feel connected to and I'm so glad that no one died that I felt a huge connection to throughout this book. Obviously there was a lot of death with several large battle scenes, but everyone I was rooting for made it through to the end of this book.

I will definitely be continuing on with the next book, but just like I stated in my review of A Game of Thrones, I will be waiting for a little while before starting to read the next book because the writing is so dense (lets be honest I need a break from it) and I need to catch up and watch season two now...

Happy Reading! ( )