A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

A Clash of Kings is the second book in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. You may remember that I raved about the first book of the series: A Game of Thrones. This book was equally well written and the characters still intrigue the reader. However, I found that outside of progressing characters through their story lines, the plot was a little lacking.

As I've pointed out before, I'm not a fan of shifting viewpoints. I was not overly offended by the shifting viewpoints in the previous book, but in this book, it got under my skin. We lost a viewpoint from the previous book, so Martin felt he needed to add another viewpoint to the story - that of Theon Greyjoy. Theon's viewpoint appears to be unneeded, but we'll see what happens in Book 3. He could factor in quite considerably.

I also have a hard time reading chapters about Danaerys Targaryen. Through two books her viewpoint has been present, but her story lies so far removed from the other viewpoints that I struggle with understanding the value of her story. I can tell that eventually she'll have a larger part to play in the main plot, but I'm getting impatient as I've read 1800 pages of this saga and she hasn't.

Jon Snow's story, however, progressed well and culminated to an excellent climax. I am still anxious to start the third book (mostly to find out what happens to Jon Snow and Arya Stark), but I really hope that Martin starts to pull everything together. I felt that this particular book was 1000 pages of bridgework between major occurrences. The feud between the Baratheon brothers just didn't interest me as much because they were minor characters in the previous book.

This book gets an 8 (out of 10) on the HRputer book rating scale, falling a little behind Book 1 (which scored a perfect 10).

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

"When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die."

Even though George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones is 800 pages long, it is easily the best book that I've read in the past year. Even though I haven't read too many great books in the last year, that list does include: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Murder on the Orient Express and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agathe Christie, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.

Martin's style (constantly shifting viewpoints between characters) helps to create believable, fallible characters. I usually don't like when the viewpoint shifts so much, but Martin uses it in such a masterful way that I didn't mind. Specifically, since there is no "central" character, their is no contract with the reader that the main character will succeed/escape in the end. In other words, anything can happen to any character at any time.

One of the most annoying things to Martin's readers is that the series isn't complete. I'm itching to get started on A Clash of Kings, which is the sequel, but I'm apprehensive. Martin has completed 4 of the 7 books that he intends for the series, but the last one, A Feast for Crows (Book 4), was published in 2005. Book 5 is being worked on, but has been 5 years in the making so far.

What's taking up his time? Could be the HBO series that is based on A Game of Thrones that is being cast and written, due to air in 2011, starring Sean Bean (who played Boromir in Peter Jackson's movie of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring.

I have decided to take it slow, to hopefully give Martin a chance to complete his fifth book, but I'm sure my patience won't last too long. If you like Fantasy/SciFi, you have to read this book. Hell, if you like good books, you should read this book.