Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Book Review #559 - A Storm of Swords, Part Two: Blood and Gold (A Song of Ice and Fire #3.2) by George R.R. Martin

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George R.R. Martin's superb and highly acclaimed epic fantasy A 

Song of Ice and Fire continues with the third in the series A Storm 

of Swords. There is passion here, and misery and charm, grandeur

and squalor, tragedy, nobility and courage. Unabridged and split

into two parts. The Seven Kingdoms are divided by revolt and 

blood feud, and winter approaches like an angry beast. Beyond the

Northern borders, wildlings leave their villages to gather in the ice 

and stone wasteland of the Frostfangs. From there, the renegade 

Brother Mance Rayder will lead them South towards the Wall.




The men of the Night's Watch are ready for the coming of a great

 cold and the walking corpses that travel with it. But now they face

 a horde of wildlings twenty-thousand strong - hungry savage

 people steeped in the dark magic of the haunted wilderness - 

poised to invade the Kingdom of the North where Robb Stark 

wears his new-forged crown. But Robb's defences are ranged

 against attack from the South, the land of House Stark's enemies

 the Lannisters. His sisters are trapped there, dead or likely yet to 

die, at the whim of the Lannister boy-king Joffrey or his depraved 

mother Cersei, regent of the Iron Throne. Cersei's ambition is 

unfettered while the dwarf Tyrion Lannister fights for his life, a 

victim of treachery. And on the other side of the ocean, the last of 

the Targaryens rears the dragons she hatched from her husband's 

funeral pyre. Daenerys Stormborn will return to the land of her 

birth to avenge the murder of her father, the last Dragon King on

 the Iron Throne.



My Rating: 5/5


I read this book immediately after finishing part one and I would recommend that as the best way as they really compliment each other very well. 


Unlike part one, this book is full of action and death. 


Dany is a character that I have enjoyed so far throughout the series especially due to her dragons but in this book I found her chapters too full of speech and nowhere near enough action. 


The story lines are slowly starting to merge and a feel of the real grand scheme plot is beginning to develop. 


I would have really loved a chapter or two from Cersei's persective especially during the middle portion of the book. 


The more I read of this series the more I can feel myself being swallowed up by the shear magnitude of this world.   


This was by far my favourite book so far in this series and I am already reading the next one. 

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