I finished reading A Clash of Kings (the second Song of Ice and Fire book, the sequel to A Game of Thrones) this morning, and I decided I'd do my review now, while I'm still thinking about it. This review will have spoilers for the first book, and some mild ones for this book, though I'll do my best to keep it to a minimum. Consider yourself warned.
Summary
In this thrilling sequel to A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin has created a work of unsurpassed vision, power, and imagination. A Clash of Kings transports us to a world of revelry and revenge, wizardry and warfare unlike any we have ever experienced.
A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. And from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns. Six factions struggle for control of a divided land and the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, preparing to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war. It is a tale in which brother plots against brother and the dead rise to walk in the night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside. Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, victory may go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel . . . and the coldest hearts. For when kings clash, the whole land trembles.
My Review
Since I already reviewed the first book in this series, I'm not going to talk much about his writing style, or how exactly I liked the way he developed the characters or plot. Basically, I really love these books. If you want more, go read my review of the first book, in which I talk about these things a lot more.
My feelings about the various characters changed a LOT while reading this book.This is partly because you see different amounts of different characters, but also because the characters themselves have changed. Tyrion Lannister was a character I enjoyed, but didn't really like at the end of the first book, but is now one of my favorites. Sansa Stark I actually disliked in Book 1, but now I really like her. She narrated chapters in this book (did she in book 1? I can't remember), and she has a pretty terrible time of it. I felt a lot of empathy for her in addition to sympathy, which helped. She, at this point in the series, is the character I can best relate to (not that I can relate to everything she's dealt with, but certainly more that someone like Daenerys), and I always tend to like characters I can relate to. Some other characters like Theon Greyjoy, who I didn't have strong feelings about before, I now strongly dislike.
This book really ramped up the fantasy. There was actual magic happening, which definitely changed thing up. There are also dragons now, though they weren't much more than a trading commodity in this book. Some parts of the book, particularly anything involving Daenerys and Jon, seemed to really be setting up something else that never happened. I assume this will come to something in an upcoming book. The most confusing part of the book to me was Davos, the Onion Knight, who was narrating some chapters. I never really understood who he was (other than that he worked for Stannis Baratheon), or if he is actually important or not.
George R. R. Martin definitely has lived up to his reputation for killing characters, though some things happened at the end of this book that made me question a lot of the other things I had read. This book also really ended on some major cliffhangers. Almost every character's final chapter ended dramatically, and wasn't properly resolved. I can't wait to start A Storm of Swords!
Who Should Read This Book
I'm going to say basically what I said last time. If you read and enjoyed the first book in the series, read this one. These books are amazing works of fantasy, and I highly recommend them. However, these are certainly not kids or YA books, and have plenty of adult content in them that you should be aware of.
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