"A Storm of Swords" by GRRM

Yes, I finally finished "A Storm of Swords." I know it took me awhile. That whole pesky college thing gets in the way sometimes.

Image courtesy of George R.R. Martin's website. 
Review of "A Game of Thrones"--Book One
Review of "A Clash of Kings"--Book Two


The layout of this book is like the two before it, in that it follows the story lines of several main characters introduced to us in the first two books: Jon Snow, Catelyn Stark, Tyrion Lannister, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Bran Stark, Davos Seaworthy, Daenerys Targaryen, Samwell Tarly, and Jaime Lannister. Picking up just before "Clash of Kings" ends, the book resumes the story of the remaining kings fighting for rights to be King of Westeros or, in Robb Stark's case, simply King of the North. Apart from the war, another war is going on in the north at the Wall, where the men of the Night's Watch prepare to fight off a force of wildlings approaching the Seven Kingdoms, but find themselves facing a darker, more dangerous threat that only comes out at night. Daenerys Targaryen, on the other side of the world, continues to struggle as her dragons grow and she searches for a fleet and an army that will help her take back her home land and the iron throne.


I enjoyed this book a lot more than "Clash of Kings"--there was a lot more forward momentum--which, if you haven't read my other reviews, I'm rather fond of. Jon's story line in particular gets a lot more interesting--in the past I'd been extremely bored with it. Instead, I spent my time dreading a Samwell chapter. Samwell, though an interesting character, whines a little too much for my taste. As usual, there was too little Daenerys for me, but my version of there being enough Daenerys would be giving her a novel of her own, which isn't too likely.

There were some great surprises in this book, as well as some not so great surprises. What I mean by that is--you could see some of them coming. For example [Spoilers--Highlight to read]--Jon Snow becoming Commander of the Night's Watch--if you didn't know in Book 1 when Jon was named Commander Mormont's personal steward that Jon wouldn't eventually become Commander himself, then I may secretly be thinking less of you, so don't tell me! We all knew it was coming, so I wish there hadn't been so much wishy-washy with Jon--time spent thinking about whether or not he wanted to stay on the Wall or go with Stannis and become a lord. [End Spoilers]. There were some really great weddings, some really awful weddings--it was a book very full of weddings. And none of them particularly happy occasions, though in some cases amusing and full of divine justice (you'll know what I'm talking about when I get there).

One of my disappointments/happy moments is that GRRM basically dropped the storyline of the Greyjoys--one of the families fighting to be King in the North. In many ways I didn't mind--Theon Greyjoy is a bit of shithead and I didn't think much of the rest of his family either--but GRRM went from writing chapters from Theon's point of view to basically ignoring the storyline altogether. It was mentioned here and there, but otherwise totally put on the back burner for 1000 pages. And from what I saw of Balon Greyjoy and his kin, they don't seem like patient people--I was surprised they weren't making more mischief for the Starks.

Overall: 5/5. I think this was my favorite of the books so far. It was unfortunate that I had to get through it so slowly--at any other time, I would have devoured it like a hungry, hungry hippo. The pacing is really fantastic, compared to "Clash of Kings," which I found rather slow at times. The majority of the chapters moved the story forward in an exciting way, there was quite a bit of character development for Jaime, Cersei and Tyrion Lannister that I really enjoyed and the development of characters overall was fantastic (some other examples being Littlefinger, Lysa, Sansa, and *barf* Samwell). I definitely recommend this book. Reading the last book makes reading this one absolutely worthwhile.

Happy readings!
AJ