Tagged: daenerys

A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin

A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

In the aftermath of a colossal battle, the future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance — beset by newly emerging threats from every direction. In the east, Daenerys Targaryen, the last scion of House Targaryen, rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But Daenerys has thousands of enemies, and many have set out to find her. As they gather, one young man embarks upon his own quest for the queen, with an entirely different goal in mind.

Fleeing from Westeros with a price on his head, Tyrion Lannister, too, is making his way to Daenerys. But his newest allies in this quest are not the rag-tag band they seem, and at their heart lies one who could undo Daenerys’s claim to Westeros forever.

Meanwhile, to the north lies the mammoth Wall of ice and stone — a structure only as strong as those guarding it. There, Jon Snow, 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, will face his greatest challenge. For he has powerful foes not only within the Watch but also beyond, in the land of the creatures of ice.

From all corners, bitter conflicts reignite, intimate betrayals are perpetrated, and a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves, will face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Some will fail, others will grow in the strength of darkness. But in a time of rising restlessness, the tides of destiny and politics will lead inevitably to the greatest dance of all.

After loving the first four books, I’ll admit that I really wanted to love A Dance with Dragons.  I really, really tried.  But it was such slow-going.  It took me over a month to finish this book which should be a warning sign right there.

The problem, I think, at this point in the series is a little something called character bloat.  There are too many characters.  There are so many different houses and players entering into the war for Westeros that it’s simply become ridiculous.  I can hardly keep track of them all and I’m not bragging when I say I have a good memory when it comes to books.  Some points of view could have been cut from the book entirely.  Did Quentyn Martell really have to have his say?  Arya’s story barely went anywhere.

If it was just a slow plot I could handle it but it feels like the characters are going in totally different directions.  Daenerys is an indecisive, idealistic moron compared to the strong, sure young woman she was in previous books.  Jon Snow keeps swinging between rigidly sticking to his oath as a man of the Night’s Watch and totally violating it by siding with a king.  Tyrion…well I don’t know what to think of him anymore.  It’s okay that characters change and explore themselves.  That’s what makes a story good!  But it’s not okay that they randomly go in a whole different direction with pretty much zero explanation.

Despite all this, when I actually sat down to read A Dance with Dragons I didn’t mind it all that much.  Some parts were pretty darn good.  Although George R. R. Martin lost some of the things that made his series great in the beginning (his ability to kill off main characters ruthlessly, for one) he still has that amazing world-building.  We learn so much about Westeros and the rest of Martin’s world that it almost makes up for everything else.  The history of all Seven Kingdoms and the impact on people and other places was fascinating.  I loved learning more about the world’s history!  It added more depth to Martin’s world.

Yes, I will read The Winds of Winter when it finally does get published.  Will I be looking forward to it as much as I did this book?  Probably not.  I’m just hoping that the next book will be better and that we’ll go back to that magical spark George R. R. Martin had in A Game of Thrones.

I give this book 3/5 stars.

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A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin(Cover picture courtesy of Barnes and Noble.)

Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage, as alliances are made and broken.  Joffrey sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the Seven Kingdoms.  His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, victim of the sorceress who holds him in her thrall.  Young Robb still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun.  Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons left in the world.  And as opposing forces maneuver for the final showdown, an army of barbaric wildlings arrives from the outermost limits of civilization, accompanied by a horde of mythical Others—a supernatural army of the living dead whose animated corpses are unstoppable.  As the future of the land hangs in the balance, no one will rest until the Seven Kingdoms have exploded in a veritable storm of swords….

A Song of Ice and Fire series just gets better and better as I go along.  Not only was the plot full of unexpected twists this time around, but the characters took some pretty surprising turns.  Characters who were once insignificant now play much more interesting roles and betrayals are around every corner.  Plenty of the betrayals blindsided me and some of the changes in characters’ personalities made sense, but were definitely unexpected.

Part of the reason why I liked A Storm of Swords so much is that George R. R. Martin did so much more world development.  We got to see things from the perspective of wildlings, but also other peoples across the Narrow Sea as well as in the Free Cities.  Not only that, but we got to learn more about the history of Westeros and the surrounding countries in a more natural way rather than having all of the backstory dumped on us.  Martin’s world isn’t the typical fantasy world I thought it was in the first book, in part because Martin actually understands politics.  It’s not a simple good versus evil fight and the characters are completely good or completely evil; there’s ambiguity all throughout the novel.

And of course, where would this series be without its awesome characters?  Daenerys Targaryen, Sansa Stark, Tyrion Lannister and Jon Snow all get pretty good page time like in A Clash of Kings, but characters like Jaime Lannister and Samwell Tarly also get their say.  I admit that I like some characters a lot more than others and sometimes the points of view of my least favourite characters were annoying, but that’s just personal preference.  Pretty much all of the points of view Martin uses are necessary to move the story along.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but when of my favourite things about George R. R. Martin is that he’s not afraid to kill off important characters.  Some authors hesitate about killing off their personal favourites or even fan favourites, but not him!  He actually makes his characters suffer to the point where you wonder if it’s too much.  Still, it makes for an excellent novel filled with all kinds of drama set against a brilliant fantasy world.  It’s a thousand pages of pure awesome, to put it bluntly.  Seriously, if you haven’t read this series yet, you should start.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

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A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin(Cover picture courtesy of Ciska’s Book Chest.)

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 Kingsdoms, 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.

Since we got over all of the character introductions in the first book, A Clash of Kings really starts to heat up.  We see Tyrion’s triumphs, Sansa’s struggles, Jon wrestling with decisions involving family and honour and so much more.  Not only do we get to see these characters, we also continue on Arya’s and Daenerys’ points of view and have the added POV of Davos, the ‘Onion Knight’.  This is all very fascinating, but I’m getting the impression that the series could suffer from extreme character bloat in the next few books.  As things heat up in all threads of the plot, I have a feeling it may be hard to keep all of the characters’ stories straight because Martin seems to be adding more and more all of the time.

However, A Clash of Kings generally manages to stay on topic and not get too sidetracked.  We see characters like Sansa finally mature and unlikely heroes like Tyrion and Daenerys triumph in their own ways.  Part of what has impressed me so much about A Song of Ice and Fire is the characters and how much time is devoted to their development.  They are so much more complicated than their archetypal descriptions would suggest and that makes A Clash of Kings a fascinating read.  Characters can make or break a story for me, so I’m thankful for Martin’s attention to detail.

For an epic fantasy novel, A Clash of Kings is quite fast-paced.  There is a bit of a slouch in the middle of the story, but compared to a lot of epic fantasy out there, the plot still moves forward.  Alliances are made and broken, murders are planned and carried out and treason is all around.  You never really know what’s going to happen next and that’s really what made this second book so exciting, even more so than the first.

The further development of the fantasy world is satisfying as well.  We start to learn about places other than Westeros, in part because of Daenerys’ travels.  We also learn more about the other powerful empires in Martin’s world as well as the fact that there are free, trade-based cities within this world of kings and tyrants.  This is not just your typical epic fantasy with kings and queens; George R. R. Martin has obviously studied history and knows that nothing is ever that simple.  In some places, there are republics and in others there are oligarchies and in still others (Westeros) there are the traditional monarchies.  The politics within all of these countries are more nuanced than I’ve come to expect, so I really do appreciate Martin’s world-building.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

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