Book Cover

Keep walking. If I look back I am lost.

Previous A Song of Ice and Fire reviews:

• A Feast for Crows
• A Storm of Swords
• A Clash of Kings
• A Game of Thrones

# Review

This book covers the perspectives not featured in A Feast for Crows. The gears of politics are put in motion as various claimants of the throne prepare for their advance into Westeros. Most of this book overlaps with A Feast for Crows in the chronology, with the later parts of the book continuing the story after A Feast for Crows. The various plots include Tyrion Lannister’s adventures in the Free Cities, Daenerys Targaryen’s difficulties in ruling Meereen, and Jon Snow navigating the complex politics associated with being the 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. Other perspectives include Arya Stark’s training to be one of the Faceless Men and Bran Stark’s training to be a greenseer.

Overall, I found this book to be much more exciting than its predecessor; most of the narrative takes place in exotic locales and Martin’s ability to paint a vivid image of the various environments through the perspective of the characters is one of my favourite aspects of his writing. The individual narratives themselves vary in engagement, some of them (like Bran’s story) is relatively slow and drags on while others (like Tyrion’s story) is pretty exciting. Overall this massive tome feels like a preamble to the main conflict.

# Conclusion

Another behemoth of a book setting up the main conflict.

# Overall rating: 8.3

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