Storm of Swords - George R R Martin

Steel and Snow
Wow, this was long and boring. The only real things of significance were Jaime's growing relationship with Brienne, and the sudden change of wind with Lord Mormont's command. I'm sure these could have been shoe-horned into the second part of this book, and the excess dullage trimmed. Too much aimless wandering; I know this is the fall-out from a war that spread over a whole country, but if Mr Martin can knock a character out to avoid describing a battle, he could have done the same for the aimless wandering.

This is the weakness in this series, that rather than develop existing characters, Mr Martin would rather sideline them and introduce others. His love of history books shows in the endless list of names and ranks of people present in each scene.

Blood and Gold
(Spoilers ahead)

Wow, this was the first time this series has been as good as Game of Thrones. The conniving is not nearly as complex and interesting as it is in the first book, but it's where the characters and their differences really come to a head.

Throughout Steel and Snow I had an image of a man waking up every morning and trudging through another two thousand words with his coffee in hand. Through Blood and Gold I didn't imagine the writer once. The only time I noticed was when something jarring appeared in the middle of an intensive sequence, like, 'The stub of his ear was gone. That seemed to make him angry.' Of course it made him angry. But it shows Mr Martin having fun writing this.

Personally, I think this is the most entertaining of the books since GoT because Mr Martin seems to have had a realization that I've had from the very beginning: Catelyn's endearing passion and general fly-on-the-wall approach to family and politics is a frustrating and boring combination (don't get me wrong, I loved her character, but she was too frustrating), and Rob's chivalry and righteousness is not nearly as charming as it was with his father (on top of which his sudden marriage was fairly routine and tedious, an issue they have tried to deal with in the TV series). Let's kill them off!

On the other hand, the only character who's inaction was more frustrating than Catelyn's, starts to develop character, and has the most poignant moment in the entire series so far. I almost cried when she stepped out into the snow in the Eyrie and had to learn to play by herself for the first time in her life.

In other news, Tyrion's demonstrated his strengths when allowed play on the quarterdeck of politics, it's been time for him to fall and demonstrate his strengths when stuck at the bottom of the barrell. There was something about Oberyn's fight with the Mountain which made Oberyn's fall predictable; perhaps it was because Tyrion had already won against one judgement in a battle for honor. It would have been more surprising if he had won this way a second time. But Mr Martin seems to only play one move ahead of the reader. It's the wildcards like Arya's companionship with the Hound that makes this series so interesting.

I mourn for Joffrey, and after Catelyn's return, I almost hope that Joffrey does too. Out of all the Lannister's I find him compelling reading since he is so completely insane, and it's only in this book that his motivations for being so start to become clear. It would have been fascinating to watch him grow older and more insane.

Instead, we have Daenerys slow boiling. Give her a few more books and she'll be boiling over.

Time to move onto some other books before Feast for Crows. My colleague read the entire 6 books of Ice and Fire back to back. I think I would develop emotional problems if I did that.