Gautam Surath

Superbly written and well paced, George Martin is obviously a huge talent and I look forward to his next venture as this one was not really my kind of book. Frankly this is a Fantasy soap opera and I never really found it exciting. Also, too many character POV's made it a bit hard to follow. But each POV by itself was very tight and the lines well written. The sense of doom through out the book makes it stand out from most I have read. All in all, I can understand why this has been such a success and I recommend it wholeheartedly to people who enjoy large scale multi character plots full of intrigue. But definitely not for the faint hearted.

The end use of the shroud just takes the cake. I had all but forgotten about the ending of this book and the second reading makes me sit up and notice many things with a fresh perspective. Damn is he good or what!

Starts fairly slowly so don't let it go early. builds nicely into what could have been a special book. But somewhere Michael could not polish and give enough substance to his hero. I still rate it highly cause the ending deserved a much better book. Talion as a concept had a lot of scope and I hope he is able to build upon it in future books

Every once in a while someone takes a shot at the lesser ranking villains in the Batman world. So in a week I have gone through the Riddler (Earth One) and now in this book on the Scarecrow. And scary is the way he comes across in this take by Gregg. We also get a bit of a back story which makes you feel bad for the fellow for a few seconds. But for me the reason it never reaches 4 stars is that there is no plot or investigation holding this together. Its a straight fight between the two and the winner takes all. What might have been. Sigh!

So finally we come to it. A book that falls below the pace and interest level of its predecessors. We wander across the world with different groups but no significant advancement of the overall plot. Repetition is palpable and skip reading becomes a norm. The chess pieces feel they are being moved into position but not fast enough for my liking. The introduction of Cadsuane had bought hope but I guess she must wait for another book to have her time in the limelight. Soe interesting set pieces aside, there is not much you will miss if you give it a skip. Purely for the hardcore WOT fan which is not such a bad thing to be:-). Onwards!