A Clash of Kings

Well, this was disappointing. When I finally started reading Game of Thrones, I realized that everything that everyone had ever said about it was correct. While it did take some time to set up, the world building was fantastic, the characters were awesome and great to read about, and the situations were excellently made so that we got to see what would happen to these characters when they were put into these unique situations. It may have been almost 800 pages long, but I never felt board reading it, and I was excited for more.

This 2nd book takes all of that and manages to slow it down to the point that I asked myself why I was reading this. The major problem with this book is the plot and the pacing. With the last book, we did not get very many action scenes, so with a book title like Clash of Kings, I was hoping it would be full of battles being waged, limbs being hacked off, and people dying. Instead, with a few exceptions, many of the battles of this book happen off page, and are ones that we only hear about. This means we are left with many characters who are left scheming for power and other political problems. This is okay, but it took up way too much of the book for it to be interesting.

This leads me to the character that suffers the most in this book: Daenerys. In the first book, it was very interesting to explore the culture of the Dothraki, and watch her become a leader in the first portion of this book, but soon her part degrades into her just standing around and trying to get some ships to sail and take back Westeros. We are told that her dragons are too small to be of any value or use to her, and her parts were so dull that I just skimmed through them with no real consequence to the plot.

Which character did I like the most? This will be ironic, but Tyrion Lannister. I say Tyrion, because, for all the gripe I gave about the politics that occur, and that he is the one that does most of them in this book, I cannot help but love his wit and measure, which comes out at its best when he is with Cerci. It is nice at first...but, as it seems to be with everything with this book, even that gets old, and I'm left wondering why I have to watch him scheme on how to save the city for the sixth time, when only four times will do. Still, I loved what he did in the final part of the book. I thought it was a great way for us to see him grow as a character, even if I want to see King Joffrey off the throne.

In the end, this book just had too little actions for something with such a lofty title. I thought that Martians world building was good, and I liked that I could follow the characters well enough without getting lost or confused, but MAN this book got dull at times. Still for all the problems, it was just...fine. I didn't love this book, but I didn't hate it either. Therefore, I give it a three out of five.