George R. R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

Hi

This review is about the second part in the A Song of Ice and Fire series; A Clash of Kings.
It won the Locus Award and was nominated for the Nebula Award.
The copy I read has 873 pages.
You can find my review on the first part here.

I like the different point-of-views in the story. It’s a big world with a lot happening and because of these multiple POV’s we get to see so much more of it.
But I hated that every time the POV changed to someone else, and then changed back to the first person a certain amount of time had gone by. We missed so much because of that.
And this ties in with the biggest problem I have with this novel. We miss all the action!
A letter arrives to tell us of a battle, there’s talk about a battle that happened, a servant tells us someone disappears. No idea how Robb won his battles because we see nothing of him in this novel. Where the hell does Tywin come from in the end? Oh, we don’t know because we don’t read about him. Stupid Sansa sleeps during the battle.
Well I want to read about the battles. I want to read how they escaped.
The small bit of action we get is over before we know it happens. Renly’s death takes only a couple of sentences for instance.

It’s terribly boring. Very little action, endless talking, food, dress and more talking, going somewhere, hanging out somewhere and even more talking.

We read about too many characters and names we don’t care about and who add nothing whatsoever to the story. Reading ten names in a row serves no-one.

It’s tiresome and tedious in the sense that everything going bad for everyone is tiresome. Not one plotline has some good in it. ‘Everyone always loses’ is tiresome and very, very predictable.

I still stand by my review of A Game of Thrones, so I won’t repeat the problems I wrote about it that review even though they’re here as well.

Happy reading.

Helena