The Book Aptly Titled "A Clash of Kings"

(#2) Read 25 Books

1. Room by Emma Donohue
2. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
4. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin (book one of the series)
    A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin (book two)
5. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

Let me start by saying: if you haven’t read the first book in the series (or seen the first season of the show), and you intend to, you SHOULD NOT read this blog post any further. In fact don't even scroll down. It is impossible for me to talk about the second book without giving anything away from the first. However, I won’t include any spoilers for book two itself.

We left off with the Seven Kingdoms split by civil war. With the death of King Robert, his son Joffrey takes the Iron Throne. The murder of Eddard Stark has caused his son Robb to lead a host against King’s Landing and the Lannisters. Meanwhile Robert’s brothers Stannis (the elder and therefore rightful heir) and Renly (the younger but more well-liked brother) have both staked their claims. Balon Greyjoy, father of the Starks’ ward Theon Greyjoy, has also declared himself King of the Iron Islands, further complicating the situation.

As the title promises, there are several clashes of the many kings involved. Catelyn Stark, Robb’s mother and the late Eddard’s wife, attempts to reconcile with Stannis and Renly to defeat their mutual foes, Joffrey and the Lannisters. Tyrion Lannister takes over as Hand of the King and is basically the brains behind the Lannister operation, while Joffrey just sits around being evil. Theon Greyjoy turns out to be a less-than-grateful guest of the Stark family. And in the end there is a very large battle involving many of them that turns out to be quite confusing even for those involved.

Meanwhile on the Wall, the Night’s Watch sends out a group to find Jon Snow’s uncle Benjen Stark, who never returned from his own reconnaissance mission. The promise that was set up in the prologue of the first book – of very freaky things to come- finally starts happening.

And in the East, Daenerys Targaryen continues to play the role of the unlikely badass. Only now she is known as the mother of dragons. BAMF.

What I love about A Clash of Kings is the continued development of some very interesting characters. Many people turn out to be not quite who you expected them to be. Bravery is displayed in a variety of ways, and cowardice is the undoing of many who could otherwise be great. And, thankfully but surprisingly, women actually play an important role in almost every story line.

What I don’t love about this book is that it seems George R.R. Martin let success go to his head. The book is about 200 pages longer than the first (which was already about 800 pages) and doesn’t necessarily need to be. The storyline gets a little convoluted at points- brace yourself to be confused during Tyrion’s chapters especially. The chapters are longer too, when the short chapters were one of my favorite things about Game of Thrones.

All in all though I think the story progressed very well and I am very interested to see what happens next.

By the way, Ronnie and I started watching the first season of the HBO show and it is SO. GOOD. It is really hard to keep quiet about certain upcoming developments though when Ronnie hasn’t read any of the books yet. So if you'd like to talk about anything through book 2 with me, I'd be happy to. I'm literally bursting with all of this secret information.