Search - A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Bk 3)

Well written and easily readable, Martin has a great series on his hands with his Song of Ice and Fire books. A great fantasy tale with as much infighting as The War of the Roses.

The darkness before the storm couldn't possibly get any blacker, right? I mean at the end of "A Clash of Kings" it seems as though the entire Stark Family is just beyond the edge of the cliff diving headlong into an abyss! And then, it just.. gets.. worse.

It doesn't just get worse for the Starks though, it gets bad for just about all your favorite characters and happily some of your not-so favorite characters. I do enjoy the way many characters have grown in this book in particular Jamie Lannister and Sansa Stark.

These were two people that I believe most readers would have dismissed as being one-note, but actually they are much more complex than some of the main players in this crazy game of chess. I feel after this book that the series can only get better from here on out. Which is a relief because I was not so captivated by the first book in this series.

In the longest book of the series so far, the lands of Westeros are no closer to peace than when we last left them. Filled with jaw-dropping twists, ASoS was very easy to get lost in for hours upon hours.

=part three of the A Song of Ice and Fire series=

I read the 3 books in a row and by the time I got to Book 3 I was ready to take a break! Fortunately I haven't received the 4th one yet. I get a little break to read a lighthearted romance. It is a great bit of storytelling but I find all the killing and intrigue a bit wearying.

Still a good continuation of the story, but getting darker as it moves along. I have to say, I'd like someone to survive to the end - it seems that the characters that are most likable are the ones most likely to be killed.

THE GOOD: Interesting and unexpected plot twists, fun cliffhangers, and oodles of juicy & delicious treachery. THE BAD: Somewhat weak character development (a criticism I've had throughout this marathon series) and the frequent feeling of plodding through an actual (literary) marathon. THE UGLY: Weighing in at over 1,110 pages(!) this behemoth was definitely in need of editing...and if I hadn't made it through the first two tomes, I might have suspected the author of getting paid by the word. However, it's probably more of a case that he's conjured up such a rich world in his mind, he's faithfully attempting to transcribe every little detail for his fans - of which, judging by the sheer number of elaborate Wikipedia pages dedicated to this Ice & Fire series, there are legions.