Date Started: 7/31/12
Date Finished: 8/8/12
As predicted, once I started this series, that was the end of me. I'm loving them. The only sad part about reading them so quickly is that once I'm fnished with the series, that's it. Now, before I get to my "summary" (loosely termed, since again, no real way to summarize a book of this scope), I want to relay an interesting story as it relates to my reading of this book.
So I heard a guy friend was reading the first book around the same time that I finished it and I asked what he thought. He said he wasn't sure - and that it was a little slow to get into (though he was hudreds of pages in at that point). I said that I had really liked the first book and had already purchsed the second to continue the series. His response was "Really? Girls don't really read these." He seemed honestly surprised that I liked the books and planned on reading the series. When I asked him why he thought girls don't like the books he replied that it was the genre. Granted I'm not a big fantasy reader, but I would never imagine that women, as a whole, just don't read the books. Crazy!
So that's my story. Onto the book. Again, masterfully done. In this book there are something like four people claiming to be king: Joffrey, Robb, Stannis and Renley (Robert's brothers). Thankfully, Stannis puzzles out what Ned Stark essentially died for (and Jon Arryn before him) - that all of Cersi's kid's are in fact her brother Jamie's, not Robert's, and therefore not heirs to the throne. Not that it did much good. Stannis is now in league with this woman who is a prophet of the Lord of Light and through her sorcery has his own brother Renly killed. Stannis is then routed in a battle at King's Landing when Tywin comes to the aid of his son (Tyrion) and daughter (Cersi). Meanwhile, Jon Snow is up at the wall facing the coming winter, Bran and Rickon are at Winterfell when it falls and for a while presumed dead (thankfully they're not), Arya is traveling through the country braving her way without anyone (other than Gendry, another of Robert's bastards who the queen is after) knowing her true identity, and Sansa is still stuck with the Lannisters at King's Landing. That's not to mention Dany still attempting to find a way back to the Seven Kingdoms after her baby and husband die and her three dragons continue to grow. How the author manages for all of these characters (as well as the new ones introduced in this book) to have their own voices and weaves them so well together is just amazing.
I think I really need to take a break though. At this rate, I'll finish the whole series in like 2 months, and then where will I be? Still waiting on Downton Abbey to return in January with nothing so thrilling as the Seven Kingdoms to distract me.
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