When I picked a throughly read copy of A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin at the library, the book’s binding was coming apart. There’s a reason why this is also known as A Storm of Words. Despite the warning signs of bloat, I had a terrific time reading this book.
Lots of darkness. And gore. And bad things happening. And a total slaughter at the end. Awesome.
Robb reaches for the crown. Bran, Arya and Sansa struggle to places where they might survive for a while. Jon Snow becomes a real mensch. No sign of the brat, Rickon. Whatever. I loved how Tyrion gets into deep shit and even more how he gets out.
However…
I can appreciate the way these books satisfy not only Joe Bob Briggs‘s first law of classic drive-in movies (anyone can die at any moment) but also the second (the innocent must suffer). And when a character you love dies and it hurts, good. It should hurt. But I don’t like how they flirt with the third law, the zombies must rise. No they don’t. Cheesy resurrections spoil great deaths.
In the previous book, I could put up with the fakeout with Bran and Rickon but I hated how Catelyn is still staggering around in her mortal coil and not shuffling out of it. Not to mention that jerk Theon turned up alive at the beginning of this one, so it wasn’t much of a surprise to find that Davos also survived. Geez. Now I can’t tell whether live people will stay alive, or dead people will stay dead.
Anyway. What else happened? Oh, yes. On the other side of the world, Daenerys totally kicks ass! I could hardly wait to see what she’s going to do next.
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