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A Song of Ice and Fire – A Feast for Crows (book 4)
Author: George R.R. Martin
**CAUTION: IT DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE PREVIOUS BOOKS**
After the slaughter of several important characters in the previous book, one had to wonder who was left to tell the story and how the author was going to keep it up. The answer is plain and simple: a whole bunch of new POVs. 6 they are: The Prophet / The Drowned Man (Aeron “Damphair” Greyjoy); The Captain of the Guards (Areo Hotah); The Princess in the Tower / The Queenmaker (Aryanne Martell); The Kraken’s Daughter (Asha Greyjoy); The Soiled Knight (Ser Arys Oakheart) and The Iron Captain / The Reaver (Victarion Greyjoy). Additionally to them, there’s also 6 POVs already known to us from the previous books (thankfully, otherwise I would not follow it so eagerly): Cersei and Jaime Lannister; Samwell Tarly; Brienne of Tarth; Arya Stark / Cat of the Canals and Sansa Stark / Alayne Stone. All the above with a slash between names mean that character has chapters of his own with two different names – confusing, if you are not paying too much attention on the new characters. Also, the prologue is told by a novice of the Citadel.
Said that, I found the first two hundred pages a bit boring and struggled to get past it, but persistence paid off – once the story caught up, I couldn’t stop reading.
A Song of Ice and Fire – A Storm of Swords (book 3)
Author: George R.R. Martin
**CAUTION: IT DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE PREVIOUS BOOKS**
The longest book of the series until now (900+ pages), A Storm of Swords is by far the best of them, but also the most shocking. It doesn’t start from where the previous book finished, instead, it goes back some months earlier, so the 1st chapters overlap with the last ones from A Clash of Kings.
There are 10 main characters telling us the story: Catelyn, Sansa, Arya and Bran Stark; Jon Snow; Tyrion and Jaime Lannister; Davos Seaworth; Daenerys Targaryen and Samwell Tarly. The prologue is told by a man of the Night’s Watch and the epilogue by one of the hundred Freys.
A Song of Ice and Fire – A Clash of Kings (book 2)
Author: George R.R. Martin
**CAUTION: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE 1ST BOOK**
A Clash of Kings starts from where A Game of Thrones ended, and it is as good as the 1st book.
9 characters tell us the story now: Catelyn, Sansa, Arya and Bran Stark; Jon Snow; Tyrion Lannister; Daenerys Targaryen; Theon Greyjoy and Davos Seaworth – the latter appearing for the 1st time in the series. The epilogue is told by the maester of Dragonstone.
A red comet, shining bright day and night in the skies of Westeros, is understood by many to be a sign of their own victory, or the beginning of a new era, and so on – everyone in Westeros has a different meaning for it – while a white raven coming from the Citadel brings the news that summer is coming to an end.
A Song of Ice and Fire – A Game of Thrones (book 1)
Author: George R.R. Martin
Following my previous post about A Song of Ice and Fire, in A Game of Thrones we get to know the Starks very well, as most part of what is happening in Westeros revolves around them. We are introduced to Eddard (Ned) Stark, his wife Catelyn, their 5 children – Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon, and also Ned’s bastard son, Jon Snow – not to mention the direwolf puppies that each of the kids get in the beginning of the book. As for the story in the Eastern continent, we are presented to Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen, the last of their bloodline.
A Song of Ice and Fire Overview – Author: George R.R. Martin
There are 7 books on “A Song of Ice and Fire”, only 5 of them published to this date. A Game of Thrones is the first one, released in 1996 – early this year HBO made a TV series based on it, and that’s how I became aware of its existence. According to what I’ve read on the internet, two days after the season’s premiere a second season was signed up, to be aired in 2012. I loved the TV series – it is so good that we watched the 10 episodes in only 2 nights, and because I didn’t want to wait until next year to know what happens, I decided to read the books.
It is my opinion, but I know a lot of people agrees with me, that usually books are much better than their adaptations to TV, as it’s not always possible to include all important details, but I was very surprised to see that HBO’s Game of Throne is very faithful to the book and very little has been left aside, and the characters are perfectly portrayed, with only minor things being different, like some hairs being curled in the book but straight on TV.
So…watching the TV series before reading the books put faces in my head, which for me was fine in this case. Normally, when I read a book and then watch the screen version, I get disappointed because I had imagined everyone so different! For the 2nd and 3rd books (A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords, respectively), which I’ve already finished, there are lots of new characters that I expect to be similar to what I’ve created in my mind, and I think this is the first positive thing I must say about the series: the author makes such a rich and detailed description of people, places, food, objects, etc, that it’s very easy to picture them.
