A Clash of Kings – George R R Martin [Book Review]

 A Clash of Kings

George R R Martin

Book Review

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‘A Clash of Kings is the second instalment in George R R Martin’s fantasy series ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’. To see my review of the first book ‘A Game of Thrones’ just click here.

A Clash of Kings sees six different factions plotting and fighting for control of land, and the Iron Throne of the seven kingdoms. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I can safely say that this series is already one of my favourite fantasy series of all time. I can only anticipate the next books in the series getting better and better! The plot in this book is a lot slower than that in ‘A Game of Thrones’, but this did not affect my enjoyment of the novel. I quite liked that this slower pacing allowed for a lot of tension to be built up as the scheming began, and kept me wondering where parts of the plot were going to lead. Although the majority of this book is relatively slow paced, the last 200 pages of the book were completely action packed and extremely gripping! I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat, and read that last section in one sitting!

A Clash of Kings has nine narrating characters, and a one-off prologue from a tenth character. The line-up has changed slightly from Game of Thrones. We see from the perspectives of Tyrion Lannister, Catelyn stark, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Bran Stark, Jon Snow, Davos Seaworth, Theon Greyjoy and daenerys Targaryen.

Arya Stark still remains to be one of my favourite characters – I just love how strong she is, and that she never gives up fighting. I found her storyline to be particularly exciting, and was certainly pretty action-packed from the start. Tyrion Lanniser also remains a favourite character of mine. I love his sense of humour! Tyrion definitely showed his strength in this book, and also showed how clever he was at scheming and plotting (to be honest, even I am unsure of his exact motives right now!). Daenerys Targaryen didn’t have as many chapters as I had hoped for, but I am glad that we finally got to meet the dragons!

I personally nearly always enjoy reading books with more than one narrating character – I love seeing events from different perspectives and also seeing a variety of storyline within one novel. I definitely found it easier to follow who was who in A Clash of Kings – and the appendix at the back of the novel was fantastic for reminding me when I did get a little lost!

Overall, I really enjoyed reading A Clash of Kings and I am looking forward to reading the next books in the series! I highly reccommend this series and I do have one word of advice – don’t be put off by the length of the novels. Once you get into the story, you won’t even realise how long the book is 🙂