This post will include my review of the book A Storm of Swords: Blood and Gold by George R. R. Martin. It is the second part of the third volume of A Song of Ice and Fire series, released in October 2000.
The text below is taken from the blurb on the back of the book.
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Fear Cuts deeper than swords
The Starks are scattered. Robb Stark may be King of the North, but he must bend to the will of the old tyrant Walder Frey if is to hold his crown. And while his youngest sister, Arya, has escaped the clutches of the depraved Cersei Lannister and her son, the capricious boy-king Joffrey, Sansa Stark remains their captive, trapped in marriage with Joffrey’s deformed uncle, the embittered dwarf Tyrion. Meanwhile, across the ocean, Daenerys Stormborn, the last heir of the Dragon king, delivers death to the slave-trading cities of Astapor and Yunkai as she approaches Westeros with vengeance in her heart. |
In my review of the first half of this book I began by saying that book three was in a dark place. Well the darkness moved from moonless night to underground with the second part, but unlike the first part this one delivered some amazing and unexpected outcomes.
On several occasions, I had to re-read pages to convince myself that I’d read them correctly. Did that really happen? Yes it did… well I sure wasn’t expecting that. What the first half set up the second half tore down and completely reignited my interest in the series as a whole.
Book four has a lot to live up to.
