A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire)

Martin, George R. R.

4.42

934,102 ratings by Goodreads

9780606267243: A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire)

ISBN 10: 0606267247 ISBN 13: 9780606267243

Publisher: Turtleback Books, 2012

For use in schools and libraries only. Six separate factions vie for control of the realm of the late Lord Eddard Stark, while an ancient form of magic, an everlasting winter, and an unearthly army threaten to return.

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Review:

George R.R. Martin writes sword-and-sorcery which concentrates on the swords. A Clash of Kings is the second volume of A Song of Ice and Fire, the sequence which began with A Game of Thrones and will take another four volumes to complete. The Seven Kingdoms are divided by revolt and blood feud; beyond their Northern borders, the men of the Night Watch fight the coming of a great cold and the walking corpses that travel with it; on the other side of the ocean, the last of the Kingdom's deposed ruling house mourns her horseclan husband and rears the dragonlets she hatched from his funeral pyre. This is character-driven fantasy--we see most events through the eyes of the sons and daughters of the Stark family, the once and future Kings of the North, whose father's judicial murder started the war. Martin avoids the cosy Californian cheeriness of many epic fantasies in favour of a sense of the squalor and grandeur of high medieval life; there is passion here, and misery and charm--and a profound sense of moral ambiguity as we learn to like the Richard III figure in this epic as much as the more virtuous Starks. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

‘A Game of Thrones grabs hold and won’t let go. It’s brilliant’
Robert Jordan

‘Colossal, staggering... Martin captures all the intoxicating complexity of the Wars of the Roses or Imperial Rome in his imaginary world... one of the greats of fantasy literature.’
SFX

‘An extraordinarily rich novel... The book stands out from similar work by virtue of its superbly developed characters, accomplished prose and sheer bloody-mindedness.’
Publishers Weekly

‘I read my eyes out. I couldn’t stop until I’d finished and it was dawn.’
Anne McCaffrey

‘Fantasy literature has never shied away from grandeur, but the sheer-mind-boggling scope of this epic has sent other fantasy writers away shaking their heads... Its ambition: to construct the Twelve Caesars of fantasy fiction, with characters so venomous they could eat the Borgias.’
Guardian

‘One of the all-time classic fantasy series, right up there with The Belgariad and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and, yes, with The Lord of the Rings.’
The Alien Has Landed

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