Game of Thrones: A Clash of Kings by George R.R Martin

  

Game of Thrones: A Clash of Kings by George R.R Martin

Tiny Overview

Winter is coming, and war is being prepped for. A big red comet inspires religious psychosis and everybody is convinced they deserve to be King.

Themes:

• Adventure
• Betrayal
• Cli-fi
• Dark
• Fantasy
• Politics 
• Moral ambiguity
• Violent

Context

Martin drew heavy inspiration from the Wars of the Roses, that happened in the 15th century in England, as well as many other medieval wars. He combined this with the inspiration of Tolkien, and boom. GOT.

Martin also runs a blog, which is interesting.

My Waffling

I started reading this book back on the 2nd April. Then started reading other books at the same time, didn't go back to this one, then eventually gave up on it, on 5th April. But then I got an itch to read it - so I picked it back up on June 3rd, and finished it on the 20th!

This book was a lot of build up. All of it was war prep, then one war happened at the end of the book and I could not understand most of what was going on. There were so many characters, and so many ship names at the end. I had to keep texting my boyfriend to ask who people were, as he knows everything about GOT. I could've googled it, but I have learnt from my mistake not to - as it will show you a photo of them being killed in the show. That happened to me during my time reading the first book.

I don't think I enjoyed this book as much as the first. I think that's because it doesn't have the same freshness as the first one did, trying to feel out the characters and see who you like, and who's trustworthy. I am glad I read this one though, as it obviously built on previous characters, and introduced a gazillion new ones just for them to die in the next chapter. I am confident in saying over 89% of characters that were introduced during this book were dead by the end.

I also don't think that the ending was as good in this one. Bran, Rickon, and some others crawl out of the bottom of the Winterfell crypt to find everything has been set ablaze. At the end of the first one, Dany has dragons. DRAGONS!!!

I can't really compare the show and the book in this one as I haven't really watched the second series - but the parts I have watched have slight differences. A sort of main character died in the books that apparently doesn't in the show, so that's not good.

In the book, Renly dies before he can have sex with his wife, just because he hadn't gotten around to it. In the show, they make Renly gay and sleep with her brother and THEN he dies. Which is absolutely hilarious.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and I will probably read the rest of them. Including House of the Dragon, as boyfriend and I have started to watch the first two episodes as the new season is coming out soon. Get ready for those rants about slight changes!

4/5