A Clash of Kings (1999) Book Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. It's been a rough week, but I'm managing. I had planned on doing a comic book review today, but then I finished reading A Clash of Kings last night and so I'm here to review it. Like with A Game of Thrones, this review will be spoiler free, though there will be minor spoilers from the first book mentioned. To be honest, I don't think I'm going to have as much to say about this book as I did about A Game of Thrones. So let's get into it.

Released three years after the first book, A Clash of Kings picks up where A Game of Thrones left off. At the same time though things in Westeros are much different than they were in the first book. They're more volatile than they were even at the end of the first book. The book is also slightly more disjointed.

In the first book, Ned Stark was the thread that connected all of the storylines together. But, with Ned having been beheaded following King Robert's death in the last book, there isn't a character who can be considered the lead character. The show tried to make it Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, but the books are written in a way where that's not possible since few of the POV characters interact with each other, once Ned is out of the picture. At the same time though it's much easier for some storylines to either be forgotten or to be cared about because there's so many. Not that any of them are poorly written mind you, but when you have such a rotating cast, that expands or contracts depending on the situation, it's easy for some to be lost in the shuffle.

Having said that though, Tyrion, Bran, and Daenerys had the richest storylines in this book. Bran was learning how to be a prince while Robb is away at war, while dealing with his disability. Tyrion was trying to keep both Joffrey and Cersei in check as the King's Hand. With Dany, she's trying to survive long enough to reach Westeros. Everyone else really didn't have a whole lot to do. Even Arya's storyline was kind of meh in this book. I know it picks up in the later books, but it wasn't great in this book. Even Sansa's storyline was meh in this book.

We had two new POV characters in this book, Davos, who served King Stannis, and Theon Greyjoy, Ned's former ward at Winterfell. Davos gets only a couple of chapters devoted to him, and they were good chapters. Theon on the other hand, was a weird choice given that he was such a non character for most of the first book. He was mentioned alot, but he rarely showed up, even in the chapters focusing on Robb and Bran at Winterfell. 

Overall this was a really good book. Not as strong as the first, but still very good. I particularly enjoyed the Bran and Tyrion chapters. Mostly because Tyrion was putting people in their place and Bran was still dealing with everything from the first book. I recommend this book, whether you've seen the show or not. 

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for my review of this week's episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is already out for some of you, but isn't airing until tonight here in Canada. So, until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.