A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin

A book long enough to be divided into two separate volumes in many bookshops, it is more of the same from George R.R. Martin. The whole Song of Ice and Fire saga is, it’s becoming apparent, basically one extended novel, with lots of cliffhangers and only the changes in point-of-view characters to break up the overall structure – as well as the short opening and closing chapters that give one-off characters a brief voice.

At the end of A Clash of Kings, the Lannisters have overpowered Stannis Baratheon and are in a position of strength. Robb is still a threat, and Catelyn Stark wants nothing more than to get her daughters back. As ever, trouble is brewing in the North, beyond the wall, and winter, true to form, continues to be coming.

I always expect to dislike the next book in this sequence. I start to get bored, especially with the chapters dealing with the Night’s Watch (here we get Samwell’s story as well as Jon Snow’s – and despite little flecks of romance, neither is very interesting). I find Martin’s writing style tiresome and smirk at how now that he’s discovered the word ‘merlon’ he’s damn well going to use it whenever he can, almost as much as ‘whickered’.

And then he smack me in the face with brilliant storytelling and very unexpected twists that really hit home emotionally, and I read the rest of the book ravenously, and with a faint sense of guilt for underestimating his skill. Because he can write a very, very compelling narrative and serves up some real shockers. I have certain expectations of conventional storytelling. This character has to at least find out what happened to his family before he’s in any real danger. That character will definitely be safe until these various plot strands are tied up. But these things are nothing to Martin, and probably the saddest a book has ever made me has been when this one abruptly brought an end to the possibility of some plot strands being resolved, or characters to meet what had seemed to be their destinies. (Although a final twist reverses this to a degree.) The stories I looked forward to don’t get told – but that only makes me more emotionally invested and appreciative of the cleverness of the decision. Great stuff.

And anyone who comes up with such a fantastic character as Petyr Baelish cannot be a poor writer.