2) A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow, by George RR Martin
3) A Storm of Swords: Blood and Gold, by George RR Martin

I've been rereading the Song of Ice and Fire books over the last year (A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings) because they are just so enjoyable, and sooner or later (I hope) grrm will finish the fifth part of it, and I want to have the events of the first four still fairly fresh in my mind when that happens, and I know I rushed through reading them first time round so that not enough will have stuck in my mind.

The third part, A Storm of Swords, is the most challenging one of the four so far published because it is so long. In the UK paperback printing it was done as two separate volumes (in French translation, apparently, as four) each of which is over 600 pages, though a fair chunk at the end is supporting matter rather than real plot. When I first got the books in 2001 I had to wait several months between volumes, which rather blunts the impact; the cut-off point between the two halves doesn't really make sense dramatically, and you are then trying to pick up several conversations at once.

Rereading the whole thing as a block, a few things struck me. The first is that disastrous weddings are a huge part of the set-up and pay-off. There are several of these - three obviously, the horrific Red Wedding scene, and the two King's Landing weddings featuring Tyrion and Joffrey; but two more subtly off-stage, Robb Stark's near the beginning and the fake Arya Stark's near the end. The more interesting relationships that we see are the irregular one between Jon Snow and the wildling girl Ygritte, and the unconsummated one between the real Arya Stark and her unlikely protector. And the even more interesting relationships are the ones we don't see, that happened fifteen or twenty years before the main action, which we only hear about by dim reflection: who really were Jon Snow's parents? What really happened between the Tully sisters and Littlefinger?

(On top of that we have Daenerys continuing her educational march to queendom across a different continent, which is also good reading though one wonders how on earth it will eventually be united with the rest of the plot.)

Tyrion, the dwarf aristocrat, is one of the most sympathetic characters, but as with the second volume the one scene that didn't work for me on re-reading involved him. He is enabled to take a monstrous revenge on those who have wronged him essentially by the action of the eunuch spymaster Varys; it seemed to me out of character for Varys not to have planned to be able to prevent Tyrion from doing it. (And certainly not in his character to allow Tyrion to go ahead.) Still, it is dramatically very satisfying; as is the culmination of the Jon Snow plot in this part of the overall story.

OK, back to A Feast for Crows soon. And I do hope it's not too long before we get to clutch copies of A Dance with Dragons in our hands.

communicator links to a fascinating YouTube diary presented by a woman with autism. The behaviour patterns she shows to us are very familiar to me.

A Doctor Who fan-vid using "I'm Gonna Be" by The Proclaimers - hilarious and uplifting.

George R.R. Martin's pizza crawl.

Brian Aldiss is on Desert Island Discs tomorrow.

( last three people )

( Where I live meme )

( Egoboost: What kind of cook am I? )

( Spectral analysis - green and wavy but also looking at you )

3) A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin (.co.uk, .com)

Having reread and enjoyed A Game of Thrones last year, and in hope that my rereading the books will telepathically spur grrm  on to finishing the next one, I went back to the second in the series and reread it over the last week. Martin, having killed off one of his viewpoint characters in the first volume, now introduces two more to add to the mix; one of these is the piratical princeling Theon Greyjoy (thanks to rcfinch for correction), whose hubris and fall is the clearest trajectory of any character in the book. As ever, the writing is engaging and exciting; the horrid death of one of the claimants to the kingdom half way through is a memorable moment, and the fact that you never know who is going to be alive at the end keeps you on your toes - I think no less than four of the viewpoint characters seem to be killed off at one point or another, though it turns out not to be true in every case.

Oddly enough, the one point where I felt the writing faltered because of Martin's choice of multiple narratives was in the description of the climactic naval battle outside the walls of the capital city, told from three different perspectives, none of them, of course, having a full picture of what is going on, but failing to really add up to a coherent picture.

In rereading this time, I was careful to pay more attention to the characters' dreams and visions, since it's fairly clear that they are signals to the plot to come - in particular, Daenerys has a vision of a young king with a wolf's head, surrounded by corpses, which of course we find out all about at the end of the following volume. Knowing what is to come for the odious Queen Cersei, it was interesting to see how Martin is already foreshadowing her troubles here.

Anyway, a jolly good re-read, and still very strongly recommended.

Top five UnSuggestions for this book:

1. Don't waste your life by John Piper
2. Vogue Knitting on the Go: Socks Two
3. Vine's Expository dictionary of Old and New Testament words by W. E. Vine
4. Evidence! citation & analysis for the family historian by Elizabeth Shown Mills
5. Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee

Well, I've spent the morning happily putting all 400 of our children's books onto my LibraryThing catalogue. (Which takes my total book tally to 2869; wonder when I will break 3000?)

I'm sorry to go on about the UnSuggestions, but some of them for classic children's books are too good not to share:

Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr Seuss - Unsuggestion: Olympos, by Dan Simmons (at least until the system realises that I own both).
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, by Dr Seuss - UnSuggestion: Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, by Noam Chomsky
Dr Seuss's ABC and Fox in Socks, by Dr Seuss - UnSuggestion (1) (2): The Complete Stories, by Franz Kafka
Mr Brown Can Moo! Can You?, by Dr Seuss - UnSuggestion: No Logo, by Naomi Klein

When We Were Very Young, by A.A. Milne - UnSuggestion: Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan (again, this will change once the system realises I own both)
Now We Are Six, by A.A. Milne - UnSuggestion: Learning Perl, by Randal L. Schwartz

Pippi Longstocking, by Astrid Lindgren - UnSuggestion: The Blind Watchmaker, by Richard Dawkins
Pippi in the South Seas, by Astrid Lindgren - UnSuggestion: The Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs

Esio Trot, by Roald Dahl - UnSuggestion: A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin (though again, I have both)
The Tale of Two Bad Mice, by Beatrix Potter - UnSuggestion: A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin (as before, I have both)

Five Children and It, by E. Nesbit - UnSuggestion: Being and Nothingness (L'être et le néant), by Jean-Paul Sartre

and this last one is rather poetic, though, alas, it too will probably vanish once the system realises I have both:

Doctor Dolittle, by Hugh Lofting - UnSuggestion: Getting Things Done, by David Allen.

Someone challenged me to find an UnSuggestion where I was the only person to own both books. I have a couple of near misses - while I do own copies of Good Omens, the top UnSuggestion for both Gilead and John Adams, and I also own Goodnight Moon, the top UnSuggestion for Native Tongue by Carl Hiassen, I have omitted to put either of the UnSuggestions in question in my catalogue.

But eventually I found a case where I not only own both books but they are both in my LibraryThing, so I am indeed the only user to have catalogued both (and have reviewed both on this journal). The top UnSuggestion for Tom Shippey's J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century is The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho. Not surprised - I found the latter insipid and self-indulgent, and the former dense but rewarding.

Well, that's a satisfying start to the weekend!

Edited to add: Gosh, here's another one that is a bit more surprising - the top UnSuggestion for Russell Shorto's superb history of New Amsterdam, The Island at the Centre of the World, is the equally superb first volume of George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" fantasy series, A Game of Thrones. Do enthusiasts for early American history have and aversion to epic fantasy, and vice versa? I wonder.

3) A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin

I don't often re-read books, especially very long ones, especially the first in a series of very long books. But I know that sooner or later, the next book in George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series is going to come out, and I was concerned when I read the most recent one that I had forgotten who some of the characters were; and anyway I enjoyed the book so much on first reading, which must be over five years ago now, that I wanted to see if it stood the test of time.

And it does. Part of the charm is the rapidly shifting perspective, with each chapter of a few pages detailing events from the viewpoint of Eddard Stark, aide to King Robert, or one of Eddard's six children, or the dwarf nobleman Tyrion Lannister, or Daenerys Targaryen, heiress to King Robert's deposed predecessor. Part of it also is that within that volatile framework, the story in this volume is basically a contrast of the disintegration of Eddard Stark's career, family and life with the upward trend of Daenerys' fortunes - though the latter undergo a twist at the end of the book.

The other tension that runs through the book - a theme which as far as I remember re-emerges only in the most recent volume to the same extent - is the tension between the ideals of honour and chivalry held by Eddard and by his daughter Sansa, and the Realpolitik of the dynastic struggle into which they are plunged, the game of thrones that gives the book its title, with perhaps only Tyrion Lannister being the direct viewpoint character for the more cynical approach, though of course it comes up in almost every conversation.

And despite the book's strong fantasy credentials, in fact the the tools used in the game of thrones are steel and poison, largely. In Westeros, the setting of the story for most of our characters, I think the only obvious intrusion of magic is Jon Stark's encounter with zombies from the frozen North. Daenerys, on another continent, encounters more magic and supernatural events than the other characters combined, including in the book's stunning denouement.

The background is especially well realised. Martin has successfully combined the standard knights-in-armour setting with a sense of cultural distance, by the cheap but effective trick of slightly altering spellings - so we have "Eddard" rather than "Edward", "Catelyn" rather than "Catherine", and, most effectively, knights are dubbed "Ser" rather than "Sir". Daenerys, in exile across the water, encounters a bewildering variety of other cultures, and will go on to encounter more in future books. There are hints of the religious diversity which becomes a major theme of later volumes. And against all this human geography, climate change is on its way; as Eddard Stark's family motto would have it, "Winter Is Coming".

Another advantage of re-reading is that I know what is going to happen. First time round I think I read the books so fast, wanting to know who was going to be killed next, that I missed details that turned out to be important, like why exactly Jonah Mormont was exiled, and who Samwell Tarly was. I'm also now more than ever certain that Jon Snow is really not Eddard's son but his nephew, from the vague hints we are given. And the shallowness of Eddard's enemies comes across even more clearly - they are motivated only by the desire for power, and not with any sense of what they want to do with it, which is why despite their apparent victory in the game of thrones in this volume, we have the sense that they are riding for a fall later in the series.

Anyway, I won't rush to reread volume two, but I won't put it off too long either.

theferrett has read George R.R. Martin's A Feast For Crows. (So have I.)

cdpoint is getting to grips with Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West.

(But if you're interested in that kind of lj post, you should just add yhlee to your friends list.)

6) A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin

If you haven't read Martin's previous books in his A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords, just go out and buy them now. This is not especially a grand tale of human destiny but more a narrative of dynastic conflict, a fantasy epic with everything that Robert Jordan's dismal Wheel of Time series doesn't have - believable characters, believable cultural variations in a world based loosely on medieval Europe, tight plotting, surprise twists.

We've been waiting years for this book. I managed to get it electronically from Powell's rather than lay out on the hardback, but I will now put in an Amazon pre-order on the paperback as there's nothing quite like dead trees. Also the difficulty with ebooks is that you can't easily riffle back and forth through the pages to check back on small details. There's a difference between 784 sides of paper and 4448 "page down" clicks. It reminds you of why the codex won out over the scroll.

You couldn't really start the series by reading A Feast for Crows, as too much depends on previous narrative, and I slightly wished that I had gone back and reread the earlier ones to re-orient myself. But hey, that's what the Christmas holiday is for. Non-spoiler points to bear in mind - Martin has covered only half the characters here, and that doesn't include most people's favourites - exiled princess Daenerys Targaryen, the queen's dwarf brother Tyrion Lannister, religious fanatic and royal pretender Stannis Baratheon; we get only a glimpse of Eddard Stark's illegitimate son Jon Snow and hear nothing at all about his surviving brothers. We do get a whole new set of narrative viewpoints about the Greyjoys and the struggle for power on and around the Iron Islands. And we do get a couple of chapters for each of the Stark daughters, both of whom have now been forced to take on new identities - one of these chapters, "Cat of the Canals", depicting Arya's life in a foreign city, is a really fantastic piece of writing even taken on its own.

There were two new factors that I particularly liked in this book. First of all, Queen Cersei's unleashing of religious fundamentalism as part of her desperate attempt to cling to power, surely at least a partial commentary on current affairs. And second, Martin's portrayal of the devastating effects of a civil war that has now lasted for years on the ordinary people. A recurrent theme of the series has been the gap between the theory and practice of chivalry as it applies to knights and ladies. Now we seem to be seeing a lot more of what it means for those in other social categories as well.

( spoilers )

So, in summary, great stuff, and thoroughly recommended provided you've read the earlier books in the series. Mostly I read sf for escapism, but the subject matter here is surprisingly close to my work...

I bought the electronic edition from Powell's online store during the week (easily half the price I would have to pay for a new hardback in a Belgian bookshop). Funnily enough it doesn't seem to be available any more from that source (check here). Anyway, my PDA's battery only lasts a couple of hours at a time, so I'm in thr frustrating position of being two-thirds of the way through but can't get any further today as the charger is at work.

I've skimmed enough on-line reviews to know that there is no grand climax coming, but I am really enjoying it so far: in particular, I like the parallelism of Brienne and Jaime's separate engagements with honour. And we are seeing just enough of the Stark sisters to feel that more is happening there. More on this once I've finished it, in what will certainly be a spoiler-laden review behind cut-tags, but here I wanted to flag a couple of linguistic points:

I notice Martin using "one-and-ten", "two-and-ten", "three-and-ten" instead of "eleven, twelve, thirteen". Also "good-daughter" and "good-son" instead of "daughter-in-law" and "son-in-law". At some point very soon after I have finished A Feast for Crows I will go back and see if he had those usages in the earlier books to, but I don't think he did - anyone care to set me right on this?

As compressed by yhlee:

Drop me a comment; I'll ask you five questions; you do same on your LJ, if you like.

Her questions:

1. What consistently drives you nuts when you see it in a sf/f novel or short story? ( My pet hates )
2. Where would you like to visit that you haven't been to already, and why? ( Travel wish list )
3. What one area of international politics would you recommend a skimmer-of-news focus on, right now? ( The answer )
4. How did you become interested in medieval history? ( Autobiographical ramblings )
5. Where do you think George R.R. Martin is going with the SONG OF ICE AND FIRE series, since I am A Feast for Crows-deprived? ( Aren't we all? )

Just had a note from Amazon to the effect that A Feast for Crows, vol 4 of the superb Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, is not going to be published this month after all, but next March instead.

And hunting around the net it seems pretty clear that there was never a real June 2004 date anyway; all fantasy on Amazon's part, alas.

Oh well.

I see that A Feast for Crows is at 124th place on Amazon's best-seller list, and won't even be published until 24 June. Buoyed no doubt by the mass of pre-orders - including mine, put in over a year ago.