36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
These books just keep getting better and better!, 30 May 2001
By A Customer
With a complex weave of fantasy and reality, George Martin continues to write this stunning series with an amount of depth and attention to character that I can't remember seeing recently in any high fantasy series. He continues on with his brutal look at a realistic world where no man or woman is spared from the bad things in life.
Characters are so believeable in their creation with a heavy dose of flaws and range of emotion. The look at the world as a whole and lands outside of the main continent are terrific giving the whole tale a mighty scope that only whets your appetite for more.
This third book finally starts to bring in the more magical aspects of the universe with subtlety and then smacks you over the head with a couple of stunning twists. The great thing is that the magic doesn't overshadow the deadly court intrigue and human wars, but mingles with it so perfectly that it seems very natural for it to be included.
Unfortunately I see that the next book isn't going to be released for over a year! Aye caramba! I don't know that I can hold out that long to find out what's going to happen next. I can't say enough positive things about this series. I recommend this to anyone that enjoys reading, not just those fantasy geeks like myself. It's a very fulfilling ride that just gets better with each page.
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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Three weddings and a whole shed load of funerals, 27 Aug 2003
Well, here's an oddity. An American book published as one paperback volume in the US, yet split into 2 in the UK. It's usually the other way around.
It is perhaps a little unfair to have this split into two. It's one book, and designed to be read as such. After all, no one is going to pick up part one, being the third book in an ongoing series, without reading part two as well. Besides, all of the big, widescreen moments happen in the second half, and the first volume is left without even a partial resolution or cliffhanger.
That said, this is brilliant. Make sure that there is a clean spot on the carpet in front of you before you start reading this, because your jaw is going to be spending a lot of time on the floor. If you thought the first two books in this series were amazing (they were), then you ain't seen nothing yet.
Martin's biggest strength is his characters; no one is good, no one is evil, everyone is just shades of grey. His second strength is his plotting - just when you think you know what's about to happen, he pulls the rug out from under you, and the exact opposite occurs. Things that should happen don't. Things that shouldn't happen do. Bad things happen to good people, and there ain't no justice.
This book left me scratching my head wondering how on earth one man can conjure all this out of his imagination.
But perhaps the best thing I can say about this is that after 3 books and 3,000 pages, we start to get a glimpse that perhaps Martin is not telling us the story that we thought he was...
Let's hope we get more of Daenerys next time round.
Valor Morghulis...
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
There's a lot to hate about this series..., 3 Nov 2011
...like the way your favourite characters are brutally killed off and the story veers off past their barely cold remains...
...or the way that Martin switches your point of view full 360 degrees and the villain of the piece you've been hoping gets his or her come-uppance for two lengthy tomes, you now find yourself plotting with and rooting for.
...let me not forget (or forgive) the fact that key chapters of the story, which you're desperate to see unfolding, happen 'off-camera' as it were and you only find out about the dramatic events in a short third-hand and maybe untrustworthy report.
If I'd been writing these books House Stark would have been triumphant long before we reached book 4 but Martin's genius is that he tramples on and overturns all the clichés of the fantasy genre and still leaves you hungry for more. 5 stars dammit!
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