The Nature of Things

Last Thursday, I featured my review of the first book in George R.R. Martin's A   Song of Ice and Fire series, The Game of Thrones . There was quite a bit of interest in that review and I decided that I would feature my reviews of the other books in the series on successive Thursdays. I read all of them beginning in December of 2011. Here then is my review of the second book, A Clash of Kings .  ~~~  Friday, December 16, 2011 A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire #2) by George R.R. Martin: A review Incest, fratricide, alchemy, the dead rising to walk and kill, cold hearts and cold steel and, of course, dragons - A Clash of Kings has all that. It also has strong characters and a fully realized mythical world that seems as real and as current as today's newspaper.  The land of Westeros is in turmoil. Even more turmoil than in A Game of Thrones . In fact, A Game of Thrones seems almost tame by comparison. Yes, George R. R. Martin has definitely kicked it up a notc...

For all of us who are frankly obsessed with George R.R. Martin's convoluted fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire , one of the lines of the story that has fascinated us and been a source of much speculation has been the parentage of the character Jon Snow. He is supposedly the bastard son of Eddard Stark of Winterfell, but that just never seemed very likely. The uber ethical, moral, and loyal Ned Stark was never one to betray his vows, even under the most extreme provocation. What is the likelihood that he would have betrayed his marriage vows? So, after reading the fifth volume, A Dance with Dragons , I devised my own theory about Jon's parents. I thought I was being very clever and that I was probably the only one who had figured the whole thing out. Turns out I was only one of thousands. Maybe millions. And now that so many of us have worked out the "answer" to this puzzle, I think we can pretty well count on Martin to make sure it is wrong. Because that's just...