Die Lage in Westeros stabilisiert sich, ein endgültiger Sieg der herrschenden Lennisters ist in greifbare Nähe gerückt. Alljährlich kehren Gesetz und Ordnung in weite Teile des vom Krieg verwüsteten Landes zurück. Doch die Königin Regentin Cersei findet...
After the set-up in the previous installment, this book was really not what I was expecting and, as such, it took quite a bit of getting into. It certainly picks up by the end but it does feel a lot like George R.R. Martin is mainly concerned with wrapping up several of the characters ready for the next book.
Which means, of course, my expectations for the next installment are already way too high.
The best bits are when a 'lowborn' (a dispossessed) gets the change to point out to a 'highborn' (a privileged) 'this is what happens to us when you lot play your game of thrones'. So universal and timeless.
Now, on with the merciless critique:
Endless lists and descriptions of things that seem to have no relevance for the scene in question, or anywhere else in the book for that matter. Then into the action, which has to be explained by flashback of events that happened in the past, some times interlaced so much with the 'present' that you don't know if you are in the room described or in the fields years ago.
Then the chapter stops in the middle of the action, or in the middle of a conversation, to leave you in a 'cliffhanger'.
The next chapter that will relate to that character will be a few chapters …
The best bits are when a 'lowborn' (a dispossessed) gets the change to point out to a 'highborn' (a privileged) 'this is what happens to us when you lot play your game of thrones'. So universal and timeless.
Now, on with the merciless critique:
Endless lists and descriptions of things that seem to have no relevance for the scene in question, or anywhere else in the book for that matter. Then into the action, which has to be explained by flashback of events that happened in the past, some times interlaced so much with the 'present' that you don't know if you are in the room described or in the fields years ago.
Then the chapter stops in the middle of the action, or in the middle of a conversation, to leave you in a 'cliffhanger'.
The next chapter that will relate to that character will be a few chapters afterwards (or maybe a book later) and will invariably start again with a lengthy description of places, clothes and food, only to start off new action or dialogue months after that cliffhanger, about which you will find out (or not) in between paragraphs relating to current and past events.
However: an accurate depiction of how politics work in real life. Once you get used and over those shortcomings, I see it as a kind of 1984 only set in the past in order to explain how politics - and all human relations for that matter - work. From what I know of History, it is well applicable to nowadays politics and also all the way back to the time humankind settled down to plant food efficiently so that some privileged could spend time doing other, more fun, less useful things, while generally living a lot better.
