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realjimbob

REALJimBob

Fortysomething, photographer slacker, working in IT, living in Greenwich; failed polymath; drinks and eats too much, reads too little...

A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow - George R.R. Martin It's not a totally fair review as this isn't really the book that George Martin put out. Instead, book three has been hacked into two smaller books for the attention (or bag size) challenged paperback reader. Sadly, the only way to do this is to hack the book in half - leaving all the set up and slow build in the first book and (hopefully) all the action and outcome for the second half. However, I haven't read the second half yet, so the first book seems somewhat lacking...

There were a couple of points during the book that could have been tighter, one or two paragraphs that felt they were dragging on longer than necessary, and while the pacing built up somewhat towards the end, really only the last chapter provided much in the way of excitement as Jon frees himself from the Wildlings grasp and meets Summer again. That said, most of the book is as engaging and well written as expected.

Treated as a whole book it would be disappointing, treated as the first half in a larger book it sits much better. Not quite as fantastic as the first two novels, but even a sub-par book in this series is a damn good one. Expectations for the second half/book starting tomorrow are high...