A Storm of Swords

I just finished listening to this book, all 48 hours of it! (I started it on 16 April) It's the third in the series and was utterly enthralling. As with the previous two audio books, this one is read by Roy Dotrice and he does a wonderful job of bring the characters to life.

The scope of this series is huge and it has pretty much become part of my life since I got hooked on the first one after my second attempt. It took me two attempts to get going on the first one due to the sheer number of characters and their various alliances and family histories.

One of the great things about these books is that the author presents ALL the characters in an objective light. Sure, there are “goodies” and “baddies” in a sense, but the lines are blurred and it becomes easy therefore to feel compassion for whomever happens to have the limelight in the tale.

As with the first book, Martin has no qualms about killing off the central characters, although it does still come as a shock at times. It makes the story more gripping though, as there are times when the reader really doesn't know if a main character is about to meet their demise or not. They die when it's not expected, and stay alive when it seems likely that they will be killed.

I won't give away any plot spoilers, so better leave it there.

I just read a few reviews over on audible.com of the fourth book, A Feast for Crows. It's read by someone else and that seems in poor taste to me when I've got so used to Roy's voices and accents (strange that Tyrian Lannister should be Welsh though, when his father, Lord Tywin, sounds like Winston Churchill!) It also seems the case that the content of A Feast for Crows was intended to be included in the next book but was spun off for reasons of size, and so A Feast for Crows is pretty much a filler to pad out the story and does not really follow the main characters. So I'm not quite sure whether to wait or dive right in.