A Song of Ice and Fire 05. A Dance With Dragons Winner of the Deutscher Phantastik-Preis, Kategorie Bester internationaler Roman, 2013

In the second volume of „A Song of Ice and Fire” several factions claim their right to the Iron Throne and thereby to the Seven Kingdoms. The entire realm is at war and loyalties can change at any moment. Brothers are fighting against brothers and not everything is as it seems. Between incest, murder and intrigues everyone tries to find their place on the winning side. Until in the end it all leads to one final battle right at Kings Landing. 

I don’t think there is anything new I could add to the thousands of reviews already out there but since I review almost every book I read I did not want to make an exception here. To be honest I have no clue why I waited so long to finally start reading the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. While in the first book I had some problems to differentiate between all the different characters it was way easier in this one. Probably because I already knew all of them from the last one. So far I still have not watched the tv show yet because everyone keeps telling me to read the books first. Therefore I can not compare the two at all but I also do not think that this is necessary. While reading this book I really enjoyed the style of writing and also the great world building. I loved to have so many different POVs so I could really learn a lot about this world and all the characters and families in it. Although some characters are more important than others I would not say that there is one main character and therefore it’s not like most books where you can really watch one protagonist grow and change throughout the story. As the series progresses I hope we will see more developments in the main characters though. While the start of the book was a bit slow, the pace really increased in the second half and there was quite a lot of action.

In my opinion it’s a great sequel in the series and I will definitely continue reading the next book soon. 100% recommendation from my side.

Cold winds are rising through Westeros, five Pretenders are getting reading to claim what belongs in their mind to them, the Iron Throne. Neither of them is standing back from deadly plots, deceit and murderous claims. War is definitely coming, there is no one to trust, and everyone fights for themselves, even if it’s family. George R.R. Martin has truly created one of the greatest epic masterpieces, and the story continues. I know this series from TV, and although I saw how the story progressed, I always find something new in the books, some detail that adds to the bigger picture. It’s a truly long story to read, but you get used to the various characters and places, written in detail as if you were there yourself. I never had the feeling to be bored, the author has a way of telling that captures you to the end. I can’t wait to start the third instalment, in pursuit of unseen tidbits on TV.

Nicht dass die Geschichte bis jetzt schlecht gewesen wäre, ganz im Gegenteil! Allerdings übertrifft dieses Buch m.M.n. alle bisher erschiene Bänder. Was mir besonders gefällt, ist dass viele wichtige Entwicklungen bei den Charakteren stattfinden (die Geschichte kommt schnell vorwärts) und dabei einige doch sehr überraschende Wendepunkte enthalten sind. Dies wird, wie gewohnt, in hohem Niveau erzählt. Vor allem aber, gibt es praktisch keine langatmige Passagen/Kapitel, wie das leider in den nachfolgenden Bücher zum Fall wird.

Perfect second book

The printing of this book was terrible. There's a lot of letters out of place, line jumps in the middle of a sentence... it's readable, but it puts you off. These issues need to be sorted.