My new addiction to the TV show Psych is starting causing me to fall behind on my reading and writing. I have two books I've finished and need to write about and I've fallen behind the pace I need to get through 48 books. I also have three more seasons of Psych to get through, so chances are I'm going to fall even for behind before all is said and done. Damn my friend for insisting I go back and watch it. Damn Steve Franks for creating a clever, hilarious, incredibly addicting show. Damn Shawn Spencer for his snarky, pop culture referencing, crime solving. But anyway, back to books...
Storm of Swords is probably the best of the Song of Ice and Fire series that I have read so far, yet many of the problems that I had with the first two books continue to persist. Martin has created a wondrous world filled with deep and intriguing characters and tells a tale that forces you to tear through page after page, yet it never seems to quite satisfy. Many people laud Martin for creating a fantasy series that feels more real then most, a series that has proven that no character is safe from death and tribulation. But I feel all Martin has done is turn the fantasy genre on its head, not make it more real. In most fantasy stories the true and noble win out while the evil and wicked fall, but Martin seems to find pleasure in punishing the noble and putting the evil consistently on top. Granted, I'm only three books into what is supposed to be a seven book series, so there is still a chance that the characters we love will rise to victory over the ones we hate, but at the moment they just seem to be falling into deeper and deeper pits of despair, if they live at all, while the hated gain more and more power.
But even with all that despair and death, Storm of Swords was as intense and suspenseful a fantasy novel as I have ever read. Every one of the 1216 pages drips with intrigue, suspense, and eventful happenings, so much so you can't stop turning pages. It may be a book of enormous size, but it reads like something of much shorter length. Martin may have created a world where the good suffer great indignities, where the evil get to celebrate the spoils of their dispositions, where the perverse just to be perverse rules over all, but all that seems to add up to a great page turner.
I'm not sure where Martin is going with some of his storylines, the zombies are a plot point I'm very scared of (not scared of the horror, but scared of it being a stupid direction to be taking us), the fire religion seems to involve a bit more magic then I would like, but none of that took away from my enjoyment of this book. As much as I fear where things are headed, as much as I fear for the demise of every character that I like, as much as I dislike the spiral of despair Martin seems to be taking us down into, this was an excellent read. Storm of Swords is fantasy writing at its best and makes the reading of the first two books all that much more worth it. This may very well be the pinnacle of the series, and if that is so, it is still quite the high point and makes the series worth a read.
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