And the war continues. Following on from the events of A Clash of Kings, Martin once more takes us to Westeros and the continuing battle for the kingdom. One concern I do have with the book is with ongoing deaths. We saw numerous characters die in the first two books and more die in book three. There is going to be a point where all (or most) of the characters I care about have died. And that makes me wonder if I’m going to want to finish the series. But, Martin hasn’t disappointed yet. Let’s go and see what’s going on with the four remaining kings.

With Renly dying under mysterious circumstances and his guard Brienne going over to Catelyn Stark, we are down to four kings and a lot of war left. Catelyn frees Jaime Lannister (under guard of Brienne) with a promise from Jaime that Joffrey will release Sansa and Arya. Jaime finds that Brienne is more than he can handle and more faithful to Catelyn than he expected. Their journey causes Jaime to reconsider his life.

Robb comes back having had a quickie while recovering from a wound and decided to marry the girl. This causes an issue since we was promised to a daughter of Lord Frey. The betrayal hurts his war effort since his army will lose Frey’s support. With the help of Catelyn, Robb offers to marry off his cousin Edmure Tulley to a daughter of Frey.

Tywin Lannister has taken over the duties of the Hand from Tyrion and is making plots to win the war for Joffrey. Part of it includes having Joffrey marry Margaery Tyrell instead of Sansa. But, to have a claim on the North, Tyrion is betrothed to Sansa instead.

Meanwhile, Stannis is wandering around with his red priestess Melisandre (who was responsible for Renly’s death) and he gives her some of his blood in exchange for the deaths of the three other kings (Balon Greyjoy, Joffrey and Robb).

And then beyond the wall, Jon Snow has been ordered to pretend to align himself with the Wildlings. He finds himself stuck wondering if he is keeping his vows by following orders or breaking his vows and enjoying it.

As you can see there are dozens of plot threads that Martin skillfully juggles for several hundred pages and a number of months. But, as we start getting near the end of the book, we start seeing more and more sacrifices for war and vendetta being played out. We find that the simple plans we were led to believe are deeper and darker than we anticipated. Martin has created a compelling story and characters, but (as I mentioned above) my main concern is whether the continuing loss of characters is going to affect my enjoyment of future novels. Highly recommended.

This post is part of the thread: Song of Ice and Fire Books – an ongoing story on this site. View the thread timeline for more context on this post.