A Song of Ice and Fire

The latest and long-awaited book in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, A Feast For Crows, was released on November 8. The book’s delivery represents the end of a long wait for fans of the series, although – prodded most likely by the degeneration of Jordan’s Wheel of Time series – most fans seem to prefer to wait long enough for Martin to get it right rather than demanding a quick release; and in the face of continuing difficulty with the scope of the work, Martin eventually split the book he had planned into two, publishing what he was done with and leaving the remainder of what he had planned for the next book.

A Storm of Swords continues the groundbreaking series that began with A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. It’s a massive tome that weighs in at almost 1,000 pages and continues Martin’s tradition of shaking up the characters and the world with momentous and surprising events. Rob, King in the North, continues his fight against the Lannisters – winning great victories on the battlefield, but conscious of his two sisters held as hostages.

A Clash of Kings is the second book in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. The Seven Kingdoms are beset by four Kings, all seeking to rule. The Starks, wolf-lords of the North, are scattered: Arya and Sansa hostage, Robb at war, Bran and Rickon learning to govern Winterfell. The Lannister host led by Lord Tywin opposes Robb Stark, and Tyrion is set to govern King’s Landing – if he can survive Joffrey’s whims and Cersei’s cunning.

The Hedge Knight builds on Martin’s short story in the Legends anthology about Dunk and Egg. It collects the six-issue comic series into a single graphic novel. If you missed the comics, this is a good way to catch up. The events substantially predate those in the Song of Ice and Fire series, however, and appears to be independent – that is, no information that is necessary to understand the series is presented in the graphic novel, and vice versa.

George RR Martin is a writer with a long, if less than best-selling, list of hits. His previous work includes science fiction like Tuf Voyaging, the tale of a solitary “eco-engineer” with the resources of an intersteller bioweapons facility at his command, or editing the Wild Cards collection, which featured short stories about the real problems faced by comic-book superheroes. He was established as publishable – but there was absolutely no hint of what would come.