Wow amazing series impossible to put down love it. It has it all drama, romance, horror, even some humor thrown in. Just don't get too attached to any character you never know how long they will survive.

Well crafted fantasy book BUT paled in comparison to the first book. I felt less attached to the characters that were the focal point of this book. Tyrion is the best written and most compelling character. I am having a hard time finding anyone to root for or to identify with. Although alot happened, I felt that there was also alot of reading (these books are near 1000 pages each) that I could have cared less about. After the first book I suppose I just expected to be as drawn in and obsessed with this one. That didn't happen. It is a very intriguing concept to tell the story and have the reader not know who will get killed or betrayed next, but it leaves me a bit jaded as to who I should really even let myself care about. I am reading the third book now and hope for it to be better.

This is a great series and this second book is as good as the first. I am pacing myself but will read the third instalment soon.

I get too attached to the characters, so it's sort of sad reading it at times. But I have to say it was very good. It took me a bit to get into, but once the story picked up I was hooked =]

Engrossing and seductive and all consuming -- the ending on this one is very bloody and pained. Addictive. He's a master and I am glad to be in his hands... And gird your heart -- he says that the reader only knows he's truly serious when he kills a main character. Keep writing, George. We need you.

My favorite thing about these books is that none of the characters are black and white. As the story progresses, you realize all of the shades of gray that make up the people involved. Some characters that I thought were evil start to be likable and some that I really liked start to show their human flaws.

The general insanities from the first book continue as kings (5 kings, if you please) fight against each other and alliances are formed or broken. Only one thing in these books in certain: nothing and no one is safe, including the gods. And winter is coming.

Martin has sucked me in. Again. Fresh off my reread of A Game of Thrones, I immediately picked up the second book without a day’s respite. Not only am I surprised at how many of the details (minor subplots and lesser seen characters) I’ve completely forgotten since I first read this back in 2005, but I’m in continually awe here with Martin’s sheer skill as a writer to deftly handle an epic saga with a cast that is now literally at a thousand. He also brilliant shows that his series defies most, if not all, of the stereotypes of the fantasy genre. All of which goes to show that A Song of Ice and Fire was a more than obvious choice for a TV adaptation courtesy of the dramatic series producer-geniuses at HBO. Some highlights from this second reading include: The fierce sibling rivalry between the late King’s brothers (Stannis and Renly), Sansa’s situation (and who, despite annoying me at great length during the first book, has some of the best and most intense chapters in the series from hereon out), Arya and Tyrion (still my two favorite characters), the fiery inferno that marks the Battle of Blackwater (whose episode in season two will be scripted by none other than Martin himself, as he noted recently in his blog), and the introduction of Brienne, one of my second-tier favorite characters. There is much to love about A Clash of Kings. Once I finished all nine-hundred-and-then-some pages, I had to force myself to fit in a book that I got from the library before jumping right into A Storm of Swords. July 12th* can’t come soon enough, I tell you. * A Dance with Dragons.

This second installment picks up where the first one ends, with the war of five kings down to four, John Snow trying to protect the north from an unseen, but very dangeroue enemy, and Daenerys continues to struggle to raise an army and claim the throne. All of this is told from the point of a view of a variety of characters, some of who are likeable, some are not. To summarize the plot completely who take way to long. Suffice to say that it is rich and complex, full of twists and turns. It is hard to predict where Martin is going with his story. George R.R. Martin is also a very bad man. He creates rich, complex characters that are easy to fall in love with. And then he does horrible things to them. Or kill them. All in all, this is not a series for the faint of heart. If I have one complaint, it is the apendices that are organized by allegience, rather than alphabetically. This makes it difficult to quickly look up a character of whom you are not sure.

As epic as the title, and as the first book in the series (A Game of Thrones). These Song of Ice and Fire books are seriously lengthy, but seriously worth it! One of the things I am beginning to love and hate about GRRM is that he is not attached to his characters -- making anything possible in this clash of kings.