Winter approaches Westeros like an angry beast. The Seven Kingdoms are divided by revolt and blood feud. In the northern wastes, a horde of hungry, savage people steeped in the dark magic of the wilderness is poised to invade the Kingdom of the North where Robb Stark wears his new-forged crown. And Robb’s defences are ranged against the South, the land of the cunning and cruel Lannisters, who have his younger sisters in their power. Throughout Westeros, the war for the Iron Throne rages more fiercely than ever, but if the Wall is breached, no king will live to claim it. Someone of you may have spotted that I started reading this gargantuan series just before the first season of the television adaption aired here in the UK. So far I’ve managed to stick to this routine. Book two was read last year and I’ve been waiting patiently for another year to pass before I could immerse myself in the lands of Westeros once again. The War of the Five Kings continues and everywhere violence, treachery and political power-plays abound. Martin really likes to make his characters suffer doesn’t he? No one is safe from their creator’s steely gaze. Arya…

Please note A Clash of Kings is the second novel in an on-going series and may therefore contain potential spoilers for anyone who has not read book one of the series, A Game of Thrones. Proceed at your own peril.  The price of glory From the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns as pretenders to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms prepare to stake their claims. As a prophecy of doom cuts across the sky – a comet the colour of blood and flame – five factions struggle for control of a divided land. Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, the price of glory is measured in blood. Almost a year ago I finally got around to reading the first novel in the saga A Song of Ice and Fire. I had actively avoided A Game of Thrones for a long time because, if I’m being honest, I was a little intimidated by the hugeness of it all. By the time I started reading there were already four novels available and the fifth was on the horizon. After completing, and enjoying, the first book I had significantly revised my…

Kings and queens, knights and renegades, liars, lords and honest men. All will play the Game of Thrones. Summers span decades. Winters can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun. It will stretch from the south, where the heat breeds plot, lusts and intrigues; to the vast frozen north where a 700-foot wall of ice protects the kingdom from the dark forces that lie beyond. The Game of Thrones. You win, or you die. I’m not adverse to a massive doorstop of a novel. Peter F Hamilton, Stephen King, Frank Herbert have all written huge books that I have not only read but re-read numerous times. When it comes to A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin things are just slightly different. I have been promising myself that I would read the first book in the A Song of Ice and Fire saga for a long time. So long in fact that it became something of a personal Moby Dick, my literary equivalent of a great white whale. It got to the stage where I was a little intimidated by the whole thing and I never thought I would get around to reading…

I have explained in the past that I am not a massive fan of short story collections but there is an exception to every rule. In my opinion, The Wild Cards novels are the best ongoing series of short stories available today. When I heard that Tor Books was re-releasing the first novel I felt compelled to immediately start re-reading my old copy. How best to describe the concept of Wild Cards? The quick answer would be – imagine an alternative Earth where an alien virus has been released and as a result super-powered humans exist openly in society. That description doesn’t do the novels justice, as the Wild Cards cannon is so much more than that. At the end of World War II, as the world enters the atomic age, an alien virus is released over the streets of Manhattan. Everyone is in the area is affected by the virus and will suffer one of three seemingly random possible outcomes – known as wild cards. Firstly, there is the ‘Black Queen’ a painful and unpleasant death. Another possibility is becoming a ‘Joker’ meaning that the victim is mutated and disfigured. The final possibility is to pull an ‘Ace’ –…