A Son of the Rock

Harper Voyager, 2011, 959p (plus 56p of genealogies.)
Book 5 of A Song of Ice and Fire and a wristbreaker. For my thoughts on book 4 see here.

The action this time is mostly set over the sea from Westeros; following the adventures of Tyrion and Daenerys in Andalos and Valyria but Jon Snow’s problems at the Wall and other matters in the North are also prominent.
The writing is not always as assured as it was in Books 1-4 but still drags you in. Martin’s adaptation of his usual chapter heading (the viewpoint character’s name) – resorting at times to uses such as “The Wayward Bride” and “The Spurned Suitor” instead – also muddies things. In these cases it can take a little time to work out who the section is about especially as Martin’s modus is to start with a scene not immediately following the one his character had most recently appeared in before then filling in the gap.

Martin again employs the sly trick at a chapter’s end of apparently killing off a character only to reveal several sections on that death has been averted.

I’ve always visualised Tyrion as looking like Antony Worrall Thompson, an image I just can’t get rid of when reading about him. As in A Storm of Swords the complexities of his character means the reader’s expectations can be confounded but he remains consistently interesting. Daenerys, though, here seems curiously indecisive.

With 956 pages to get through a sense of marking time begins to grow but in this volume the overall story arc of A Song of Ice and Fire is cranked up by the emergence of a lost Targaryen heir to the Iron Throne closer in line than Daenerys.

Martin’s focus is perhaps inevitably on nobles and their doings. While the scope of his vision is broad we do not see much of the small folk, who appear mostly in the background. Then again in a mediæval world how likely is it that such people would be able to become movers and shakers, drivers of plot?

The possible Science-Fictional aspect to Martin’s cycle is again alluded to in mentions of the First Men. As well as the obvious comparison with the Wars of the Roses minor parallels with our own world are understated but present. (The Valyrians left not only their steel but also roads which have survived centuries.)

In earlier volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire it was possible to imagine there might be but as the saga wears on it becomes clearer that there’s not much scope for hope in Martin’s invented world. The outcomes seem unremittingly depressing. Perhaps in Vol 6, The Winds of Winter?