A Storm of Swords

Book 3 of A Song of Ice and Fire

By: George R.R. Martin

Narrated by: Roy Dotrice

HBO’s hit series A GAME OF THRONES is based on George R R Martin’s internationally bestselling series A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, the greatest fantasy epic of the modern age. A STORM OF SWORDS is the third volume in the series.

The Seven Kingdoms are divided by revolt and blood feud, and winter approaches like an angry beast. Beyond the Northern borders, wildlings leave their villages to gather in the ice and stone wasteland of the Frostfangs. From there, the renegade Brother Mance Rayder will lead them South towards the Wall.

The men of the Night’s Watch are ready for the coming of a great cold and the walking corpses that travel with it. But now they face a horde of wildlings twenty-thousand strong – hungry savage people steeped in the dark magic of the haunted wilderness – poised to invade the Kingdom of the North where Robb Stark wears his new-forged crown.

But Robb’s defences are ranged against attack from the South, the land of House Stark’s enemies the Lannisters. His sisters are trapped there, dead or likely yet to die, at the whim of the Lannister boy-king Joffrey or his depraved mother Cersei, regent of the Iron Throne. Cersei’s ambition is unfettered while the dwarf Tyrion Lannister fights for his life, a victim of treachery.

And on the other side of the ocean, the last of the Targaryens rears the dragons she hatched from her husband’s funeral pyre. Daenerys Stormborn will return to the land of her birth to avenge the murder of her father, the last Dragon King on the Iron Throne.

©2011 George R. R. Martin (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

‘Colossal, staggering… Martin captures all the intoxicating complexity of the Wars of the Roses or Imperial Rome in his imaginary world… one of the greats of fantasy literature.’
SFX

‘Fantasy literature has never shied away from grandeur, but the sheer-mind-boggling scope of this epic has sent other fantasy writers away shaking their heads… Its ambition: to construct the Twelve Caesars of fantasy fiction, with characters so venomous they could eat the Borgias.’
Guardian

‘Truly epic… An extraordinarily rich novel… with its magnificent action-filled climax, it provides a banquet for fantasy lovers with large appetites… The book stands out from similar work by virtue of its superbly developed characters, accomplished prose and sheer bloody-mindedness.’
Publishers Weekly

‘A vast, rich saga, with splendid characters and an intricate plot flawlessly articulated against a backdrop of real depth and texture.’
Kirkus

Brilliant story - better than the TV series

The book's are better than the series as they are separate and interesting in their differences. I loved the narrative but at times - the narrator ruins the voices of some of the characters. My most hideous is the hand maiden of Daenerys - he does an awful rendition of an extremely old fashioned and insulting Asian accent from a bad Pink Panther movie.
Martin's characters and world are wonderful filled with people you love and many you love to hate. I loved the TV series and it brought me to the books and I now love the written version as well. Just 'differently'...

Exceptional

A damn good story just listen and lose yourself in the world of despair and desperation.

Brilliant.

What did you love best about A Storm of Swords (Part One) - Steel and Snow?

Everything. Don't mean to be glib. But it is simply brilliant.

Who was your favorite character and why?

All of them. Masterfully rendered.

Have you listened to any of Roy Dotrice’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes. As brilliant as ever.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I don't think I would like to listen to any book for 24 hours straight. But if I had to, this would be the one.

Brilliant narrator

Roy is a brilliant narrator. He brings life to each and every character. I’m sorry to hear he passed. The next narrator for the last two books of the series, if George RR Martin ever decides to complete them, has large boots to fill.

I had to stop...

I had to stop what I was doing to pick up my jaw, lest I stepped on it.
I think I have learned how this man writes and so brace myself for an unexpected turn, trying to predict where the book will go but for the life of me, I can not pick most of the plot line twists.
You can imagine how stoked I am when I come close to guessing it but on the whole, this series is highly recommended for those who wish to be taken on a roller coaster for over 200 hours.

Roy Dotrice... Legendary

Roy Dotrice broke the world record for the GOT series with 224 accents and character voices.
He never falters and it does not take long for a listener to know which character is speaking without any need for prompting.

He ought to be knighted

More of the same but getting hotter

This is the third in the series. I am so glad I didn't read these books I would never have been able to read the amount I have listened to. Even listening I am finding that other things are getting in the way of my continuing to hear my story.

NARRATOR - Just the same as the first two books. He continues to disappoint in the accent department. But once again he is not too flowery or overly dramatic which would have ruined this saga. Overall he does a good job. I just think that I am spoiled by having listened to the magnificent Humphrey Bower too often (I mean honestly… how could anyone better THOSE performances??).

STORY – In this book the story becomes very graphic indeed concerning violence and sex. I repeat, this is not a story for little people, or even most tweens for that matter. But it continues to be a great story and is still moving along at a good pace with only a bit of “filler” creeping in here and there. The majority of the female characters remain a little one dimensional which annoys me. Having said that, this is improving, as some of the women (and girls), have started to show a little more to their characters than just pure good or pure evil.

I would recommend this book as the third in a series. It is not a read alone book, you have to start at the beginning.

Great book

The game of thrones series is full of plot twists and cliffhangers, I would recommend it to everyone.

Awesome.

Just as awesome as the first part of the story. And if the same bloke reads the rest of the books the rest will be just as good.

The best in the series yet!

A Storm of Swords is the third book in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. It is in my view the best of the series so far. There is so much going on, and its all nail-biting and exciting! It evokes so many emotions in you, you literally cannot stop until you get to the end. The characters grow and start changing. You see different sides to most of them and start understanding them much better.
 
The narration is, once again, absolutely amazing. Roy has more voices than you could ever imagine and does them all with flair. What an epic performer!
 
This was definitely the best in the series thus far, I highly recommend this book.