I really enjoyed this book, and am now ploughing into the third in the series. The writing continues to be wonderful -- somehow managing to get a lot of descriptive detail out there without sacrificing the page-turning pace.

This second book starts really developing the characters, particularly of Tyrion, Catelyn and Daenerys. Tyrion is really the star of this one for me, while Daenerys begins to find her feet, and Catelyn Stark somehow picks up the pieces of her rapidly disintegrating family and shows real strength.

Meanwhile, a whole host of secondary characters helps add real interest and delight.

I wonder if the author meant the title of this volume in the series to be somewhat ironic, though. There really isn't any clash of actual kings here.

While the story builds up to some powerful warfare, the kings involved seem to spend much of the time avoiding getting directly involved in fighting the other kings and their armies. One basically cheats to kill off another before he can do much fighting, one is kept safely out of harm's way by his mother, and the last one goes around skirmishing against anyone other than a main king-led force.

Anyway. On to the third!