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Race for the Iron Throne, Vol. II: Political and Historical Analysis of "A Clash of Kings"
How would you like to read A Clash of Kings with a PhD by your side? After conquering A Game of Thrones in his first ebook, Dr. Steven Attewell, the creator of the hugely popular Race for the Iron Throne blog, is back to give the same exhaustive and authoritative treatment to the second volume in George R.R. Martin's masterful A Song of Ice and Fire series. Each one of Clash's 70 chapters is broken down in meticulous detail in four key areas. The Political and Historical Analyses explore the political ramifications that each character's decisions entail while digging into the real-world historical incidents that inspired Martin's narrative twists and turns. What If? offers up a tantalizing look at how these political and historical elements could have played out in dozens of alternative scenarios, underscoring the majesty and complexity of Martin's storytelling. And Book vs. Show looks at the key differences – both good and bad – between the story as originally conceived on the printed page and as realized in HBO's Game of Thrones. At over 340,000 words, Race for the Iron Throne, Vol. II is nearly an encyclopedia instead of a reading companion – one that will prove to be indispensable to the reader who wants to pick up on every last little flourish in all of Song of Ice and Fire. there are spoilers for all five published novels in the Song of Ice and Fire series. About the author Steven Attewell is the author of Race for the Iron Throne, a blog that examines the history and politics of the Song of Ice and Fire series and HBO's Game of Thrones. He has a PhD in History from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he studied the history of public policy and was a political and union activist. In addition to Race for the Iron Throne, Steven is also a co-podcaster on Game of Thrones at the Lawyers, Guns, and Money podcast, writes about public policy at the Realignment Project, and is a co-author of the equally-authoritative Tower of the A Hymn for Spring anthology book.
1141 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 28, 2016
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February 24, 2018
I recently finished reading this in conjunction with a re-read of A Clash of Kings. For a more in-depth look at how much I enjoy Attewell's work, check out my review of Race for the Iron Throne: Political and Historical Analysis of "A Game of Thrones", because all of that positive feedback applies just as much to this book.
Attewell's insights into the political world of the ASOIAF series are incredibly valuable. I'm in the midst of my third read through of the series, and his analysis helps me pick up so many of the nuances that I missed on the first two read throughs that it's almost like reading a completely new series. As the political situation becomes more complex it's really great to read essays by someone who really understands all of the plots and intrigues. Not only that, but he also allows for competing theories, weighing the evidence for and against, and is completely up front about the times when he really doesn't know what's going on.
As with the last book, the political analysis sections of each chapter are where I get the most value. Though I will say that, as he goes along, he delves more into literary analysis of the various storylines, pointing out the ways in which Martin both subverts and honors fantasy tropes. I found this especially helpful for Dany's arc in this book, which I never really enjoyed before. His contextualization of it as a prophet narrative made me see it in a new light. I do think that, as with the first book, he somewhat fails to appreciate the literary value of Bran's storyline, and that he sometimes seems to be looking for the importance to the plot of certain elements when he should be looking more at their thematic or atmospheric resonance.
The history sections continue to be interesting, though I'll admit that I was glad when the War of the Roses comparisons thinned out. They're very apt, and he explains them well, but I just can't get into them. Same with the Constantinople/King's Landing parallels that begin to crop up toward the end of the book.
The What Ifs are tantalizing, but at this point some of them are slightly repetitive, as the larger differences between a main character living or dying don't tend to differ all that much, or they would disrupt the plot so much that they kind of bring the analysis to a standstill.
I enjoy the Book vs. Show comparisons more in this book than in the last one, though I honestly feel he goes a bit easier on the show than he could (with a few notable exceptions. I feel he nails the botch of Jon's arc in the second season).
From an editorial perspective the book has improved a lot. The first book had a large number of typos, but I didn't notice nearly as many in this one. My one big issue is that, reading this on my 5th generation Kindle, none of the illustrations displayed at all! This was largely ok, but it really detracted from some of the battle analysis, as his pictures of troop dispositions were missing. I'm not sure if anyone else had this problem, but if so I hope it is fixed in subsequent books!
An absolute joy to any die hard ASOIAF fan, I look forward to reading Attewell's continuing analysis of the series.
Attewell's insights into the political world of the ASOIAF series are incredibly valuable. I'm in the midst of my third read through of the series, and his analysis helps me pick up so many of the nuances that I missed on the first two read throughs that it's almost like reading a completely new series. As the political situation becomes more complex it's really great to read essays by someone who really understands all of the plots and intrigues. Not only that, but he also allows for competing theories, weighing the evidence for and against, and is completely up front about the times when he really doesn't know what's going on.
As with the last book, the political analysis sections of each chapter are where I get the most value. Though I will say that, as he goes along, he delves more into literary analysis of the various storylines, pointing out the ways in which Martin both subverts and honors fantasy tropes. I found this especially helpful for Dany's arc in this book, which I never really enjoyed before. His contextualization of it as a prophet narrative made me see it in a new light. I do think that, as with the first book, he somewhat fails to appreciate the literary value of Bran's storyline, and that he sometimes seems to be looking for the importance to the plot of certain elements when he should be looking more at their thematic or atmospheric resonance.
The history sections continue to be interesting, though I'll admit that I was glad when the War of the Roses comparisons thinned out. They're very apt, and he explains them well, but I just can't get into them. Same with the Constantinople/King's Landing parallels that begin to crop up toward the end of the book.
The What Ifs are tantalizing, but at this point some of them are slightly repetitive, as the larger differences between a main character living or dying don't tend to differ all that much, or they would disrupt the plot so much that they kind of bring the analysis to a standstill.
I enjoy the Book vs. Show comparisons more in this book than in the last one, though I honestly feel he goes a bit easier on the show than he could (with a few notable exceptions. I feel he nails the botch of Jon's arc in the second season).
From an editorial perspective the book has improved a lot. The first book had a large number of typos, but I didn't notice nearly as many in this one. My one big issue is that, reading this on my 5th generation Kindle, none of the illustrations displayed at all! This was largely ok, but it really detracted from some of the battle analysis, as his pictures of troop dispositions were missing. I'm not sure if anyone else had this problem, but if so I hope it is fixed in subsequent books!
An absolute joy to any die hard ASOIAF fan, I look forward to reading Attewell's continuing analysis of the series.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review