I’m very much enjoying the series, and it’s far too broad a book to really review in any sort of detail. I will say that I find the series as a whole, and this book in particular, to be a wonderful meditation on the nature of power and politics. It’s simplified a bit by the riddle which Varys poses to Tyrion (about the king, the priest and the merchant, each of whom order a knight to kill the other two), but explored in many other facets. Questions like, what is the nature of power? What is its limits and excesses? How do competing powers clash and what determines who emerges victorious (and what is victory, in this context?) … all of these and more are readily apparent in the various maneuvers and plots that make up this story. It’s small wonder that so many people read this story as analogous to modern politics - we are struggling with the same questions, even in a very different universe.