A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings was published in the United Kingdom on 16 November 1998, with the first American edition following in February 1999. It is the second of the seven novels George R. R. Martin planned for A Song of Ice and Fire, and like the first book it won the Locus Award for best novel, in 1999, while also being shortlisted for the Nebula Award that year. The novel's structure is a widening rather than a deepening: the number of viewpoints grows, and the map the reader is expected to hold in their head grows with it.

The war for the throne is fought by people who each have a defensible claim and none of whom are good. Renly and Stannis Baratheon are brothers who have decided that being right matters less than being king, and the boy king in the capital is managed by his grandfather and his mother. Martin uses the point of view chapters to keep the reader level with characters who do not know what is happening elsewhere, which is why the book's most famous battle is reported from several directions and partly off the page.

The fantasy material stays at the edges of the story: the comet that appears over the world is interpreted differently by every faction, the woman with the dragons is thousands of miles away, and the thing beyond the Wall is still being treated as a rumour by the men at court. The volume was adapted as the second season of the television series Game of Thrones, and a limited illustrated edition followed from Meisha Merlin in 2005.