Book three of A Song of Ice and Fire. "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). "This is one of those rare and effortless reads" -(Robin Hobb). "Colossal, staggering ... Martin captures all the intoxicating complexity of the Wars of the Roses or Imperial Rome in his imaginary world" - (SFX).