A Storm of Swords is generally thought of as the greatest of the five books so far, and with good reason: it's in Storm of Swords where we get, in the last third of the book:
- the Red Wedding
- the Purple Wedding
- Tyrion's trial
- The Viper vs the Mountain
- Tyrion's escape and slaying of his father
- The Big Reveal of Littlefinger as the architect of all Westeros' troubles
- Arya and the Hounds final Battle in the Inn at the Crossroads where Polliver and the Tickler meet their ends
- Two battles at the Wall, each one respectively ending with the death of Ygritte and the salvation of the Night's Watch by Stannis Baratheon
- The election of Jon Snow as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch
It's an incredible ride that offers climax after climax after climax.
Having said that I consider the combined reading order of A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. The two books run(more or less) concurrently, so it works.
This is a cheating a bit, but I really believe the books work better together. And I think GRRM's growing as an author--and I'm a man who's enjoyed all his books from the late seventies 'til now.
Compared to the other books these two books:
- The prose is overall more elegant and beautifully written
- the story is more ambiguous, denser, richer and more mysterious
- there's an unusual symmetry in many of the storylines
- the horrors are more horrific, especially the non-magical depictions of human brutality
- features beautifully Tolkien-esque descriptive passages of brilliant world-building
- most of all, for me, the fascinating, multi-faceted characters of the first three books have gained so much more depth, resonance and texture.
So if I'm permitted to cheat a little by combining A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, I will do that.
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