I bought the second book in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Clash of Kings, which is being filmed now. I'd hoped to find it secondhand, but I couldn't wait any longer so I bought it new on Friday evening. It's compulsive reading. I finished it yesterday afternoon and started A Storm of Swords. I peeped ahead a bit on some websites to find out what happens to my favourite characters. Sadly, two of my favourites come to a tragic and rather grisly end in this book.

My favourites in A Game of Thrones remained my favourites in the tv series because the actors were just right. I like all the Starks. I didn't like Sansa much to start with but by the end of Game of Thrones she showed strength of character when she found herself in a dangerous and precarious position at the court. My favourites of the Starks are Catelyn and Robb. I wish there were chapters from Robb's point of view. All the others except Rickon have their own chapters.

I wasn't too sure about Richard Madden as RobbStark, but he played the role so well. I'm pleased with these comments by one of the executive producers/writers of the tv series, D. Weiss:

"Weiss: In the book there are a couple of characters who have more of an offscreen role and come back in Book 3. But in the case of, say, Robb Stark — played by Richard Madden — he has more of an offscreen presence in the book, but Richard did such a fabulous job once his character came to the fore, he so commanded the screen that we realized there’s no way to talk about this guy and not have him in the show. So there are people offscreen in the book who we are going to write onscreen in the show to make sure people who viewers have fallen in love with are still there in the second season."