The best in the series.
Why?
Well, there’s one clear reason for my opinion, and that’s Martin’s ruthless way of toying with his readers’ emotions in the book. At times he gives the reader some slack, making them believe that hey, maybe Arya will actually get to her mother, or Tywin Lannister will turn out to be a man of honor after all — until he pulls the rug out from under the reader’s feet, leaving them lying on the ground in shock. All hope died so suddenly, the reader thought.
What also makes A Storm of Swords so powerful is that the always-fascinating events at the Wall and beyond the Wall are unfolding at an accelerating pace as we follow them not only from Jon’s perspective, but also from Sam Tarly’s, and even a third character’s. In King’s Landing, which was a relatively dull place in A Clash of Kings, more exciting things happen for a change, thanks to Tyrion and Sansa.
This book comes very close to being a perfect fantasy novel. I have to nitpick, though, not so much about the page count (~1,200) as about the rambling. The story branches off in every compass direction, and it’s questionable whether all the scenes are necessary, whether each scene contains something essential to the whole. As compelling as A Storm of Swords is, a bolder editor might have pushed Martin to kill a few of his darlings for the sake of the story’s integrity.
