Happy 19th birthday, A Clash of Kings

Hard as it is to believe, A Clash of Kings, the second book in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire saga, came out 19 years ago today (well, yesterday) in the United Kingdom — a US release would follow the next year, in March of 1999. Let’s take a moment to honor it.

Clash introduced us a set of new characters who by this point feel like they’ve been with the story since the beginning. How could there have been a time where A Song of Ice and Fire existed without Davos Seaworth or Brienne of Tarth? This is the first time we met Melisandre, whose powers would go on to have an enormous effect on future events; Jaqen H’ghar, who introduced Arya to the death cult of the Faceless Men; and Asha Greyjoy (Yara in the show), the current exile queen of the Iron Islands. And of course, we meet key figures like Margaery Tyrell, Stannis Baratheon, and poor little Shireen. If you believe the show, none of them make it to the finish line, but it’s worth noting that they’ll all alive and kicking in the novels.

Also: Ygritte forever.

This tome is packed to the gills with memorable scenes, including Melisandre giving birth to a shadow monstrosity, Cersei getting plastered and berating Sansa in the Red Keep, and of course, the Battle of Blackwater Bay.

Those of you who have only seen the show may be interested to know that HBO changed select parts when adapting Clash as season 2 of Game of Thrones. For example, during the battle, Tyrion raises a giant chain to keep Stannis’ fleet penned in Blackwater Bay — the show cut that bit and kept things limited to wildfire. Also, HBO invented the character of Talisa Maegyr, Robb’s wife, for the show — in the books, he marries a girl named Jeyne Westerling, and it’s less of a love connection and more of an ‘I slept with you when I was upset and now I feel bad and married you because to do otherwise would bring you dishonor’ kind of thing.

Over in Qarth, things are less histrionic — on the page, no one takes Dany’s dragons, so there’s no need for her infamous season 2 line. But if there are any hiccups in translation, HBO makes up for it by including the scenes between Tywin and Arya. Those don’t exist in the book; instead, Arya is the cupbearer for Roose Bolton, which is a good deal less fun.

The most well-known cover for A Clash of Kings is probably the one excerpted up top; a simple crown with text:

But that wasn’t the original cover. At first, it had more of a traditional fantasy feel to it, with Melisandre and Stannis taking top billing:

Melisandre is on several of the variant covers, actually — girl made an impact.

Or if not Melisandre, at least the Baratheons she serves:

Head to Japan, however, and we get terrifying Tyrion:

I’m not getting a Peter Dinklage vibe from that guy.

Best of all may be the covers of the comic book adaptations, like this one featuring Stannis with (*sob*) little Shireen:

It’s interesting how important characters like Jon Snow, Daenerys, and Robb don’t really feature on any of these covers, but I guess their journeys were at in-between stages at this point. What are publishers going to do? Put Dany’s meeting with Qarth’s merchant guild on the cover?

A Clash of Kings came out in 1998. As Redditor jhertz14 points out, that’s the same year that Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second installment in another popular fantasy franchise, was released. One of those series is long done, while the other is still plugging along. Here’s hoping we get the next book in the Song of Ice and Fire series before Clash reaches the legal drinking age.

But that doesn’t reflect on Clash itself, which remains a tight, dense read all these years later. Happy birthday, A Clash of Kings. Don’t open Melisandre’s present. Thing is haunted.

Next: Video: Is Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show “the next Game of Thrones,” and what does that even mean?

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