Regarding A Storm of Swords

I recently finished A Storm of Swords.  I'll talk about it briefly, but I warn you now of spoilers.

So, everything's pretty frakked up, which is par for the course for Westeros.  Everyone is evil to everyone else, except for a few northern peoples.
I was slightly surprised when, near the end, they explained that dragonglass actually isn't effective against the wights.  Here, I figured that the dragonglass broke against mail because mail is metal, but dissolved the Other because it was stabbed in its unarmored neck.  I liked the bit where the literal crows came to rescue Sam and Gilly under the heart tree, giving possible meaning to the black and a possible history of heart trees as protectors, if those are what drew the crows to eat the wights.  Then again, "Coldhands" showed up on his gigantic elk, so maybe he had a hand in it.  (I haven't read the next two books, of course, so I'll have to wait and see.)
Oh, and here's something really meta:  I figured that George R.R. Martin was showing how complex of a world it is, that the lord of the Dreadfort - whose symbol is the flayed man and whose family is known for torture, and things like "a naked man has few secrets; a flayed man has none" - was on the side of the good guys (read: Starks).  So, I was actually surprised when Roose Bolton turned out to be evil.
Actually, the thing that strikes me as odd about this book is how much good happens in it.  I mean, sure, Robb Stark and Grey Wind die, which sucks, but Joffrey dies, too, so there's that.  Balon Greyjoy dies, only to be replaced by his brother, but we know so little about these vikings ironmen that it's hard for me to care. Sansa's out of King's Landing and, though she's in Littlefinger's hands, and he just killed her aunt, I'd still call it an improvement.  Bran's north of The Wall to go get his psychic powers, Jon's Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Gregor Clegane is suffering horribly (and I had such high hopes for his death), and Arya is finally off to Braavos.
Honestly?  When I found out that "valar morghulis" meant "all men must die", I expected her to meet Syrio Forel, say that word to him while showing him the coin, and have his head explode or something, where it turns out that the iron coin is some kind of Braavosi-slaying tool and she had to suffer some horrible pain or something to learn to become a face-changer.  I mean, really, would you blame me for expecting anything less at this point?
When I get around to reading the next book, here are my points of anticipation:

• Daenerys and her attempts at the whole monarchy thing
• Arya's journey to Braavos
• Who the frak is Coldhands?  
• What the frak is Coldhands?  
• What will the consequences of the massive violation of the guest right on the part of the Freys be?  
• So... Rickon?  
• What is Littlefinger's apparently really long and well thought-out scheme?  
• Tyrion's an actual kinslayer now.  Consequences?  
• I liked Patchface.  He had this whole creepy quasi-prophetic vibe going on.  What ever became of him?  

By the way, I think that Daenerys could be carried by her dragons if she had a lightweight litter made w/ 3 handles on the top for her dragons to hold.  That said, it's probably too silly to appear in the series, but it's a thought.  

Regarding A Clash of Kings

[Significant spoilers for A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin follow.]
Recently, I finished A Clash of Kings, and I've moved on to A Storm of Swords.  As much as I'm enjoying the series, I'm going to have to take a break from A Song of Ice and Fire after that, since I'll finally be ahead of the HBO series that's been prompting so many spoilers around the web.  I've got, like, a bajillion other things to read.  I'll get back to it, don't worry.  I do have the next two books, after all.
A Clash of Kings is what it says on the can.  We start out with the four kings that we had at the end of the last book.  Then one is assassinated by magic - hooray for more magic - and then another one pops up on the other side of the continent.  Though, now that I think about it, Greyjoy sure is taking his dear sweet time about conquering things, especially given that the iron men are pretty much straight up viking/klingon/those-bad-guys-from-The-Chronicles-of-Riddick analogues:  Kill people and take their stuff.
The main impression that I have from A Clash of Kings comes from a few chapters during which I felt rather upset not only that Bran and Rickon had been killed off - especially before Bran got to really utilize his psychic mystic powers - but also that we didn't even get to see how Theon managed to find them and get past the direwolves.  So, basically, I was relieved when that turned out to be just a fake-out.
Oh, also, I was frustrated to no end with Arya's incompetence regarding her three kills.  I kind of wanted to see that chaos that would be wrought if she'd spent one on Tywin Lannister.  Furthermore, I was just plain surprised that she didn't use one on Gregore Clegane:  He was responsible for the deaths of several of her fellows, her own capture, and that of her fellow survivors, and he's nearly unkillable.
I was also glad to get some progress on that stuff beyond The Wall.  (It seems to be paying off quite well in A Storm of Swords, too.)

Regarding A Game of Thrones

WARNING:  The following post contains spoilers for the novel A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin.

The spoilers leaking out of people due to the popular HBO series A Game of Thrones bumped the novel up on my reading list.  I finished it recently, so I thought that I'd share some thoughts on it.
Overall, I liked it.  The perspective characters were used effectively.  The story also seemed to effectively convey a world in which magic once existed, but now was all but gone, at least in the main area.  I was actually a bit relieved when the corpses found north of the wall turned out to be revenants, since I was starting to worry that there wouldn't be any actual magic involved.
I suffered some disappointment near the end, though.  For one, when Drogo learned of the king's orders to assassinate Daenerys, and committed himself to taking his khalasar across the sea, I was like thinking, "Alright, this is going to happen."  But then, it didn't.  Also, when Dany's child wound up being stillborn, it of course raised questions about the nature of prophecy in the world, but I think that I was even more disappointed when I read the description of it, which included scales and everything.  We could have had some kind of draconic dude in this story and we didn't?!
Well, at least the dragons hatched by the end.  Those eggs were such a tease.
It sounds like I'm complaining but I think that that's because it's easier to specify what disappointed me (not necessarily "disliked") than it is to specify what I actually liked.
That said, don't get me started on how crappy Mirri Maz Duur's plan was.

P.S.:  Are all of the books going to include the title (maybe minus the leading article) in the dialogue?