Customer Reviews

A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4)

Yes, many of the other reviewers are right. As I read this the first time, I was frustrated. It didn't really follow some of my fav characters, as they appear in book 5 (A Dance With Dragons). And even the first 2/3 of ADWD follow the same template as this one, there's much more talk and much less action than in the previous titles. Many characters travel long roads and it feels like nothing really happens. It's very tempting to rush through, wanting to get to the good parts, the ones you imagine will be filled with action, retribution, vengeance. Several plots are filled with walking and talking, chapter after chapter. Some characters fail in whatever quest they're set on, and even die (or did they now?). Some characters seem to devolve, they grow insecure, weaker, make mistakes and bad choices - or no choices. Others are still to young and I want them to grow older faster.

However, that has never been GRRMs world, not is it what makes the books great. The books have never only followed the success stories, the good guys, or those that survives. Not every character has enough luck that saves them at the last minute over and over. That's what makes the story great, now and in the previous books.

Once I think about it, this has to happen. And come to think of it, it has happened like that in the previous books as well. The action and tension did rise from book to book, but this is the middle piece, the "The Empire Strikes Back" (after Hoth). A lull in Westeros, as several plots have reached a sort of semi-conclusion, and most of the pieces and players are now being set up for the next big push.

Read the book with a calm mind, and relish in the stories and characters instead of wanting the stories to reach where you want them to go. They won't go where you want them to go anyway, and definitely not where you expect them to go. And you know it - they never did in the past! :)

In short, my expectations were more to blame for my frustration with the book than the book itself.

well you kinda knew it had to happen sooner or later. it took robert jordan 6 books before it all started to fall apart so i guess george is about on track. i'm coming to the conclusion that you can only write so many pages on one project before it starts to eat itself.
the author sums it up in the first line of his aknowledgements...to start with the good bits: the characters are still reasonably complex and engaging, the plotting is as devious as ever, the dialogue snappy. there is no doubt the george rr martin can write.
the problem is that nothing much happens. jaime plods around the riverlands, arya plods around braavos, sam plods south and brienne plods all over the shop. lots of plodding not alot of action. the only people moving the plot along with any pace are cersei and the iron born and we catch only glimpses of the latter.
what some might call quiet and subtle plot advancement, i call static and flabby. all the plot lines in this book could be tied up in under a hundred pages leaving plenty left for events of more impact. and there are numerous events that need to happen if this series is to finish this side of 10 books. if we continue at this pace we may never reach the end.....hmmmmmm.
it's a shame as the series has been generally fantastic. the fact this installment took nearly five years to write suggests that the author is having trouble working out where the story is going, and that's exactly how it feels when you read it.
call me old fashioned but i believe stories should have a beginning a middle and an end; this one's middle is swiftly approaching obesity.

This book is not like what has gone before. It looks at the main kingdom of Westeros in the aftermath of the war of the five kings, a fractured more 'Dark Age' milieu where royal power has to be imposed rather than acknowledged. Some of the very negative reviews here dwell on the long lists, descriptions of food and heraldry, convoluted descriptions of family trees, days spent in minutely described daily life with little 'plot' and the inherent problems of multiple viewpoint narratives (you are more interested in some of the characters than others). All these are stylistic features of the series as a whole. Some of us like them - I feel they have the smack of Medieval Romance fiction about them - some don't.

The warning has to be that most of the best characters have gone. Samwell Tarley has long outstayed his welcome. His function was to look at the Nightswatch from the point of view of outsider, the North from the point of view of a pampered southerner and those he did well. Left on his own to see a sea voyage, a dying old man and a poorly imagined fantasy Venice, his chapters drag and should have been left out.

The story arc about the fantasy vikings of the Iron Isles introduces several more characters and viewpoints, but as their viewpoints are little more than dark age fantasy cliches and not the high/late medieval ambience of the series they form a subset which will appeal to some readers but not to me.

It is unfair to say that all of the book is boring and pointless. There is a Dornish plot which is conceived and executed in the course of the book. Jaime Lannister is an excellent character, developing gradually and plausibly. Cersei degenerates into paranoia, but I hardly see this as contrary to her established character. it simply shows how reliant she actually was on the politicians of the small council, now nearly all gone. The main story arc unfolding is the subjugation of the remaining rebel strong holds, and the re-arming of the faith. This seems very significant as the 'Protestant' iconoclastic religion of Stannis receives its backlash as the 'catholic' religion of the Seven gets its inquisition, religious fighting orders and crusades of the counter reformation.

Unlike many reviewers I like the knight errantry of Brienne (romance heroism in a realistic world). I have no time for Arya Stark, but she had a vaulable perspective in Westeros, a less useful one on fantasy Venice. Sansa I really enjoyed as a polite 'standard' medieval noble woman looking on the terrible world of Kingslanding politics from the outside. Looking at the dull tidying up of events in the Vale is not a good use of this character and we could probably all have done well without that being covered.

And no Tyrion, no Jon, no Dany - well, I don't think they'd be making a TV series of this book! Expect heavy cutting by the time HBO reaches it.

My conclusion is if you are following the series, of course you'll have to read it. I feel that Martin has now become too big and too famous for his editors to hold any sway over him, but he ought to take note of the characters he writes about and realise that a wise councillor whose judgement you can trust might be exactly what he needs to carry him and the readers to the end of the series.

First, let me say that I will be sticking with the series and I have not written off forthcoming instalments based on my opinion of this book.

A Feast for Crows is an extremely frustrating book. Martin has taken the very dubious step of ditching half of the characters and leaving their stories for A Dance With Dragons. This results in a constant, nagging feeling that you really are missing out on half of the plot and that the story would benefit enormously from the perspectives of those characters that have been put on the back burner.

The plot is supposed to be charting the mess left after the various conflicts of the previous books but instead is itself just a tangled mess as the author, trapped in his character per chapter format, is forced to chop backwards and forwards too often between a silly number of threads and in doing so loses the overall continuity of the story.

Sadly, there is the real possibility that Martin has overreached himself and is struggling badly to stay on top of the various sub-plots he has created. I really hope that he quickly consolidates the multitudinous threads in the next book so that the climax has the time to play out properly in the final two volumes. It does not bode well that Martin admits that the writing for A Dance With Dragons is not proceeding quite as he had hoped!

One more thing to get off my chest - I am becoming extremely weary of Martin's love of inflicting cruelty on his key characters. Occasionally it is good for the story (Jaime's hand for instance) but the rest of the time is pretty pointless. Still, it seems Martin will not be happy unless he has killed or horribly maimed all his characters by the conclusion of the series.

Overall this book puts me in mind of a car stuck in a muddy field, frantically spinning it's wheels and beeping it's horn but not actually getting anywhere. I can only hope that Martin rediscovers some of the direction that made the first few books of the series enjoyable.

I think I've benefitted from having re-read the first three books immediately prior to reading Feast. That meant I didn't feel the long wait so much between book 3 and 4. Also, I knew from having read reviews here that the story concentrated on events in and around King's Landing, and that the next book would pick up the other characters. Thus, forearmed (or forewarned?), I wasn't disappointed about who was missing.

Book 3 was just so explosive, there was no way GRRM could keep that pace going. So, he's taken his foot off the padal a wee bit, and what we get instead is some interesting and entertaining side story. At least I think it's side story - it's actually difficult to say what the central story line is. I used to think it centred on the Starks. It kind of still does, but four books in, I still don't know who is behind the main threat, or really what the main threat is. The writing's entertaining, though, and I'm happy to stick with it for the time being.

I found the events at Dorne interesting and liked the inclusion of characters there. I'm very much enjoying Arya's story and also found Brienne's story interesting. The events in and around the Iron Islands was good, too. Nothing jaw-dropping, but each moving the story along, albeit at a very slow pace. Out of everyone featured, I think Jaime and Sansa's stories were the least developed. While Jaime seems to be going through some sort or re-evaluation of his life and beliefs, Sansa continues to be pretty and go where she's told.

One final point, this book begins with a prologue (I don't really get prologues in sequential multi-volume books that tell a single story, but maybe that's just me). Stuff happens in that prologue, and you sense a new, and perhaps even major character, appearing. I'm a little wary of 'important characters' appearing at this stage, but my main gripe with the prologue is that it's not revisited until the final chapter, 800-odd pages on. By which point I'd forgotten the precise detail of the prologue, so had to go back an re-read it to appreciate the import and dramatic impact of the book's final sentences.

All in all, I don't agree with the comparisons to WoT, but can appreciate the point being made. I would mark books 1-3 in this epic as 5 stars; this book gets 4 from me ie 'I like it'.

If this was a stand alone book, or the series finished here I would not give it 4 stars, but I feel this book is necessary and important to the series as a whole.

Another review stated that the author could have shortened all the character's stories and added in more events and action. I disagree. George Martin has created us a world and in depth characters, and I for one would not like to skip any of their stories just so I could have more battle scenes.

The events in this book centre around King's Landing and most of the politics therein. The next book happens at the same time as this one and has more of the "action". A Feast for Crows is not boring in the slightest, but it does lack the nail biting tension of the earlier books. It remains a gripping, well written book and I plan to include it in my repeated re-reads of the series.

Aftering watching a few episodes of GOT on the TV I went out and purchased the books and could barely put down the first 3, the pace was good the stories twisted and turned and the world came to life.
Then I picked up Crows and for the first time found myself putting down the book to do something more interesting. This seemed to move at such a slow pace, and nothing happened...
It reminded me of other books at this type of stage they have alot of pages alot of dialogue and small stories but when it came down to it 90% could have been ditched and the 10% left would have been a better book.

When an author writes an apology at the end of a book about the way they have written it, you begin to realise why you were so confused reading the book. The author likes to start a storyline but not to finish it, only for the reader to find out what happened a number of chapter later by filling in the blanks themselves. It is still a good read and I will be reading the next book. If you like a flow to your stories then this is not for you.

I have read almost everything Martin has written. He is an amazingly good writer. I read and loved the first three books in the series, and then I waited five long years for the next. Then, just as I had about given up hope, it finally appears.

But what a disappointment. This book ambles along, going nowhere. Nothing much happens. It's nothing but politics, and it features all the least interesting characters from the first books. If Martin wasn't such a good writer I never would have finished. I did so only in the hope that the next book will be along soon and must surely be better. A note at the end of the book virtually apologizes, and says all the other (and more interesting characters) will be along in the next installment.

George, please don't keep us waiting for the next book. This one hasn't exactly whetted my appetite. You could lose a lot of fans if it doesn't appear soon.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first three books in the series, managing to (somehow) cope with a personae dramatis that makes the castlist of Cleopatra read paltry in comparison.

However I think I've reached my personal limit now as to how many more irrelevant characters I need to be introduced to. Is it really necessary to give us a chapter featuring five? six? random whores with their names, what they're wearing, their background, who we will never meet again, who bring nothing but futher words and even more characters to the party, which is already thronging with nephews, cousins, fourth cousins of what seems like a trillion different families?

I'm exhausted.

I've given up trying to keep track of all those people, all those fourth, fifth marriages, 16 bastards and gods knows what else.

Dear author, give us a break.

Please.

Just get on with THE STORY.

Give us some interesting, relevant things that move the story forward, or points of view on the story that are more interesting.

There is no need for this what I can only perceive as delaying tactics.

There is plenty of stuff to write a thousand more stories about this world, past, future and present. More than there's time left on this plane for the author to ever begin to explore or write down. Which is what worries me. Will the author live long enough to get around to Daenerys Targaryen ever mounting a dragon?

Will I?

I'll give Book 5 a chance.

Book Four was exhausting, disappointing and definitely suffering from a dirth of dragons.