A Feast for Crows: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Four

It's doubtful that any sort of review will stop someone who has read the first three books from reading this long-awaited and justly anticipated instalment. Nevertheless, I'd like to voice an opinion which falls between the extremes which seem to be the most prevalent sort of reponses to this book.

Mr Martin is a great fantasy writer, and I don't think that has changed. However, A Feast For Crows is not up to the standard of this first three in the series. What I suspect HAS changed is the commercial pressure that has been placed on Mr Martin, combined with (I hate to say it) a growing over-indulgence which has been allowed him. When George Martin defends the delays, longer-than-expected lengths, and the seemingly extraneous side-stories, he is fond of referring to Tolkien by saying that "the story writes itself" (or something like that). I don't doubt that Martin experiences this "divine inspiration" like many other great artists, but this time around he seems to have been unable (or more likely, unwilling) to step away from that feeling to undergo the painful process of editing. When the pressure to make a release led to a cutting in half of the anticipated book, thus allowing two books of about 700 pages rather than one of about, say, 1000, it seems that Martin took it as a cue to go easy on the editing. The splitting of the book is itself substantially detrimental, but Martins lack of self-criticism is the real reason why this book is somewhat disappointing. Not everything created by the divine inspiration of great artists is great art.

People who are claiming that there is no plot development, either within the book or for the series, are of course exaggerating. There are certain interesting revelations and developments that will no doubt play a role in the eventual (and I say that optimistically) resolution of the series. Take for (spoiler-free) example the potential rise of the Church of the 7 gods as a major political player, the implied motivations of the masters in Oldtown, the (loss of) direction that Berric Dondarions outlaws have taken, the grand plans of the new king of the Iron Islands etc. However, these sort of developments are only seen accidentally through the characters, who have become the real focus of this book.

This is where Martin seems to have gone astray. The chapters of the three characters who by far dominate this book in terms of length (Cersei, Jaime, and Brienne) are all in turn overly-dominated by a personal theme. Cersei has become paranoid to the point of insanity, particularly with regards to a prophesy she was given as a girl (which, by the way, felt like a new idea of Martins specifically for this book, but doesn't seem to fit entirely comfortably with Cersei's character from the previous books). Jaime is torn between love/trust and hate/mistrust of his sister. Brienne struggles with doubt about her worth in playing the role of a knight as opposed to an ordinary, though ugly, high-born maiden. The problem is that not only are the bigger events of the "game of thrones" made subordinate to these longwinded inner struggles and dialogues, but that they tend not to go anywhere. Admittedly Cersei's paranoia has important ramifications in her final 2 chapters, but is it really necessary to spend her first 8 chapters or so just to give the sense of her paranoia? I feel it could have been done in 3 or 4 chapters, and thereby made more engaging rather than tiresome. The same applies at least as much for Jaime and Brienne.

Speaking of Brienne, I think that Martin has blatently sacrificed the flow of the story within and between books in favour of setting up a "cliffhanger" ending. In the previous books, anticipation for the following book has been achieved by a partial resolution of the characters (Jon Snowe becomes Lord Commander and refuses Stannis' offer, Tyrion kills Tywin and leaves Westeros, etc) and leaves you able to intelligently speculate about their future. Brienne's predicament at the end of her final chapter is a matter that would be resolved in a matter of seconds in real-time, but unfortunately Martin has opted to finish it like a lame soap opera full of cheap tricks to make me watch the next episode, or a typical horror movie setting itself up for a money-making sequel. I dare say she will survive, but I am still left feeling a little more cautious of Martins artistic credibility.

When I say that those three characters dominate the length of the novel, I am not exaggerating. The rest of the POVS are a mixed bag. I thought that the ones covering Dorne and the Iron Islands contained some interesting developments, although they are yet to take on their full significance, which makes them less engaging. I felt Arya had potential to become one of the more interesting characters at the end of the previous novel, but so far (in her 3 chapters) has failed to deliver. Her primary role here seems to be to describe life in the city of Braavos. Sansa's chapters are somewhat interesting but still contain a lot of filler (especially her last one, which I barely skim read up to the last page, something I never felt inclined to do in any of the prevous books). The same goes for Samwell.

Essentially, AFFC contains writing that is as good as any of the previous books, but it is hidden and scattered between too many words, which costs us readers more of our time and money. Martin just seems to do a little too much taking and not enough giving in this instalment, and if things continue like this in the next instalment, he will lose my interest. I'm sure he is aware of the dangers of prolonging a story to the point of tedium. Let's hope that feedback to this book will make him raise his editing game, and get this song back into a refined composition rather than a noodling free-jam.

OK, I did something a little different in this review. Soon there will be literally hundreds of reviews for this book, all giving similar reasons why people like or dislike A Feast For Crows. Instead of adding, and probably losing, my voice in amongst the clamour, I've done a bit of mathematics for you. I actually went through the book and noted which characters had chapters of their own and how many pages each of those chapters had, then I figured the numbers out as percentages (yes, I know, I need to get out more). So now, for your literary edification and illumination, I present to you a list of what actually happens in the book, according to my calculations (all rounded off).

CERCEI: 22.5%. That's right, folks, the Lannister Queen has more than one page in five, and nearly one page in four, devoted entirely to her point of view. If you've always wanted to know what goes on in her scheming little mind, then boy, do we have a show for you! Considering that there are thirteen people altogether who get chapter viewpoints of their own, Cercei's 22.5% share means that, on average, everyone else only gets 6.5% each. You could say that Cercei has the lion's share (terrible pun, I know).

BRIENNE: 17.5%. Next on our little list comes the Maid of Tarth. Most of the time we spend with her is on character development, rather than juicy action. Not that there's anything wrong with that at all, but you've been warned. If you were expecting her to become Lara Croft: Tomb Raider reborn, think again. Also, of some small statistical note, more than 60% of the pages in this book are devoted to the female character's points of view. Just so you know.

JAIME: 15.5%. The ever-more-interesting brother, and erstwhile lover, of Cercei continues in his evolution from out-and-out bad guy to, well, kind of a good guy. We're going to have to read the next book to see which way he jumps for sure, but so far he's certainly more inclined towards honesty and honour than he seemed to be in the first couple of books.

SAMWELL: 9%. The first character with less than ten percent of the ink investment is Sam. One of the more down-to-earth minor characters from the previous book, he gets fleshed out a little more here (excuse the pun).

SANSA: 8%. One of the few remaining Starks, and one of only two who get chapters of their own in this book, Sansa is also evolving as a character. In this book she is very slowly starting to show signs of an independence that she heretofore lacked. Of course, with only three chapters of her own, she doesn't show much. Not that she was ever on the front lines of either political intrigue or physical combat.

ARYA: 6% The only other person from House Stark with chapters from her own viewpoint. Arya has always been an interesting character to me. Her moral ambiguity, like Jaime's, is stretched further in this book. I'm a little nervous as to how she'll shape up in the end. At this point, it's a little difficult for me to tell, though I have optimistic expectations.

WHO? WHAT? HUH?: 21.5%. Seven people, some of whom are hardly mentioned, or not mentioned at all, in previous books, have their own chapter or two each in this book. So more than one page in five is from the viewpoint of someone you probably can't remember reading about before. And half the time the same viewpoint doesn't come up again in this book at all.

TYRION, JON, DAENERYS, STANNIS, DAVOS, ETC.: 0%. These characters don't appear at all. We have to tune in to the next episode for updates on their adventures. I wondered about this when I bought the book and saw that the maps at the front only showed Westeros.

So there you have it. If you're here reading reviews because you've gotten halfway through the book, don't like it, and want to see what everyone else thought, then I'd recommend that you keep reading. Slog through a few more pages; it does pick up at around the halfway mark. Although, in my mind, the endings for the various characters are fairly anticlimactic. Nothing is really resolved, unlike the previous books. And it's going to be the same for the next book, apparently, since Martin says that it will only focus on the characters who were expected to appear in this book but didn't.

I've given A Feast For Crows three stars, where the previous books in the series would have each earned at least four stars from me.

I have to say this book was a disappointment. The first three books in this series were unquestionably 5-star reading.

A Feast for Crows, however, truly was -- as one reviewer described it -- a chore to get through. I wondered often as I read it whether Martin would have fared better to collapse this book and the sequel, A Dance with Dragons, into one volume after all. The argument that the book would have then been "too long" doesn't wash with me since many of the chapters here -- far too many -- felt like "packing material", popcorn and bubblewrap that you have to get through to get to the good stuff that you really wanted and paid for. A Feast for Crows would have been a far better book if the dross chapters had been eliminated and the pure gold chapters from the next book added in. Ah, well. Too late for that now.

Sadly, in this book, I just got bored. Not only once, but again and again. And I am astounded to say that because Martin is a magnificent writer and storyteller. But I was seriously bored with much of this book.

I did not like Martin's departure from the style of previous books of adding so many nameless ("The Prophet", "The Kraken's Daughter", etc.) point-of-view (POV) chapters. Sheesh. Why not just say their names? "Aeron" ... "Asha" ... Worse still, most of these "secondary" POV chapters were quite dull. I did not like these characters and I did not want to invest my time in them because it is not THEIR story I am interested in in this series. Many of these secondary characters are repellent, dull, and/or unpleasant, and each new character's chapter(s) carried the baggage of (seemingly) 50 to 60 new names and characters apiece. Geeze. I imagine that Martin used this device so that readers would know these were not primary characters, but the problem is that these secondary POV characters are just ... second-rate and dull. If the story of the Ironborn was really worth telling, for example, then I'd rather the author had created a "real" POV character to tell it.

Even the primary POVs in this volume, including Brienne, Jaime, and Cersei, are not particularly likable or interesting, so you don't much care what happens to them either. That leaves about 20% of the book that really held my interest. Only the Samwell, Arya, and Sansa chapters held my attention here, and the latter two characters appear very little in this particular volume. The one good thing about this overall structure was that at least I knew before reading a chapter that I probably wasn't going to enjoy it: "Brienne", "Cersei", "Jaime", "Unnamed" = Not Terribly Interesting. Best not be sleepy if you want to get through any of these chapters in one sitting.

The sharp, knucklebiting, fascinating suspense so ably maintained from chapter to chapter in the first three books is diluted and lame here. I more often than not fell asleep reading these chapters. Yes, FELL ASLEEP. That never happened in the first three books. Never.

In Feast for Crows, Martin greatly presumes upon the residual interest and good will of his readers from the first three books in this series, serving here a pretty skimpy "feast" indeed. Readers are left to root among the piles of bone and gristle and ash for a savory tidbit here and there, some small shred of news regarding a character we actually care about in Westeros or beyond from the first three books. To the author's credit, the pace of Feast for Crows does picks up considerably toward the end of the book, which, alas, once again leaves us hanging for heaven knows how long until the next book is published -- longer still if these particular "King's Landing" POV plot threads are not to be picked back up until Book 6. Patience, more than any other quality, is required of readers of this series.

Even so, I am committed to this series for the long haul. Martin at his worst is better than most writers in this genre at their very best. He is a most gifted and talented writer, and I trust he can get back on course for the next book in this series. I am keeping my fingers crossed that there is someone in this process that can effectively tell Martin, for future volumes in this series, "Yo, dude. This chapter is well written, surely, but it really ought to be cut..."

Yikes.

I've enjoyed this series, honestly I have, but the latest entry--A Feast for Crows--has forced me to seriously reconsider whether it has been worth it.

In the first place, frankly, this is no longer the series I'd signed on for. The first novel introduced a group of characters, the Starks, and led us to believe that they would be central to the narrative. Now with most of them dead or scattered, they're almost incidental to it. Since this volume only deals with half of the current "main cast," some of my personal favorites completely disappear (like Tyrion and Daenerys). In short, when I decided to continue on after A Game of Thrones, I didn't know I'd be reading 1000 pages of Brienne and the Iron Born.

Aside from this literary 'bait and switch,' there's also the fact that... well... nothing really happens in this book. Okay, maybe "nothing" is harsh, but it certainly feels like it. *Lots of things* should happen in a 1000 page book, but Martin strives to put all of the relevant happenings at the very end. Before that, characters spend an endless amount of time wandering from place to place. We readers get to meet all sorts of new and extraneous characters, instead of spending time with the countless we've met before. (Though in fairness, given the time between publishings, it's unlikely we'd remember all of those older characters. I can't keep straight who's died anymore... I forget, is Theon dead?) Incredibly, most of the exciting action (battles and the like) take place between chapters, and we only learn about it through conversation after the fact.

Many of the new characters introduced here get their own POV chapter, sometimes one to a character. The series is becoming increasingly disjointed, and there's certainly no kind of resolution for anything in sight. The one real thru-line is Cersei's story. She probably gets the most chapters, and something like an actual plot. Of course, I can sum up all of those chapters to you here with: Cersei hates and is suspicious of/jealous of everyone and everything. Cersei sits around and snapes at everything, over and over again, and lord but it doesn't get much more exciting than that until page 900.

The series is, at least, consistent in that the worst things always happen to the best characters and things can always be counted on to go wrong (unless you're a villain). While it was once possible to say that Martin was being "realistic" in showing that, sometimes, bad things happen to the heroes... well, it's almost ridiculous now, in how nothing good ever seems to happen to anyone who could be described as "virtuous." Though, of course, very few of the remaining characters could so be described. Most have been decapitated well before this novel. There is a line between "realism" and "sadism," and it isn't all that "fine." Martin has crossed it some time ago.

Man, I was looking forward to this book. But really what I was looking forward to was a sequel to the novels that had come before it. Instead, this book (and, increasingly, the series) abandons the characters who have come before and, rather than offer any resolution, creates new conflicts spiraling off into the aether. It doesn't deal with any of those conflicts, either. Instead, it contents itself with having all of its main characters walk from locale to locale, talking, thinking and dreaming but never doing.

George R.R. Martin has taken up close to 4000 pages now, more than three times what Tolkien used in The Lord of the Rings and more than twice War and Peace. He has accomplished very little for all that, and given us little hope that there's any relief in sight. His preferred method of resolving conflicts seems to be having his characters abruptly die, and so that's how I figure he'll tie the loose ends here. It's all rather depressing, if like me you feel you have to finish what you start. Martin is capable of good, snappy storytelling--his graphic novel which takes place in the same world, The Hedge Knight, was really quite good. But it has one large advantage over A Song of Ice and Fire in that it has a beginning, middle and end. A Song of Ice and Fire, on the other hand, seems to be nothing but an endless middle. (The fact that it's a series doesn't mean it can't have both rising and falling action and resolutions to conflicts sprinkled along the way. Examine almost any other series, ever, for examples.)

Not all of these flaws are new to the series--in fact, they've been there since almost the start--but over time they're becoming more and more inescapable and damaging to the overall experience. Two stars for this novel. If things don't rapidly improve, and there's no reason to expect them to, we'll quickly find ourselves at a solitary star. A shame.

I guess it's a little bit silly to declare in a review of Book 4A that I'm a big fan of the Song of Ice and Fire. After all, why else would one have waded through 3,000+ pages?

In fact, I felt Book 3 was perhaps the best installment to date. Perhaps it was for this reason that I was so bitterly disappointed with A Feast For Crows. Having read many of the other reviews, I can only repeat what many others have already cited as its most glaring deficiencies.

Most obvious, how can an author pen 1,000 pages of prose that fail to advance the already 3,000 page storyline even a little bit (with the possible exception of the Iron born). Two of the most intriguing threads, Tyrion and Daenerys, do not even make an appearance. It is only at the conclusion of the book that this is explained and very poorly so.

"The more I thought about that, however, the more I felt that the readers would be better served by a book that told ALL THE STORY FOR HALF THE CHARACTERS, RATHER THAN HALF THE STORY FOR ALL THE CHARACTERS". Martin

ALL THE STORY? Did anyone else get all the story? Instead, he arbitrarily ends the story for these characters no further along than when he started. And we must wait for another partial installment featuring the characters of most interest. And what choice do we have? We've already invested in over 4,000 pages of reading.

Even more troubling is that Book 4B will not even address the numerous cliffhangers left from Book 4A, most specifically Arya and Brienne. Book 5 will not likely be published until after 2010. How many will remember the background for these characters at that time (or will Martin spend 250 pages bringing us back up to speed).

I can distinctly recall thinking that with writing as good as Martin's, storyline resolution was not even necessary. Book 4A has proven me wrong. Excellent writing that leads nowhere soon becomes frustrating. Martin has disrespected his readers with this obvious cash grab. But again, I feel trapped after putting in the effort to read the first four installments.

The George RR Martin Books have been great so far. Each book is close to 1000 pages. They're medieval fantasy, but there are no elves, dwarves, healing spells... etc. If someone dies, they're dead. Characters even die from infections in these books.

The Chapters in the books are all named after Characters. Each Chapter is written in the Point of View of the named character. So, you'll see that there are two sides to every conflict. You also get to see what motivates the characters and why they behave the way that they do. The books are full of political intrigue and action. They're unique in their own way and usually pretty exciting.

With that said, this book stays consistent with the story. The previous book, A Storm of Swords, ends with a lot of cliffhangers. This book answers none of the major cliffhangers and talks about the minor characters. It's 1000 pages devoted to the characters that aren't involved in the cliffhangers. It drags on and on and the whole time you're waiting to hear about the exciting stuff from the previous book.

This book is like a Star Wars Movie about Greedo, Admiral Akbar, Sandperson #42, and that Blue Jedi Chick that got punked in the last movie. You'd be asking yourself where are Luke, Leia, Darth Anybody?! You'd even settle for some C3-PO. But you don't get any of that.

At the end of the book, George RR Martin apologizes and says that he wrote too much. He says that the next book will deal with the cliffhangers. If the next book doesn't answer these, I'm done with the series.

In 'A Storm of Swords', the major cliffhangers dealt with Jon Snow, Arya, Dani, and Tyrion. Jon, Tyrion, and Dani aren't even in this book and Arya makes a cameo appearance. Instead this book is about Jamie, Cersi, Brienne, Sansa, and George RR Martin introduces a bunch of new characters when it feels like he already has way too many.

You can skim this book, or skip it if you want. I'd recommend waiting for the next book, A Dance with Dragons, to come out and see if the series is still worth reading.

First off, can I make a small request:

- People stop rating this book based on the fact that the narrator in the audio version has changed. Fine, we get it. I'm sure all of Ron's fans are as disappointed as you are. Aside from telling us something we already know you're only distorting the book's rating with your baseless 1 star votes. Enough.

Now onto the Feast. I hope you have less of an appetite than fat Sam Tarly, because, sad to say it, this book is less than fulfilling. It's not bad, as such. But after five years of waiting, this book *is* a disappointment.

Forget the excuses from the rabid Martin faithful about his publishers forcing him to split the book: Martin had more than ample time to tell the story HE wanted to tell, and if he's failed to do so, that's his fault alone. He made the choice to reserve the more important and interesting characters for "A Dance with Dragons", not his publisher. Martin says so himself on his web page.

So let's cut the publisher some slack here and admit that Martin, despite warnings about "A Storm of Swords" being too long, has simply failed to rein himself in. Brienne's chapters, for example, are around 120 pages of wandering the North achieving next to nothing. There are roughly 100 pages of Cersei and Jaime that, frankly, could have been halved and told in only one POV. Why do we need BOTH their perspectives on what's happening in the first part of the book? No need at all.

Let's also not forget to mention the worrying obsession Martin has with heraldry and tracing family trees. As I read yet another page of some longwinded explanation of who-is-the-cousin-of-you, I could almost sense Martin's desperation. I really think that, for much of this book, he simply didn't know where he was going. No doubt he had a stronger vision of some arcs, such as Cersei's, which does improve after a time, but in others, he merely seems to be treading water.

When you consider how much stage time Brienne had, the mere 3 chapters each devoted to Sansa and Arya look criminal.

The other complaint I had were the new single POVs based in Dorne and the Iron Islands. Although they did a decent job of showing us these new places, they completely broke the flow of the book. Whereas the first three were incredibly well-planned, with all the POV's connecting perfectly, "Feast" seems to leap around like a fish out of water. There's no central narrative, no proper pacing.

A word about the writing. It's still very good. Despite some worrying Jordanesque anality with regards to heralrdy, genealogy, and virginity(!), the writing remains of high quality. That said, there were some things in "Feast" that I never expected to see: mentions of things like The Horn of Dragon Control which reminded me far too much of Dungeons and Dragons. In addition, Cersei's "prophecy" backstory was one of the weakest pieces of writing I can remember in the entire series. As for Sam accidentally bumping into Arya in Braavos...

Finally, I have to mention the cliffhangers. There are, at last count, around 8 characters who may or may not be dead. All three of the "major" POVs in this book end in cliffhangers. After waiting so long for "Feast", and knowing that most of the cliffhangers in this book aren't going to be resolved for 3+ years - until book 6 - this was very, very cruel of Martin. Constant cliffhangers are a WEAK device. Please stop them, George. Let's have some closure for once.

Overall, the book isn't anywhere near as bad as some of the reviews make out, but it's also comfortably the weakest in the series. Reading a book isn't like trying to debate religion: it shouldn't be that hard for an intelligent person to draw a solid and accurate conclusion. Ignore the 5 star reviews, ignore the 1 star reviews. Take "Feast" for what it is, don't expect an awful lot, and you might enjoy it. Let's just hope Martin is back on form for the next book.

This is a rather late edit, but I thought it'd be nice to add this: I believe GRRM is a very down-to-earth guy who seems to be very in-touch with his readers. Unlike the egocentrical denialist Jordan, I'm sure Martin recognizes his work has flaws and will be looking to rectify the problems in future novels.

While I have no problems with Martin's work being critiqued, I do have a problem with some of the negative comments being made about the man. Martin is a good guy. He's due a stumble occasionally - what author isn't?

I'll start out by saying that I couldn't wait for it to come out and bought the UK edition and got it on Oct 18th and then sped my way through it in a few days.

The general reader complaint with the book of course is the omitted POV chapters. However, had you been following along at George R.R. Martin's website you would have know that the book is really half a book as a result of publisher pressure and their reluctance to produce an 1000+ (possibly closer to 2000) page book (the bottom line rearing its ugly head).

Mr. Martin would have preferred to make it a single book, but what resulted is a good compromise of full character arcs for half the "cast".

Some have complained about the lack of chapters for Arya and Sansa, but quite frankly it makes a good deal of sense. Both characters are in situations where there is little going on that they can alter given that they are still children and are both students, learning their craft from their respective mentors while maturing towards adulthood. That is when they will be able to really make a difference in the world. More than anything, time has to pass for them to do this and extra prose would just take away from that goal.

A Dance of Dragons which will contain more Arya and give us back Danerys, Tyrion, Jon, Bran, etc is essentially the other half of the book and will tie things together and move us into the future and a bit too. At the very least DOD will be a longer book than this volume, probably somewhere between ACOK and ASOS so we'll at least have something meaty to read (and reread while we wait for book 6)

It does not look like books 6 and 7 though will be cut in half the same way 4 and 5 will be as the compromise does do a bit to reduce the richness of the overall story. What would be nice is after Dance of Dragons comes out is a timeline of the plot. Thus readers could go back and read book 4 and 5 together in the chronological order as originally intended. (Then I think we will have a 5-star book).

As for the writing style, nothing has deteriorated in terms of Mr. Martin's approach and the quality. It is still excellent and the quality of his prose remains consistently good.

The characters all have wonderful depth, all having their particular strengths and flaws giving them a richness that makes them feel like real people (I think we all know someone like Cersei who thinks she is smarter than everyone around her and gets in well over her head, relatively speaking of course) and not the same old tiresome archetypes and clichéd protagonists and antagonists of other series.

The plot, logically so, has slowed down a bit. A Storm of Swords was a book where major changes occurred for some of the major players in this world and those characters that remain must now rebuild their power bases and their lives, which as in real life, tends to happen at an incremental pace.

I highly recommend all current readers to stick with it and keep the faith. New readers go grab a Game of Thrones.

A Feast For Crows is an incomplete bridge. Hopefully it is a bridge to somewhere we want to go - certainly the characters, pacing and the quality of writing from the previous books in the series would lead us to believe that Martin is worth following. Unfortunately, this instalment suffers from editorial inattention. While the other books pulled me through them in a matter of days apiece, `Crows' let me proceed at a trudge, and I took nearly a month of intermittent reading to complete it.

Having scanned the various postings here regarding book size and marketability, I have to assume that Martin got caught in a struggle between his editor's sense of what size book could be sold, and his own desire to continue weaving his complex and myriad plot threads. I should be clear that length is not the issue here - Martin has proven that he is more than adept at managing complex storylines across thousands of pages. Rather, this book feels like a next-to-final draft instead of a final version.

A couple minor examples:

In previous books, characters are initially re-introduced into the narrative with a two-sentence summary of their highlights from past volumes. Once they're back in the flow, he (rightly) drops such prompts. But in `Crows' we get these kinds of summaries repeatedly - in some cases almost every time a character's POV comes up. Thus, we hear 5 times about Brienne of Tarth's past engagements, etc., etc. There's no new information presented in such passages, just re-statement of things we've already heard.

Similarly, Martin occasionally re-states very basic observations/descriptions almost word-for-word. Mid-book, Cersei observes that Grand Maester `Pycelle had been old as far back as [she] could remember...', and then 32 pages later, Martin begins the next Cersei POV with the words, `Grand Maester Pycelle had been old for as long as she had known him...'

These are not criticisms of Martin as author but rather of a distracting lack of editorial focus. Such problems did not plague past works in the series, and will hopefully not reappear in future volumes.

One other aspect of the book negatively impacts the pacing. A ridiculous number of pages are spent in people's dreams. These are mostly passages that dump in volumes of back-story (and occasionally foreshadowing), but they are extremely repetitious and generally offer little in the way of new or vital content. Once again, a good, focused editor would have helped Martin consolidate such passages to clean up the overall ebb and flow.

Much of what happens in `Crows' will no doubt prove important to the series overall. As I said at the outset, the book is a bridge in the overall arc of this story; many characters are transitioning from what they were and maturing into what they must become. But `Crows' is an incomplete bridge, and one can only hope that the editor(s) helping Martin execute his blueprint will be more attentive to detail in future volumes, or not a few readers may abandon the path.

George RR Martin claims that the format of AFFC is due to his desire to tell "all the story" for half of the characters rather than "half the story" for all of the characters.

If he honestly believes this, he's deluding himself. AFFC isn't "all the story" for half the characters by any stretch of the imagination. It's a tiny fraction of the story for half the characters - along with bits and pieces of story for a host of thinly fleshed out minor characters.

Martin has broken with the format he has used for his three previous Ice and Fire books, which was telling the story through the points of view of several main characters. The format of the three previous books served to 1) give his main characters fully fleshed out personalities and 2) preserve a certain tightness and momentum to the plot.

In AFFC, suddenly Martin gives minor background characters point of view chapters. One of these characters has a couple of chapters devoted to her, but most have just one. As a result, AFFC has a rambling, disjointed, unfocused quality that the previous Ice and Fire books avoided. Since the reader is stepping into and out of the lives of these minor characters for just one chapter apiece, it is very hard for the reader to care about the characters' histories, or eventual fates. In short, much of AFFC feels like a collection of short stories that happen to take place in Westeros at the same time in its history, rather than a singular, cohesive novel. The point of view chapters for the minor characters are passable at best, tedious at worst.

Sadly, the chapters for the major characters do not fare much better. Cersei and Brienne are new point of view characters, and both are overly burdened with the responsibility of carrying AFFC on their one-dimensional shoulders. They just don't have much personality to them. I find the other main characters more interesting, but sadly they just don't have much to do in this book. Arya is my favorite character, and I thought that since she was in AFFC I would definitely enjoy it, but her chapters are few and far between. There are no real surprises. It's been said in other reviews, and it's true: not much happens. This is a book that feels like nothing but filler.

Martin says that if we don't like the format, we can take a knife to it and combine it with the next book when it's published. I'm inclined to take him up on it, and in the process edit out a good 75% of this book, and hope that A Dance With Dragons has more of what made the first three books so engaging.

The series was off to such a great start. Then, a bunch of things happened. The time between books got longer and longer. The amount of story that happened in each book got less and less. The amount of meaningless content in each book went up.

I agree that he's lost control of his story. Either he thinks anything he writes can get longer and longer, and that it's excused by that Tolkien quote he uses ("The tale grew in the telling"), or that he can excuse it by saying the book is too long for physical binding. Both should tell him something.

I would like to see his story lines become tighter, with fewer meandering reminiscences and back-references, and for him to shrink the time between books.

JK Rowling had some of the same problems, with the books having more and more fluff. In her books 4 and 5, it was possible to see whole pages that contributed nothing to the story, where in books 1 through 3, it was possible to miss something if one was inattentive for just a sentence. However, she was able to get her series back on track, and wrap it up with a great #6 and #7.

I see a disturbing similarity between his series and the "Wheel of Time" series. With Robert Jordan, I was at first realllllly worried that he was taking too long, and I was hoping that he would pull things together. After Book 9, I didn't give a damn any more, as I waited for the price of the used hardcover to drop to a buck before I bought one.

I'm half-expecting that this series will end the same, with me not giving a damn. I really do hope he can resurrect the series and get it back on track, but I'm not holding my breath. I've canceled my pre-order.

The genius of Martin's world was that it was brutal - it hammered the reality into the fantasy. Where other novels were afraid to give the main character so much as a black eye Martin beat them, chopped them, raped them, kicked them and if they were lucky killed them. The problem with the series is that Mr. Martin has become far too predicable. With this latest installment he has confirmed that his world is firmly governed by Murphy's Law. We have come to expect the worse, and a steady (and increasingly monotonous) pattern has emerged. Mr. Martin's brilliance was apparent in his first book where we did not expect the headman's axe, or the hangman's noose and when it came we were devastated... when a hero died we cried...when a treachery was revealed we roared in anger...but now if someone gets away with a stabbing they are counted lucky...if they lose a limb or three we call their tormentors amateurs. In fact, if someone ends the book sound of mind and body we are shocked! It has simply become too difficult for us to care, it would be akin to developing a close and loving bond with a canary in the mines. Sadly, what was once a brilliant game of thrones has degenerated into a bleak and meandering plot, with a sadistic author marching his sorry band of characters to the slaughter. Moreover, sundering the original in two means that the characters in this latest installment will stagnate over the next two years while we get the news from the other lot...splitting the book was a bad idea, and splitting it in this manner a terrible one. This reader hopes Mr. Martin is able to reign in his story and his sadism, otherwise his work is no different from the fluff...just we expect the parade of horribles instead of the parade of heroes, wiser men have said that variety is the spice of life.

There was a time when I was convinced that George Martin was going to single handedly rescue the Fantasy field which seems of late to have been invaded by Lancelot clones and sex starved vampires. I devoured the first two books in this series and even read the third in less than two weeks. But this one got the best of me. I surrender.

I struggled through the first few hundred pages over a 3-4 week period and put it aside for a while assuming that I simply wasn't in the right frame of mind to immerse myself in the story. I returned to it a few months later, reread what I had already covered and I have to tell you that it exhausted me. I couldn't finish it. I don't want to know about every GD person on the planet! I want a story with a beginning, middle and an end! Finish this one before the rapture comes and then start another one about a main characters 3rd cousin if you feel the need.

Martin has obviously contacted the "Robert Jordan (R.I.P.) Disease", hereafter known as "RJD". I actually read the first 5 books of that series only to finally realize that he had no intention of finishing the story in his or my lifetime. Martin seems to have decided to go down this path. Hey, it's his story, his characters and his right to ramble on for decades (?) if he feels it's necessary. I finally decided however that it's my time and money that I'm contributing to his project and I guess that I'm not made of stern enough stuff to suffer through 700+ pages and then have to wait another 2 GD (01/09/2011 - make that 5+ years and counting...) years for the next hard back installment and another year for a reasonably priced paperback.

I'm getting off the bus...good luck to those with enough time and fortitude to stay seated until the end of the route.

Mr. Martin started out with a very good story in the first few books of this adventure. But this latest installment was so poor, it made me wonder if Martin really wrote it. And, by the time you get to A Feast For Crows, there are so many characters and names in this epic that I can no longer remember who is who, or what they did. There's an old saying that you can't tell the players without a program. Well, I submit that even with the "program" Martin includes in the back of the book, I can't keep them straight. And I discovered that I no longer care!

In Feast, virtually all the characters are miserable and the whole plot is totally depressing. If there is still a plot. Martin states that he decided to divide this latest book into two books. I submit that if his editor would have had the nerve to have an intervention with Martin and given him some objective feedback concerning his draft, or actually "edited" and chopped out a lot of "junk" from the story, Mr. Martin could have accomplished his original goal to have this be one book instead of two.

To be honest, if I didn't have so much time invested in reading this series, so much so that I want to see how it ends, I would not bother to buy and read the next book. And if the next book is anything like A Feast For Crows, I may just throw in the towel, quit reading and just give it away, and make up my own ending. I couldn't bear to wade through another book like Feast.

PROS:
The best that can be said for "A Feast for Crows" is that it accomplishes what the author intended. The remaining pawns from the first 'Game of Thrones' are knocked off the board while Martin resets it for the next round of play. 'Feast' is a tedious set-up novel - nothing more or less.
Once again, Martin's prose put the rest of the fantasy genre to shame, yet in this installment they are less consistently brilliant. The five year writing cycle contributes to a choppier experience.
Jamie Lannister steals the show this time around. The interplay between Jamie and his sister is intense and satisfying. His relationship with Iyle Payne is surprising and endearing. It is a wiser and more patient Jamie that emerges in this novel. Meanwhile, Brienne takes up where Arya left off - aimlessly wandering the riverlands. Her chapters, while in dire need of an editor, are beautifully written and touching; here the costs of war are portrayed with unflinching honesty.

CONS:
ASoIaF is beginning to exhibit the warning signs of a fantasy series sliding out of control:

1) Misplaced Priorities:
The series is beginning to lose direction and focus. The actual 'Song of Ice and Fire' plot has been forgotten. In its place, Martin continues to stage a perennial 'Game of Thrones'. The 'Game' was interesting for the first two novels, but it is quickly becoming a tired and unnecessary device. GRRM is at the midpoint of the series now and he needs to start advancing the primary plot soon or the narrative is going to lose its inertia.
In 'Feast', Martin seems to be treading water. Important battles take place off screen while mundane political maneuverings take center stage. For such a long novel, very little actually happens and GRRM's glossy prose can only disguise the thin plot for so long...
In this episode, not a single story arc is concluded and and every important plot thread ends in a cliff hanger. This, on top of the choice not to include more than half of the series' Point-of-view (POV) characters, makes for a very anticlimactic ending.

2) Unnecessary POV Characters:
Minor characters have inexplicably been promoted to POV status. Cersei is a prime example. She is a one-dimensional villain and always has been. Her characterization was adequate when she was just a bit player in the series, but she has no business dominating 'Feast' with such a hefty page count. Her highly predictable story arc should have played out off screen.
Even more disturbing is GRRM's decision to tell the Iron Island and Dornish subplots though multiple POVs rather than just one. It is a fundamental shift in the structure of the series and it just wasn't necessary.

3) Excess filler, exposition, and description:
Self indulgence is beginning to rear its ugly head. The storytelling has slowed down remarkably. Heraldry lectures bog down the narrative, while entire chapters are wasted describing the deaths and/or further adventures of irrelevant minor characters. The denizens of the Iron Islands try earnestly (yet unsuccessfully) to become relevant to a story that passed them by two novels ago and the Dornish Prince Doran Martell arrives too late to the 'Game of Thrones'. Both subplots lead exactly nowhere and should have been excised.
Brienne's chapters are the most controversial of the bunch. It is difficult to escape the feeling that her story just did not need to be told. Even so, her chapters could have been condensed down to half their length with little or no loss of content.

CONCLUSION:
'A Feast of Crows' is a novel about minor characters doing minor things. GRRM tried desperately to make it a major contribution to the "Song of Ice and Fire" series, but he failed. It is little more than an extended epilogue to "A Storm of Swords."
'Feast' is gritty, sharp, and atmospheric, but also empty, predictable, and imbalanced. Numerous structural mistakes and bad editorial decisions result in a narrative that reads like a director's cut in which too many dubious scenes were restored. The extra content adds spice to an otherwise dull tale, but it ultimately obscures the primary plot.

In conclusion, no amount of narrative trickery can hide the fact that is just a bloated collection of introspective short stories that are only tenuously bound together by a weak overall story. This 'Feast' just does not have enough meat on its bones to satisfy even the most starving of crows.

This book definitely was not worth the wait. I wish he would just hire Brandon Sanderson to finish the series.

Whatever one might say, the truth is that you put down this book unfulfilled. I grasped for more in this novel, i kept wanting 'something' from it that it just wouldnt give. All three of Martin's previous novels worked well because even though they could be read like a trilogy of sorts, they still felt like separate complete stories. Here, in Feast, im kindadisappointed.

It is not because Martin cannot write. Martin is an amazing writer and every chapter, every sentence is virtually perfect. Martin writes with such grace and beauty that he could literally write about rocks and grass and it would be great. His prose is as good as anything in Books 1-3. But the problem is that we have gotten so used to amazing plotlines with Martin, and this is were the book flounders.

The backstory if you dont know is thus: Martin wrote such a huge book for this fourth addition that his editors wouldnt publish it unless he split the book in two. So the book was chopped in half; not like part 1 and part 2, but by POVs. This book covered (half?) the POVs (namely Jaime, Arya, Sansa, Samwell), two new POV characters (Brienne and Cersei) and two multiple thread storylines (one concerning the Greyjoys, another concerning events in Dorne). Who is missing? Catelyn (who 'died' in the last novel) and also Jon Snow, Tyrion, Bran, Davos, and Daenerys. Does the absence of these POV character change the power and enjoyment of the storyline? YES YES YES!!!

The first problem with his format is that the splitting of the characters into two groups was just not done equally. Honestly the powerhouse characters who pull the storyline forward are Tyrion, Daenerys, Arya, Jon Snow, and Jaime (...okay maybe Sansa). But in Feast Tyrion, Daenerys, and Jon Snow are missing, the always compelling Arya is reduced to a measily four chapters of a well-written but not exactly amazing plotline, (Sansa faces the exact same problem as Arya) and Jaime (while being one of the dominant POV-chapter characters), is also left in a certain, well, meandering plotline --that is pleasurable to read but not grasping.

The second problem here is that the largest POVs are for NEW characters, Cersei and Brienne. You would think that Martin would be gradually introducing these new characters while keeping his past main characters still on stage, but everyone else seems to sort of fall on the wayside in place of Brienne and Cersei. Cersei dominates the storyline with a plot that is highly interesting and fun to read, but you often feel like every other chapter or so you are reading a 'Cersei chapter' and it begins to feel like you reading things that arent that topical to the central plot, or at least you could comprehend that said pages would be better spent with developing Arya or Sansa. Even more frustrating is the Brienne storyline. As ive said, Martin is a great writer, and though i sometimes would roll my eyes whenever i saw ANOTHER Brienne chapter, i would end the chapter saying 'wow, Martin really can write'. But the fact is, in the grand scheme of things, i seriously feel that the entire Brienne storyline could be completely dropped from the series as a whole, as it truly seems to have absolutely no effect at all. For while Theon's POV only lasted one book (book 2), his takeover of Winterfell was completely relevant to the central storyline.

The third problem concerns the remaining storylines. Samwell is, has been, and i feel always will be DULL. Though Sam bored me in Book 3, i had high hopes for him in this book, as his storyline was taking him through such fabulous places as Braavos and Oldtown. Unfortunately, i was still bored. The other two POVs were those of the multiple storylines. The first concerned the Greyjoys, and was split among three of them (Aeron/Damphair, Asha, and Victarion). The second concerned events in Dorne, and was split among 4 characters (Arianne Martell, Prince Doran Martell, Ser Arys Oakheart, and Areo Hotah --a Dornish guard). These two multiple thread storylines were indeed excellent and some of the most interesting and relevant plotlines in the entire book. However, each would have done much better solidified into one POV (For the Greyjoys --- Victarion, for the Dornish ---Arianne Martell). All these characters are as fleshed out as can be in their measily, stand-alone chapters, but just cant stand up to the other main character POVS. Perhaps this is the point though, as Martin may end all their storylines by the end of the next book.

All in all this IS great writing, but still feels like a bunch of separate chapters thrown together in one giant pile, with no real cohesion, and desperately lacking its more exciting cousin POVs. To make matters even less compelling, the central plot has reached its own lull, as the war (at least as far as the Starks vs Lannisters go) is OVER, and the the book settles into a quiet, more relaxed pace, as if everyone has turned over a new leaf, and is starting another climb up the ladder. There are no Red Weddings, no shocking truths uncovered (i.e. the true murderer of Jon Arryn), no truly memorable falls or rises (the death of Catelyn, the raising of Jon Snow to Lord Commander). However this book remains a worthy and very necessary read. Don't shoot it down, but don't expect to be blown away either.

Feast for Crows is a great example of Martin's brutal, emotional, and coplex writing but as a stand-alone book is too lacking in advancement of the plot. Crows focuses on the journey of half of the characters (the other half to be explored more in Dance of Dragons, forthcoming) but even those few--Brienne, maid of Tarth; Samwell Tarly, (Sam, of the Wall); Arya and Sansa (both having changed their identities); Cersei; Jaime; and the Ironborn, viking-like sea warriors along with the sand-princes of Dorne--don't move significantly from beginning to end.

It is a beautiful and brutal glimpse into a war-torn country and the influence of the game of thrones on the "smallfolk"--death, torture, rape, and crimes unspeakable run rampant. The complexities make it interesting, trying to decipher (despite the false reporting of the characters) who is really dead and where everyone's loyalties lie. Character development is the most satisfying part of this book--those who loved to hate the despicable Jaime and Cersei will be happy to see one change for the better and the other get their come-uppance; while one character believed to be dead reappears and one of the Stark girls seems to have hope for the future.

However, despite the wonderful writing, this book will be far more satisfying with its companion volume in hand (once it comes out)and those who love Daenerys will be left hungry for more with only a single preview chapter about her at the end of the book.

Perhaps it was inevitable that George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series threw out a relative clunker. Expectations for the fourth novel in this immensely popular series, "A Feast For Crows," could not have been higher unless J.R.R. Tolkien came back from the dead to write a detailed manuscript about the Second Age.

I wanted to dive into "FFC" and devour the latest doings of Martin's huge cast of heroes, scoundrels, wizards and barbarians. And I did, with high hopes. And the early chapters did not disappoint. The old Martin style was there -- sarcastic, biting, hard-core, savage, cynical, occasionally beautiful -- but as the chapters went on, and on, and on . . . my patience grew thin.

All of the sudden, I was reminded of the Michael Douglas character in "Wonder Boys." He toils on his second novel -- his first novel was a huge success, but was written seven years earlier, and it's time for a new book. He sits at his typewriter, working on a page numbered with four digits, and you notice that his office is filled with reams and reams of paper, and they comprise "the book." As one of his students reluctantly tells him later, your writing is beautiful, but it looks like you haven't made any choices.

There are many parallels to Martin's latest work.

Martin, probably (and understandably) tired of America's Tolkien-worship, has bragged before that sure Tolkien's books were great and they were vast and they were huge, but all of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy would fit in "one of my books." That's not necessarily a good thing. Martin did an amazing job in the first three novels spinning a huge tale over the vast canvas of Westeros. The books were indeed mammoth, but they were also pretty lean, and Martin drove the story forward relentlessly. (And what a story it is!)

But in "FFC," the momentum falters considerably. About half-way through the novel, I realized that I had very little idea how these various episodes I was reading about in the isolated chapters (Martin retains his use of rotating the "point of view" of the story for each chapter through a handful of characters) related to the overall story. Indeed, about 3/4 of the way through, I had to go back to a fan website and get a refresher on the basic plot of "A Song of Ice and Fire." These are not good things. We are in Book Four of an announced seven-volume series, and things should be coming clearer rather than murkier.

It's true that Martin has created a wonderful world with Westeros and populated it with a rich cast of characters. And in general I like to roll up my sleeves and dive into alternate worlds like that, exploring their minutiae and mastering the minor details that make the world so rich. (That's why even my copy of Tolkien's "Silmarillion" was dog-eared, even though the prose was workmanlike, to say the least -- Middle-Earth was just such a compelling world!)

But this is a huge challenge, as the author must put enough story into the text to justify this huge world. I have no idea how various events advance this storyline at all. Sansa Stark is stuck in the Eyrie with a spoiled brat of a lord and a conniving Littlefinger, and while we get some clever scenes of Littlefinger's machinations and Sansa's coming to terms with her new world, nothing freaking happens! Just so with Arya Stark -- she heads to Braavos and has adventures that seem completely cut off from the rest of the novels. Sam Tarly head south from the Wall to become a maester at the command of John Snow. He spends some time in Braavos, and nearly meets up with Arya, but this opportunity is intentionally missed. Brienne of Tarth rides all over creation, seeking the Stark girl. The fifteenth time I read that Brienne was self-conscious about her physique and how she had been mistreated by men before, I got irked.

I've always thought that Peter Jackson's film adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings" is the best book-to-movie adaptation I've ever seen. One of the best things Jackson did was that he eliminated the elements of Tolkien's novels that did not drive the story forward along the arc he and his writers chose, which was that the movies were going to be about Frodo's story. I suspect that if Jackson read "FFC," he would have as much use for half of the book's pages as he did for the character of Tom Bombadil, who gets a couple of chapters in "Fellowship" but never appears or is even named in the movies.

George Martin is one of my favorite writers, largely based on the first three novels of "A Song of Ice and Fire," but also his Southern-gothic vampire novel, "Fevre Dream." He has earned my trust, so I am going to stick with "Ice and Fire" through the planned seven books. Maybe in the later novels, some of the developments of "FFC" will become more compelling, and I will give it another read. But while I was pleasantly spent at the conclusion of "A Game of Thrones," now that I've reached the end of "FFC," I'm just tired (and eager to read the new Bernard Cornwell novel!).

Having read most of the reviews, I think it's important to consider this novel's place in the series' milieu. The problem most people who didn't enjoy the book seem to bring up is that "not much happens." This is an accurate assessment. Pound for pound, there is not as much going on in the foreground of this book as there has been in the previous novels.

However, one has to remember what has passed to this point. Royalty and commoners have been killed by the thousands, and the resulting desolation across Westeros is the focus of this novel. The emptiness of the land is palpable. This is the long autumnal dusk before the impending snows. We must remember that this is a time of sorrow and of opportunism. No great battles should or even could be fought. This is an exhausted people, stuggling now against the real enemy - the comming winter.

This is not a novel that bends to the whim of the reader. It is instead one that spends some of the capital that the series has earned to this point, demanding that the reader pay careful attention to the little breadcrumbs that Martin lays along the way. Hints about the location of Tyrion, the plottings of the Dornish throne (including the identity of the betrayer), and the fate of the members of the Brotherhood provide delicious morsels for those willing to invest the time and patience into the book. And more, Martin (I expects) demands the attention of the readers to the rich tapestry of royalty, to their individual interests, and to their plans for the future. Without such understanding, the later activities will seem so much random action, rather than what they are - the inevitable result of careful and considered plotting by the cast of thousands.

The novel is not a feast for lovers of high drama and fast paced action. Instead, it is a mournful sigh, taken after untold bloodshed with the knowledge that there is only more bloodshed to come. Its characters are unspeakably sad, nearly void of hope, yet knowing they must rise if they are to survive the coming winter.

I will not say it is my favorite of the series. More than once I've remarked that it is, at times, more like reading an encyclopedia than a novel. It was not uncommon to cross-reference some name or description with something somewhere else in the book or even in one of the previous books. My advice to the reader - get used to it. There is so much going on in this book just out of the sight of the characters. The smart reader will realize when Martin is dropping hints that you should give further thought to what is really going on. Anyone can easily devour and enjoy the other books in this series. It will take especially studious readers to appreciate this novel to the same degree. In its place, it is an appropriately somber addition to the world of Westeros and will, I think, when viewed against the series as a whole, be seen for what it is, for what it must be - the dark quiet moment before the the storm.

A Feast for Crows is the fourth book in George R. R. Martin's epic series A Song of Ice and Fire. As detailed on his web site, as Martin wrote the book he found that it was taking too long and growing too large, but instead of editing down the material, he decided to create two books (this book and A Dance of Dragons), each one telling the story of half of his characters. That's not necessarily a bad idea, but despite this being the "good" half, with its emphasis on what happens at King's Landing, the book is just not very interesting. It is definitely a transition book with a lot of setup and very little payoff.

So what went wrong? The short answer is that Tyrion is missing from the book. The long answer is that Martin created a book without putting any interesting characters in it. With the Starks largely dead or scattered, Martin decided to give point-of-view chapters to the Ironmen and the Dornishmen, but he picked the least lively people possible for these chapters -- what could possibly have motivated Martin to focus on Damphair rather than Asha?-- and their threads don't really go anywhere. In fact, if Martin had simply left out the Ironman chapters, the book wouldn't have been any different. Just shorter.

And so I'm giving A Feast for Crows a narrow recommendation. The first three books in the series were excellent, and I'm confident that later books will be excellent as well. It's just that not much happens in this book. Martin spent too much time plotting out what will happen two or three books down the line, and forgot to concentrate on this book as well.

You can't be serious if you rate this tripe of a book at 5 stars. It's a joke that so many fanboys have given this book the maximum possible score just to pump up the rating, and then gone on to say it's not perfect. If you don't believe me go check out some of the 5 star reviews.

I feel cheated that my favorite characters are missing from the book. I didn't know this was the case when I bought the book, and I only found out when I was halfway through and decided to look at the remaining chapter titles. All I found was a smug little note at the end of the book from G.Martin that told me I'd have to wait till the next book. Wait how long? I waited over 5 years for this book, when's the next one coming? By then it might be 10 years since I've read about my favorite characters. The fanboys suggest I should have been reading his website. Why should I? I've never had to follow a website before to keep track of what's happening in a series.

Ok, so what's in the book? Anything good at all? The last hundred or so pages had some ok moments, but almost everything before that was painful to read. This book took me over a month to finish, the first three took just a few days each. The main focus of the book is Cersai and Brienne, or should I say Brienne the Bore as someone else so aptly named her. All the good stuff, daring escapes and castle sieges, were relayed second hand while the book focused on the day to day lives of the two main characters. I don't know why Cersai and Brienne took up the bulk of the book between them, I'd have thought Loras or the Blackfish would be more interesting choices considering some of the events that took place. And if G.Martin could have traded out the other boring character and slotted in Jon or Tyrion it might have made this a book worth reading.

Perhaps G.Martin should focus less on his side projects like the illustrated novels, card games, figurines and children's stories, and focus more on the series that created his huge fan base. If he doesn't then his customers will start walking. I use the word "customer" because that's what most of us are, we expect reasonable return for the hard earned money we've outlaid. Fanboys are more like religious zealots who defend their chosen one until the end, but as we've seen with Robert Jordan even their patience can run out. Are you listening George?

The first three books in the series were riveting, but that is because they focused on action, plot, and relevant character development. This 4th entry focuses on, well, not much of anything, and does not live up to anywhere near the expectations set by the first three. In fact, I thought I was reading Robert Jordan at times instead of Martin. Do I need entire paragraphs dedicated to the details of everyone's banner? I'm beginning to think everyone in Westeros is walking around with a banner. And a pile of background geneology is not really character development. Or perhaps we are now going the way of the Jordan paragraph describing in 17 sentences how women are swishing their skirts followed by half a page describing everyone's clothes? So people are moving here and there and back and forth like Jordanian brownian motion. Yawn, yawn, yawn.

Martin would have better served his fans by chopping this one out and making the series 6 books. Then all his fans would stand a better chance of making it to the end before he dies, unlike Jordan. Or perhaps up next for Martin is the useless massive prequel a la Jordan?

I would have given it 2 stars, but oh you set the bar so high Mr. Martin. To churn out this (comparitive) junk after 5 years makes me fear the wheels have come off the cart. Did you perhaps cut a bit too close to the "interesting character" bone with the 3rd volume?

I am a huge GEorge Martin fan, and feel really ripped off and abused by this book. It is truly awful - not only dull, but positively unpleasant.

I started to wonder if he was having a miserable divorce while writing it, because he seems suddenly to have it in for women. So many of the women characters in this book are the same: scheming, mean, controlling, lewd b------. It's the same idea, over and over.

He's awful in what he has happen to the two positive female characters in the book. Everything is negative and horrid in this story. There is no one to root for, not even a couple of characters who were very appealing in the otehr books. HEre they are creepy or pathetic.

He actually admits in the preface that he had trouble with the book, wrote it far too long and so cut it in half, with all the good characters left out of this one!!!!! It's worse than that - he didn't put much plot in it either.

Reading this book was getting to share a terrible writer's block with no plot, no good ideas, nastiness towards his own characters. Martin should have put it all in the garbage, taken a break, and started over. As it was, my copy ended up in the garbage. I actually stopped about thirty pages short of the end, which tells you what a dull, nasty plot it had.

(Note from the author: Please don't write this review off as another bash-fest. It, like the book it reviews, gets better towards the end.)

GRRM's first three books, as just about everyone seems to agree, are some of the best, if not THE best, in fantasy fiction. If this fourth book had been written by any other author, it might have received 4 or 5 stars, but we've all come to expect more from the best fantasy author since Tolkien (or perhaps including him!).

The book focuses on hitherto minor characters and launches all new plot lines, rarely picking up ones from the previous books. I think it's this near-total disconnect from the previous books, where the first three were so tightly-bound, that's causing most of the frustration. Yes, GRRM does focus on minutae, but honestly, he always did. It's just that we LOVED it when he described the ferocious ranks of lion-tabarded armies, etc, etc... when he's describing the arms of house Hyle, well, our attention wanders.

Also, the characters are not nearly as dynamic. As one other reviewer mentioned, the thing that made us love the previous characters was their "gray"ness. Tyrion has a huge heart, yet he can scheme and connive with the best of them. Catelyn was a brave and loving woman, yet her weakness where Jon was concerned was unnerving. And Jaime... well, go read book 3. :)

These new POVs are much less malleable. Brienne, while likeable, is predictably courageous, yet shy. Cersei is predictably nasty and power-mad. And Arya... well, what the heck is going on there? She's turned into a caricature; it's like a thin backstory for some superhero. The Ironmen might as well be one character; they're all almost exactly alike, and they apparently are required by Pyke law to end every other sentence with bad Neitzche paraphrases. The only goood thing about them is that they all but disappear about halfway through the book. Plus, maddeningly, GRRM takes the POV chapter titles and changes character names; if it's Victarion, dangit, title it Victarion, not "The Iron Captain." It seems to be meant to give us a clue as to how the characters currently view themselves, but it's a weak gimmick. In the first three books, such revelations were made within the chapters themselves.

So why give it 3 stars if I have nothing good to say about it? Well, the thing is, about 3/4 of the the way through the book, it starts to pick up pace. By the end, it's almost back to the plateau reached by the previous three books. The shocking plot twists and cliffhanger chapter endings return. The chapters contain real action instead of meandering descriptions. Some old friends from the previous books return to the fray. And, most hopeful of all, the bonus chapter from the upcoming Dance with Dragons (mercifully titled "Danaerys" and not "Mother of All Dragons" or "She Who Was Born in Flame") is chock full of promise. So, even though parts of the book may remind some of the painful fantasy marathons created by other authors (*cough* Jordan *cough*), where readers seem to only be buying the books to prove to the world they can endure them to the end, it does get better.

Don't give up, GRRM fanatics! The author we all love has not disappeared; he only lost his way for a short while...

I *loved* the first three A Song of Ice and Fire books and read and reread them over and over. Unfortunately, this latest installment is not up to par. It lacks the tight writing, careful plotting, action, and nuanced characterization that made books 1-3 great. Instead, we get a bit of a bloated mess. Old POVs that were central to books 1-3 -- Tyrion, Dany, Jon -- are missing, and the two new POVs -- Cersei and Brienne -- are flat and dull. Even worse are the numerous one-shot POVs that Martin introduces, who interrupt the narrative and make the novel feel disjointed, but aren't around long enough to make you care.

More than anything, AFFC just feels indulgent. The book is filled with plodding, excruciatingly descriptive chapters about the ASOIAF world that don't do much to move the plot forward. Half the chapters consist of characters traveling from point A to point B, or they feel like info-dumps. What happened to the story? Although the plot picks up in the last quarter of the book, it was genuinely difficult to slog through the first three-quarters, where it isn't much of an exaggeration to say that nothing happens. The book could easily have been half the size.

Let's hope the next one is better!

When I learned 5 years ago (!) that this was only half a book and that number 5 would come out the next year, I decided to wait and read both together at once.

I'm still waiting. 5 years later. I have a very bad feeling this series will never be finished.

Take a look at George RR Martin's blog - see what I mean?
His pic says it all, he's old and very unhealthy looking. He will not be finishing this series at 5-6 years to complete just 1 book. For those who don't know, he has been working on book five for 5 years! No end in sight. If you look in his blog, he keeps adding stuff and re working and just plain not working on it. For 5 years now and maybe more. He still has book 6 and 7 to consider. And if those get split up into 2 books each . . . At this rate, he will be 80 before it's finished. Do you want to bet, looking at him, that he will make it to 80?

Be warned about starting this series, the author will likely be RIP before he can finish it. Save yourself severe disappointment. I have learned to NEVER start a series until all the books are done because of this sort of thing.

I'm shocked at how little this book has to offer.
Let me sum it up for you....you do not know or care about most of the characters in this book, they are new, boring, not relevant to the story, boring, seem to be shoe-horned into the series for no apparent reason...and did I mention Boring?
Can't tell you what happened in the last quarter of the book, I tossed it!
I rarely fail to finish a book, its an odd twist in my personality, I have to finish!
Could'nt swing it here.
The first 3 are some of the most amazing Fantasy I have ever read, Loved them.
This one is nonsense.
Ill wait for Book 5....but Ill wait till I hear some reader reviews, if its more of the same, I'm sorry to say i'll have to be done with my one of favorite authors.
Just skip this book.....seriously.
"Nothin' to see here, keep moving, Nothin to seee!"

Hmmm... mixed feelings. Is it a great book like the previous three or...?

Like a lot of others I anticipated this book like no other before - almost weekly checking Martin's website for updates on the publishing date. To be honest: after 5 years I expected more and better. Clearly he has been at a loss how to continue and what to write to get where he wants to go (assuming he has some ultimate ending in mind already).

What's wrong with this book?

First of all, the decision to tell the whole story for half the characters in stead of half the story for all the characters was a bad one. Like everyone else I especially missed Jon, Dany and Tyrion. You can't help but wonder what is happening simultaneously with these characters. A Dance with Dragons will likely be more interesting if only because everybody's favourite characters are included, but we already know nothing much will happen in that book either - for instance: if anything would happen in the North (with Jon or Stannis or the Wildlings) with consequences for the rest of Westeros we would know about it. No news must mean nothing much happens.

The fact that nothing much happens doesn't need to be a bad thing. There also where good things in this book, I'll get to those later. But I think if this one was edited a little more carefully, there probably wouldn't have been a problem incorporating these POV's with the missing ones into one complete book. Maybe I'll get the meaning of the Brienne storyline on a re-read or after reading the next books, but now I thought it was just boring. Once again someone (like Arya in book 2 and 3) aimlessly travelling the riverlands only to.... If the whole point was to show the whereabouts of some minor characters and ultimately to (re)start the zombie storyline - I could have done without it. But again: maybe I'll get the point later on.

The choice to use minor characters as POV's and then only once or twice wasn't really a lucky one in my opinion. No character development, which was one of the strong points of the other books. Why use Arys or the Captain while Arianne is present or around as well? The same goes for the Iron islands; Martin should have chosen one POV and stuck with it. The switching around gives a little (and unnecessary) incoherent feel.

Another thing which got to be a little annoying at times where the too numerous passages of houses, heirs, lineages, loyalties etc. Enough is enough!

What's good?

Martin's writing is second to none and you get drawn in anyway, despite any of the misgivings mentioned earlier. Unlike some others I especially liked the addition of Dorne - I think it should have been explored (and 'exploited') even more. Being related to the Red Viper should have been clue enough, but I sure want to see more of the Sand Snakes and Arianne and characters like the Darkstar as well. We'll see where Quentyn is going and what is going to come of it... Lots of potential here!

Conclusion:

This is still a very good book by any standard, but in this series unfortunately it clearly is the weakest link thus far - therefore not four but three stars. Let's hope the story picks up again and it doesn't take a couple of years of waiting for the next book!

I feel ripped off!!

I just re-read 3 books to enjoy #4 - and all I got was 3 1/2!!
I read other series (like Jordan and Goodkin) - there are better ways to end a book; everything is hanging and now I will wait 2 years for the next installment. And that will not even continue what this book started - so 4 years to find out about Arya and Brienne?!?!

I have already downgraded from hard-covered to paperback. Now I will downgrade till the story finishes.

GREAT STORY - UNPROFESSIONAL EDITING - UNFAIR TO THE READERS!!.

Just about everyone was either insanely disgusted and gave it a 1, or they swear that nothing George writes could ever earn less than a 5. I'm going with a "4" to represent that it was one of the best books I've read this year, but not quite on par with the 5-star perfection of the previous three books.

Jon, Bran, Dany, Stannis, the Onion Knight, and my favorite- Tyrion, were all on standby this time around. After a long five-year wait, I gotta admit that this irked me a bit. I got over it. Their tale could be here within a year if all goes as planned, and Feast's line up provided some enjoyable story-telling. I will now cover each main character from least favorite on up. (even the least was still good reading)

-Sam the Slayer. In my opinion, Sam should not have been made a viewpoint character to begin with. He is simply too hard to identify with, and I certainly didn't buy his "relationship" in this book. He's a funny character, and smart, and it is fun to see him finding himself, but not as a main character here.

-The Iron Men. This whole section could have been trimmed quite a bit between the various viewpoint characters and drawn out chapters. We're still waiting for Theon to reappear, but the other characters from this part of the world didn't impress. George could have summed up their story with one chapter and maybe some news from the ravens. The end result, however, I do like the problem they now present for Westeros.

-Arya Stark. I found her pretty enjoyable in the other books, because a lot happened to her AND during her chapters. I think I often liked the characters she encountered more than Arya, herself- especially The Hound, and Beric Dondarrion. She was a great character, but here, it was as if George was simply trying to remind us that she was still alive, while all the other stuff was happening back home. There was really no progress with her character, and nothing interesting happened. Furthermore, the fact that she is in Braavos reminds me that we could really use a map showing where she and Dany are. These lands have been involved in the story for four books now, and I can't figure out where they are in relation to the rest of the world.

-The Land of Dorne. Again, we have several different new viewpoint characters each with their own chapters. While I enjoyed seeing the last of the Seven Kingdoms finally revealed, the plot of these chapters could also have been summed up nicely in a single chapter and some news from the ravens.

-Sansa Stark. Until the end of the last book, I couldn't stand Sansa (Caitlyn either), but because her chapters now involve Littlefinger, I find them rather enjoyable. He is proving to be one devious little you-know-what! He has a master plan, and he really knows how to make everyone fit into his game, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how that game will end up! I wouldn't mind if little Robyn missed a step on a tall staircase though- You know its coming!

-Queen Cersi. The Queen was a little bit rattled in the beginning of this book, but she gets her stride back as the story goes on. Like Littlefinger, she is an avid player in the Game of Thrones, moving people against one another to help her rise to the top of the heap. What can I say? I like this type of character, even though they never win in the end, do they? Here she plays the unofficial role of King's Hand, and just like with the previous three Hands, we are right in the thick of it, with lots of intrigue. I certainly didn't expect her chapters to end the way they did- Great stuff!

-Brienne. The Maid of Tarth made for an excellent viewpoint character, and I certainly enjoyed her tale here. With her new squire and her adventures far away from the game of thrones, her chapters reminded me of Dunk and Egg, from George's Hedge Knight stories, which were set a century or so before this. This was certainly not a bad thing, as it was Ser Duncan the Tall that got me hooked on Martin.

-Jamie. The Kingslayer was my favorite character here. He was an imposing villain back at the beginning, and his one-eighty into a character most of us can root for, is nothing short of brilliant. He is the most human character in the book, as he is beginning to see everything and everyone as they truly are, yet he still has his duty- to serve a kingdom and family he no longer respects. I can't wait to see where his revelations take him.

My biggest problem with Feast, was that none of the main characters encountered each other. They just all went their own way as if it were seven separate stories. Sure Jaime and Cersi and Brienne started out in King's Landing, but then they each went their individual ways. Same with Sam when he left Jon at the Wall. I thought it could have proved interesting when Sam and Arya ran into each other, but neither of them mentioned Jon Snow, and they both went their own way with a ho-hum.

Another problem I had with Feast was some of George's throwaway characters. In Storm of Swords, the Hound and the Mountain, and Berric Dondarrion were great! I started reading, and I couldn't wait for them to make their appearances in Feast, but no... I still can't believe George didn't use them at all. It was as if the actors who played them didn't renew their contracts. What a bummer.

Overall, Feast had some very enjoyable writing, but in my opinion, the whole story didn't progress much. He mopped up most of the mess from the first wave of war, and set the pieces up for wave two. Which is fine, but the entire next book will be more of the same, only with the other half of the cast. So I think I am more looking forward to the book after the next. That is where I predict the s--- will hit the fan again, the way we like it. But how long must we wait for that?

***One final opinion... The new covers need to go.

I won't go into the history of how Martin needed to cut the fourth book in half, resulting in one half of the story taking place in A Feast for Crows and the other half, occurring simultaneously, in the yet-to-be-finished A Dance With Dragons. That much, for Martin's fans, is common knowledge.

This book, however, suffers for it. Many (if not all) of the fan favorites are missing in this book. No Jon. No Bran. No Tyrion. No Dany. Instead, A Feast for Crows focuses on what could safely be considered the second tier characters in terms of interest, if not importance.

So, fellow reader, be prepared to read only about Cersei and Jaime. Brienne and Samwell Tarly. And, albeit sparingly, Arya and Sansa. And yes, that's about as boring as it sounds.

I think it's safe to say that a lot of this book could have been trimmed down. Brienne and Cersei, the two who take up most of the space, just aren't that interesting. To make matters worse, nothing of consequence happens to them until the last 100-150 pages. The journeys the two take -- both in a literal and metaphorical sense -- are just tedious to read.

To make matters worse, Martin introduces a couple of new players to the game of thrones -- one from Pyke, the other from Sunspear. And no, neither really add anything to the overall story. The word 'filler' was all but stamped on their pages, which is strange as one would think, given the history of this particular book in the series, it would be bursting at the seams with pages relevent to the main plot.

Keep in mind, the book isn't all bad. Arya's story was nice as it finally progressed. Littlefinger's plans for Sansa were finally brought out into the open. And, finally, Jaime continued his development as the more interesting (by far) twin. But between the lack of interesting characters, and of anything of note happening until the very end of the book, I cannot, in good conscience, judge it to be more than just an average novel.

I just finished this book and it was fine. Clearly just an excuse to make more money as the real book will be the long awaited 5th installment, IF it ever comes out. Having started the series relatively recently, I have to say I have been pleased, but then taking the time to visit George's website where he talks about all the inane things he is doing BUT finishing his master series, which is what 99.5% of his fans actually care about, I must say his laziness is quite amazing. Miniatures, other books, comics, football games... clearly there is time in his days to rattle on about this stuff yet he seems to take no time to actually write.

The worst thing that probably happened to the fans is this HBO series because now he has another excuse to do anything but finish a book he promised almost 5 years ago. Sorry to not take much space to talk about A Feast for Crows, but the more times Martin sees the frustration of his fans, even those of us lucky enough to have started the series late, the more likely he is to finish the series, but at this point I get the feeling maybe he simply does not care to do so.

To those of you who read AFFC when it actually was released, I feel for you, I can't imagine reading that pithy little chapter at the end of the book promising another within the year in JUNE OF 2005!!!

George: Suck it up sit in front of your computer and finish your story. There is no HBO series longer term if you don't get the books written.

I think the review of this book has been well covered by others and I am in agreement with the vast majority. I eagerly awaited this book and was very disappointed, mostly in what elements of the story Martin chose to spend 800 pages introducing and/or exploring. Expectations so often form the roots of disappointments, but that does not take away the sting of how far below the standard of the first 3 books this 4th one is.

The idea that AFFC is 1/2 of a very long book that had to be split in 2 (ADWD being the second half) seems a poor excuse for the ongoing delays and promises in getting the 5th book finished and published. As another reviewer noted, at this rate we can expect the 7th (and claimed final) book in 2022! Maybe it is simply a writer's block from a planned trilogy expanding to 7 volumes and Martin's problems sorting out the structure. Maybe it is a deeper problem than that. Maybe Martin doesn't know where the story is going or ending up. That's not the end of the world; only if Martin was more intellectually honest and respectful of his audience. It is what King did with The Dark Tower series. For years he was frank in saying "I don't know where the story is going yet." That was frustrating for the reader, but perhaps it is better to wait for something than to wind up feeling confused-disappointed-cheated (pick one) by such a let down as AFFC.

While I wait for the next book (I am not ready to give up yet) I will re-read the first 3 truly inspired books at a leisurely pace, skip this one, and hopefully by then ADWD will be out and everything we all are hoping for. I am skeptical. Skeptical enough, in fact, to check it out of the library rather than risk my money at another disappointment.

I have read this novel, it is merely ok. It took me 3 attempts to get through it. The gem of it is the story line with the female knight, if you can find it among the hundreds of story lines he maintains in a single novel. Mr. Martin's greatest strength, interweaving multiple story lines into a complete story is also his greatest flaw. There is too much. To many threads in the tapestry, and too many of those threads get cut too quickly. I can understand going for realism, but realistically, this is a fantasy story. We don't read such books for realism, we want a fairy tale. If I want a realistic depiction of the War of Roses or the Hundred Years was, I can go to my library and get hundreds of novels on the subject. Mr. Martin needs to read The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell and remember what a STORY is all about.

He has lost sight of his own story and become too aware of his own success and apparent greatness. I am seriously considering not reading any more of his stuff. He has gone the way of Lucas and Star Wars. I understand that it is his story to tell, but he has shared that with us, given it away(for $25 bucks a pop, but still given it away) for the world to share. It is not just his anymore, it is ours.

Someone needs to tell him to stop parading around the county on book tour after book tour, after speaking engagment like some strutting peacock and write the next book already. Otherwise I won't be the only fan he loses.

When I came across the following review of A Feast for Crows (the ideas are unfortunately not uncommon), I decided to share my thoughts. I admit that I had too much time on my hands and that I am perhaps overly critical of the review in consideration because on some level I share the reviewer's frustration with AFFC. However, the review, in turn, is overly critical of AFFC.

(it's a 1 star review titled "there should be a law against this")
------------------------------

"i first came upon these books sometime in 2003. in 2006 i read 'feast for crows'. then waiting forever for 'a dance of dragons' ...

if readers knew that this series which started in 1997, would be prolonged forever, how many of them would have even started reading this series - paying money for them?

don't authors have a responsibility towards their readers?

to write three great books and then keep readers waiting forever (while the author pens other books) is dishonest in the extreme. there should a law against such chicanery.

publishing houses learning from robert jordan and george rr martin, should desist from publishing incomplete books. they should start publishing a series only when the author hands in the complete set.

and public should sue these authors and their publishing companies for making a fool of them."
-------------------------------

my thoughts as they arrive- in run on fashion:

Martin has created, using his own mind his own skill and his own talent, three of the best fantasy books ever written. Now, because he chooses to spend his time in other ways than writing the rest of the series, or because he is a perfectionist and wants to write the rest to be the masterpiece taking the time he requires, or for whatever reason he is not writing at the pace you have determined is the correct and proper pace to write a gripping series of 1000 page fantasy novels, you want to get Mr. Big Government involved to expedite the realisation of your satisfaction- your own greedy desire find out the fate of Martin's magnificently developed characters in his brilliantly crafted world. Instead of waiting until Martin freely and voluntarily puts forth the remainder of his masterpiece, you believe as a consumer (in line with some sort of consumerist manifesto) you should have the ability to strong arm him in to speeding up. You are misguided to think that somehow you have an unalienable (government enforceable) right to the creativity of Martin's mind and the fruits of Martins labor. Sure, you don't (yet) claim that the future events in Westeros ought to be revealed to you free of charge because you have already invested your time and money getting yourself hooked. But, it's not much of a leap from demanding by law that Martin quit his dilly dallying and supply the final books in the series because you have this right to them, to declaring that your right is to have them not only when you want them (now), but how you want them (delivered directly to "Your Grace"), where you want them (while sitting on your "Iron Throne"), and at what price you want them (free- because you're you, and you deserve it).

Sure, you and anyone else who has read the first four books in A Song of Ice and Fire is disappointed that books five six and seven (eight nine ten...) aren't out yet, and probably at least a little disappointed in the quality of book four. Sure, you want books five through ... to be as good as the first three in the series. Don't we all? After reading a particularly good book, that kept us turning pages well after we should have turned the lights out to get enough sleep to arrive fresh to our early appointments the next morning, we all begin that never ending quest to find the next book that enthralls us at least as well. As anyone who has been through this knows, finding the next book that meets our new standard is no easy task. But, exponentially harder is the task of the author who pens such masterful work. Martin has created a new benchmark for epic fantasy. Does it seem possible to you, by any stretch of the imagination, that somehow, if only the founding fathers had had the foresight to put it in the Bill of Rights, all fiction published would be as good as Tolkien, Rowling, MARTIN, and/or (insert your own personal favorite)? Well, perhaps you're right. After all, Amtrak is the best way to travel, the USPS is the best way to mail packages, and the DMV is the best way to spend a Saturday afternoon. It's quite natural to assume, therefore, that a "law, against such chicanery" as taking too much time to publish a highly anticipated novel that once out only furthered the general sense of disappointment and impatience, must result in the spread of five star novels at only the most virulent pace.

further thoughts on AFFC:

AFFC is a very disappointing fourth installment to the series. It was a big mistake to drop half the characters. Also, too many irrelevant and boring characters (as of the end of the 4th book) are introduced. Martin should have kept all the characters together for the book, made it longer if it needed to be, and dropped the characters that add nothing to the overall storyline. I'm optimistic these new characters will all have been necessary when the series is through, but as of now they aren't. On another note, I noticed what was perhaps some deception in AFFC. Do the publishers think they are fooling anyone by making the 4th book "1000" pages, the same length as the rest of books? The type is clearly bigger or the spacing is wider. I would venture that AFFC is only a little over half as long as the first three. If it were infact intended to deceive, it would be very insulting to the readers. In the end I give it a 3 because the important characters (cersei, jaime) are still as interesting and as important as they were in the first three books, and I will stick with the series till the end, undoubtedly, because Martin has a lot of talent, and one glitch doesn't mean he's done producing great work.

This book was the worst in his series so far.

Loved the first three books he wrote, although it was already obvious that he was in trouble. He just lost control! GRRM has a good imagination, but lacks an "inner editor".

He keeps inventing new subplots and characters, spreading your attention so thin that you essentially stop caring about the story. The story arc is broken.

The most laughable thing about GRRM introducing new characters (even minor ones) is when he crams whole background stories in blocks of a few sentences... while quite a few of these minor characters could be omitted altogether. He seems in love with his own imagination, unable to let go. I don't think it's greed... it's incompetence.

Oh... and GRRM's recommendation on Robin Hobb's "Assassin's Quest" books: "A diamond in a sea of zircons" is spot-on... his own writing is definitely one of the zircons. Read Robin Hobb instead.

I absolutely LOVED this series. I rapaciously devoured the pages of the first three books and and was consumed by the fever of witnessing greatness as it unfolded. I was on the waiting list for this fourth book, long before its release, and was an avid spokesman for the saga, turning my friends onto the series, mailing the books as gifts.

However my ethusiasm quickly waned after plodding insufferably through
the installment of "A Feast For Crows".

I kept waiting for something of merit to happen in this book, and aside from one or two incidents, the plot is no further embellished than the previous book. It is missing any reference to half of the most important characters, and the characters that are followed are not developed accordingly.

It is a very stagnant read, and seems, as I read in another review, that the series is now in desperate need of a new editor.

The amazing ability of Martin has been proven in the first three books; but "A Feast For Crows" does not nearly begin to stand on its own merit. I will certainly continue with the series; but my passion has been severely dampened.

If you've made this far through the reviews congrats! I won't bother to repeat too much that has been said already. I love this series, one of the best ever in Fantasy. This was a weaker effort than the first three but I believe in the end Martin will redeem himself.

At the end of Storm of Swords, much had happened in the seven kingdoms. We needed a break, a chance to catch our breaths and regroup. This one should be slower. However, Martin needs to realize that editing, not cutting the book in half, is what should have been done. As stated before, much of this book is wasted time traveling, talking about nothing and doing little. 90% of Sam's and Brienne's chapters could have been erased without any loss.

Why didn't any of his editors challenge him and make him cut some of the excess fat in this novel? The most frustrating thing is that A Dance With Dragons will be more of the same. NONE of the cliff hangers will be rectified or talked about in the next one; do people realize this? He said himself he will only do the other half of the characters that were missing in this volume. So we won't know what happens to all of these people (some in dire straights to say the least) until the NEXT book after Dance comes out. Lord only knows when that will be.

Still, his customary writing skills and depth of both chacracter and story shine through. I enjoyed it even though I saw the glaring flaws. I can't wait til the next one. And the one after even more.

Where is Tyrion? Where is Bran? Jon? Sansa? Daenerys? Stannis? So many of the characters I had come to love-hate? Instead, we are left with the ugly and stupid Cersei, the ugly and stupid Brienne, the ugly and stupid Ironmen. I loved the preceding books in this series, in large part because of the brilliant characters of Tyrion and Arya. But not only has the author abandoned (not killed, merely not mentioned) so many of the characters he built up, his story has veered off in other directions, and begun meandering about. I fear this series is going the way of Robert Jordan's promising but ultimately awful Wheel of Time series -- endless side-steps ploddingly placed, with innumerable new characters who are really only variations on characters we've already seen. Let's hope this book is an aberration in the series, and the next brings a return to form. Martin can write, and has the ability to create memorable characters and episodes, but to coin a cliche, he seems to have lost the plot as well as his characters.

This book kind of sucked. I hope that Martin still has something left because at this point he is ending books in a soap operatic fashion with crappy unfinished endings that leave the reader (watcher) on the edge of the couch. It is gimicky and reflects weak or unsure plot development and writing. Maybe he just wanted to stretch to more books for more money? I think it is pretty pathetic. Everyone was worried about him running down Jordan's path but it seems he found out how to turn something awesomely rich in detail, depth, action, and complexity into something complexly rich in putrescent useless filth. Anytime an author has to end or start a book with an explanation of why it does not deliver what is expected or wanted beware for the fountain pen tapping the cesspool (i.e.Dark Tower Series).

Still entertaining writing and some surprises, but is it still surprising when the formula is: something or someone is good = almost certain death and destruction. Evil, cheating, lying = success! (yea)

The formula is annoying when any gloriously huge pile of goodness is thwarted by a very simple monstrous act of evil. I know this is more realistic than most fantasy but how far does he need to stack the deck before the gloriously just? Daenyrys comes in to save the 7 Kingdoms?

All my complaining without, I will ravenously devour each book he puts out , regardless how annoyingly he hooks me to read them. Complex characters, hidden secrets, and mostly rational action blah blah blah. So Martin has what most fantasy severly lacks.

Everyone who has gotten this far has their own opinion and my drunken rantings will not change anything. But this was a 600 page book that could very likely just be skipped in the series. A voracious reader such as myself could not possible skip this book but if you are a casual reader and don't like Jordan's drawn out detail you can probably get away without reading this book at all. 600 pages of transition is a bit much.

Martin thrives on having his characters do exaclty what the reader does not want them to do. Maybe he can actually produce another book, another piece to the story, without intentionally antogonizing the reader into reading more. It is hard to believe that the story presented to us is exactly what he wanted to write. Unless he naturally writes medieval fantasy identical to the writers of the crummy TV show Lost.

I might actually give this a 2.5.

George R.R. Martin's latest book, "A Feast for Crows", is not quite as compelling or as interesting as the 3 novels which preceded it. As most readers are aware, Martin decided to split his original Book 4 into two books. Thus, the Point-of-View chapters for major characters such as Tyrion do not appear in "A Feast for Crows." This, in and of itself, is not an issue. Mr. Martin, however, seems to suffer the disease that plagues many writers of major fantasy epics (most notably, Robert Jordan): the inability to keep the story tight and focused, and the attempted development of too many relatively minor (and relatively uninteresting) characters. As a result, the book slows to a snail's pace and has the feel of the later books in the Robert Jordan series (in which it can take a 100 pages for someone to break camp).

The highlights of the book are the POV chapters which focus on Brienne and Jaime. Jaime has moved from a relatively one-dimensional villain to a character with much greater depth and much greater inner conflict. Does he love his sister or hate her, or both? Is he forever to be remembered as "The Kingslayer" or can he recreate himself into something noble? Is he worth less as a man and a knight having lost his hand? Brienne, in turn, breaks the mold of female characters. Ugly and brutish, she is a conflicted woman who finds herself out of place in both the world of men and the world of women.

Where the story really drags and begins to lose focus is in the chapters dedicated to the events in Dorne and the Iron Isles. These storylines could easily have been edited out or cut back immensely without hurting the development of the plot. In fact, it would have made the book and overall storyline much more compelling and better paced. The POV chapters relating to Arya, Sansa and Sam do not greatly advance the story and could easily have benefited from better editing. Sometimes, you get the feeling that Martin confuses volume with quality (and that his editors no longer interfere with his writing given his stature in the field). Arya, Sansa and Sam are all great characters, but due to the current plot line really are not in need of so much exposition.

If you've read the first three books, certainly pick this one up and read it. Don't, however, expect it to be as tightly constructed as the previous three novels in the series.

I was rather skeptical about reading this book, given the track record of the previous entries. After all, only the third book of this series was really all that interesting, while the others sort of just dragged on as the characters moved from spot to spot facing the same dilemnas over and over and over. However, I was pleasantly surprised that Martin out did himself for repetitive plot antics with "A Feast for Crows". It's quite an accomplishment to write 975 pages about a world full of interesting places, characters and struggles and ensure that NOT ONE THING EVER HAPPENS!!! I was really impressed. Not even Robert Jordan, the King of all Mindless Fantasy Serials, was so successful in writing a tome in which NOTHING HAPPENS!! And the best part is that Martin actually made it rather interesting!! I don't know of another writer who can do that!! It was an extremely well-written 975 pages of nothing happening. The best part is that the author actually cuts out the most interesting characters of his previous novels, concentrates on the dullest ones for this novel, and still makes it rather interesting. Of course, we still have way too many chapters in which Cersei takes a bath and has a glass of wine or other chapters where Jaime bemoans the loss of his hand or Samwell thinks he's a coward, etc. But those chapters end, another chapter takes its place and then we go right back to another chapter where Cersei takes a bath and has some wine and Jaime bemoans the loss of his hand, etc. The whole book is like that. One neverending cycle of repeated chapters in which the plot moves barely at all. I don't know what's more amazing: That Martin was able to write such a repetitive, action-depleted fantasy novel or that someone actually let him publish it!

Now, I read the previous book four years ago, so maybe four years from now when the next book is published I'll have a different review, but for now, it's enough to say this book will keep you interested in nothing for 975 pages. If you don't have that kind of time to waste, then just wait another four years and read "A Dance with Dragons" because not reading "A Feast for Crows" will in no way hinder your ability to read future entries. That's because, if you haven't already figured it out, nothing happened.

The Phantom Editor

When "The Phantom Menace" was released a few years ago, everyone expected it to be on of the greatest films they'd ever seen. However, this was unfotunately not the case. It was simply not a very good movie. I really *wanted* to like the movie. I really did. But when I found myself needing to search for positives in order to combat the overwhelming list of negatives, I realized it was time to concede defeat. There were/are still some holdouts that say things like "This was a transition movie" or "Even the greatest filmmakers can't make every movie their greatest" or "Expectations were set so high, it was doomed no matter how good it was". These are theoretically valid arguments, with the only problem that they are false. The movie just isn't that good - period.

Also unfortunate is that this is exactly how I feel about Feast for Crows, the latest in Martin's juggernaut series. I really want to like this book. In fact, I really really really want to like this book. I've been able to do nothing but sing the series' praise from the mountaintop since I first started reading it several years ago. But once again, I find myself searching for positives, which is a clear indicator that the book has issues - huge issues. Just think - did the thought ever, ever cross your mind after finishing Storm of Swords - "What are some positive things about this book?" No - it would be a completely unneccesary exercise, to the point of absurdity. Not so here. I now find myself remembering "moments", and that's a crying shame.

"This is a transition book". Several reviewers have made this statement. It reminds me of the phrase "street smarts". Just what are "street smarts"? They are what all people who don't have "book smarts" automatically assume they have. Just because a book is lacking in plot development or interest, that doesn't automatically make it a "transition book". In a transition book, you can still point to character development, and situations that have transpired that will allow something big and exciting to happen in a future book. There was very little of that in this book. Reading a good transition book is like watching a couple of Grandmasters play a positional middle game in chess. A lot of pieces are moved, but there are very few piece captures. Instead, each Grandmaster is quietly setting up for the Big Moment - instead of excitement, there is tension. In Martin's case, it's like he was trying to emulate the Grandmasters, but didn't execute correctly. Instead, he superglued the pieces to the board, and then shook it up and down real fast. None of them went ANYWHERE, even though they was a lot of commotion about them.

"But what about Cercei - there was a lot of development there!" you may say. Well, I'm not sure how to characterize what happened to her, other than as a character she was ruined. She had INCREDIBLE potential to be a fascinating character, but somewhere between book 3 and 4 she overdosed on stupid-pills. I mean, this was the primary enemy of TYRION. She fought an incredible mental/political battle with one of the finest minds in the Seven Kingdoms for 3 books. She was a mega-player!!! But as soon as we get into her head, she becomes one of the more phenominally inept characters in modern fantasy.

Many reviewers have brought up other points that I fully agree with and will not duplicate here, save one. There was a character in the Phantom Menace called "Jar Jar Binks". Pretty much everyone in the world (except for the very young and the very old) hated him with a passion. Not only was he extremely annoying, he was extremely unnecessary. Some creative folks took the brilliant initiative to edit out all of the scenes with Jar-Jar Binks from the Phantom Menace, which was subsequently passed around the internet (I'm in no way condoning that part of it). The movie became MUCH more enjoyable this way - it was much shorter, you didn't have to suffer through Jar-Jar, and you DIDN'T MISS ANY OF THE PLOT. The title of this version was "The Phantom Edit".

Well, this character also exists in Feast For Crows. Although Brienne isn't quite as annoying as Jar-Jar, she's even *more* unneccesary, and takes up *way* more real estate. The book could use a good Phantom Editor. Please, someone re-release this book with the Brienne chapters removed. I know I can simply skip them, but it's just not the same.

There is something much scarier than extraneous and/or annoying characters in this book; something that not as many people have mentioned that I find a little surprising. The quality of the writing itself has plummeted; specifically, the writing has gotten way too descriptive, almost like Martin needed space filler (although I strongly believe this is not the case). There are 3 main areas I break these fillers into. 1) The "List". If someone meets a singer, you don't need to spend

I was a soldier in Iraq when this book was released. I had been eagerly waiting for 4 years for a new installment of what I felt at the time was the best and brightest light in the fantasy sub-genre. I was disappointed. By now you know that every major character that GRRM had cultivated for nearly 3000 pages, 10 years and 3 novels was absent or only mentioned peripherally at best. But that's not the biggest betrayal of this novel. The biggest betrayal is the introduction of new POVs that we, as readers, have nothing invested in. We couldn't care less about them and aren't given any compelling reasons to begin caring. Brienne, Samwell, the Greyjoys, and anything happening in Dorne were minor ornamentations to the first three novels -- and that's being generous in some cases. In this one, they are center-stage for a solid 2/3rds of the text and they contribute nothing. NOTHING. They don't advance the plot, they don't illuminate motivations of the major players, they don't even bother to capture your interest. Brienne LITERALLY rides around and looks for someone the whole book. That's it. I just summed up in eleven words what evidently takes a dozen or so entire chapters for GRRM to convey.

For a fan of the world of ASOIAF, this is an "okay" novel. It provides depth of background and expands the tapestry of this world, letting you into the minds of characters that, prior to this novel, you had no access to. For fans of the STORY of ASOIAF, this book is a virtual waste of time. There are perhaps half a dozen chapters that advance the story and, after all, I believe thats what most of us are craving. As I type this, we've been waiting almost 5 years for the next installment, A Dance with Dragons. I won't bore you with reasons why I'm irritated about it. (At this point, you're either a GRRM apologist and have forgiven him for making you wait almost a decade for something new to happen in his creation, or you're not. I am not.) However, to say that I've moved on to other stories and writers is an understatement.

If you're new to ASOIAF, I'm advising you to avoid these novels. I have a feeling GRRM will end up breaking our hearts. He is notorious for not keeping notes and "writing from his mind". So unlike Jordan, who had extensive outlines, notes and ideas for a future ghostwriter to work from in the event of his untimely death, GRRM may leave nothing but an unfinished series.

At the very least, you can probably skip this novel. What "A New Spring" was to the Wheel of Time series, this book will be to ASOIAF. An interesting side-journey for hardcore fans, but, to the casual reader, ultimately a marketing diversion intended to soak you of more money.

I purchased this book two years ago and I have not read it yet. I thought that the next book in the series would be coming out shortly and I wanted to read them together. Well, I am still waiting. I have read the first three books in this series and enjoyed them enough to read them twice. But this waiting is too much. Come on George, get to work on this series and let your other projects go for awhile. I hope you will finish this series during your lifetime (and mine).

Look at the timeline for the hardcover release dates:
Book 1 - Aug 1996
Book 2 - Feb 1999
Book 3 - Oct 2000
Book 4 - Nov 2005

It's been twelve years since the first release and we are only half way into the series. Will it take twelve more years to publish the rest? Is Book 5 coming out in 2009? ... 2010? And George, don't tell me to get a life. Without readers what kind of life would you have? You owe it to your readers to finish in a timely manner what you started. You have the potential to be remembered as a great writer - if you give us the rest of this series.

Man, I can remember being in high school and reading the first 6 Dragonlance books. The Chronicles and the Twins series were so awesome. But then the authors and the publishers spun off and spun off the series to the point of losing all relevance and interest. The Dragonlance have been spun off to the point of novels contradicting each other. It is unfair to the series and the reader to do that.

Then came Robert Jordan and the Wheel of Time. Again the first 3 or 4 books were great. But then we were told of a "transition." A transition that took about 5 books of about 1000 pages each. Again, unfair to the reader to never end a series and suck you through novel after novel. The Wheel of Time started out so good and just for whatever reasons slowed to a grinding unreadable halt.

Then came Martin and The Fire and Ice series. How awesome were the first 3 books? What made the books so good in my opinion were the different points of view from all sides. It chapter was its own little cliff hanger.

Now comes part 4. And again I here this term "transition." I understand it, I see why some of it was needed. But the question is: Is this a one volume transition or a Robert Jordan 5 books of 1000 pages transition.

For me the reader the answer is simple, like Jordan. If you string me along too long, I am out.

Overall, the book at parts is better than any other fantasy I have read in the last few years. The chapters with Jaime and his sister were great. The stuff with Sam was great. The rest....well could have been done in a lot less time.

I hope the series keeps moving and as much as I loved the other books, lets end this thing in our lifetimes.

I was warned, as no doubt most A Song of Ice and Fire fans were as well, that A Feast For Crows was an unworthy follow up to the darling of the series thus far, A Storm of Swords. Stories of the publication issues, the extreme length of the original manuscript, and the expansion of the series as a whole, with Martin choosing not to skip over the five or so years that was originally planned after the events of A Storm of Swords, were rife. Even the very people that recommended the series to me in the first place were quick to warn me not to get too amped up for Feast, as it was an inevitable disappointment.

Three years and as many re-reads later, and I still have no idea what they're talking about. While it remains true that Danaerys and Tyrion are missing from the book entirely and Jon Snow is only seen in short glimpses, their absence is more of a subjective loss than an objective one. The core strengths of the series are still in ample supply; Martin's flair for detail and character are as strong as ever, and the mysteries that are hinted at throughout the book are as engrossing as any other.

As the title implies, A Feast For Crows is a story that is, at its heart, about the aftermath of great events; in a word, loss. Murders of very real crows pick through the slain of the War of Five Kings, and the center of so many of the plots and counter plots of the previous books are either slain, indisposed, or crippled (the crippling being emotional or metaphorical as well as physical), leaving a power vacuum that the clever but short-sighted schemer Cersei Lannister is eager to fill.

Make no mistake, A Feast For Crows is largely Cersei's book. Fans who find her irritating to the point of distraction will not enjoy her chapters, as they are generally filled with Cersei celebrating her intelligence after committing some folly. Subjective opinions of Cersei aside, her chapters are subtly handled; it's easy to cast her aside as a madwoman or an idiot, but Martin implies throughout it all that the core of Cersei's motivation is fear. She fears for her only son and daughter, she fears for her own safety and the safety of her house, and her throne. The pillars of her world have been pulled from under her: the rock that was Tywin Lannister lies rotting on a bier, and her brother/lover Jaime has changed, in her mind, for the worse. In her inability to cope with events, she mistakes folly for genius, and her actions ultimately seed her own doom.

There is a bit of a fourth-quarter effect in some of her chapters, however. The prophecy of the valonqar seems to fit, but there was no mention of it in previous volumes. While this can plausibly be simply because Cersei never had a POV before, it still seems like it was tacked on. Without it, she still has reason to fear Tyrion, and even that simple motivation when seen through the lens of a scared mother who doesn't allow herself to grieve is enough to qualify her actions. The volunqar storyline, however, neatly parallels her character arc in Feast; it is strongly implied that in her fear, she partly fulfilled Maggy the Frog's prophecy by killing the only other person who was present when it was foretold. In that way, even if the volunqar story was thought up the weekend before publication, it still has a significant and worthy impact on the plot.

The other reason people seem to mislike Feast is Brienne of Tarth. In terms of the number of chapters and page time given, Brienne comes in a close second only to Cersei. So, again, the subjective dislike of Cersei and Brienne have a very significant impact on the opinions of Feast at-large. However, Brienne's story, despite being full of what Jaime calls "bleating," contains the larger portion of action in the entire book. Jaime is forced to fight his battles with wits and words instead of steel, and aside from the Ironmen, the rest of the realm is winding down from the war and fighting grows less frequent. Mileage may vary, but for my money Brienne's quest was a fascinating look at the deplorable state of the seven kingdoms, and there is a brutal grimness to her chapters that suggests that Westeros will get worse before it gets better.

Jaime is at his best in Feast, hands down. His chapters are more interesting, if less action-focused, than his chapters in A Storm of Swords. It is in Feast where Jaime truly begins to change. Tyrion's mocking words at the end of Storm haunt him to the extent of rebuffing his sister, and as her attitude abruptly changes toward him, his own changes toward her as well. His struggle is largely personal, as he has to contend with the demons of his past while at the same time relying on them to keep him alive; the very reputation that he loathes is, right now, the only thing staying the blades of so many people who would see him dead, and House Lannister cast down.

Feast also features Littlefinger at his best, divulging more of his plans than in any other book, and Sansa's growth from a dreaming woman-child to an intelligent, capable young adult is astonishingly well handled. Samwell Tarly advances the master-plot of the Prince that was Promised and gives a quick look at the developing understanding of events to come, and the focus on the Ironmen, as well as a much-needed look at Dorne rounds out A Feast for Crows as one of the more comprehensive entries in the series, despite the exclusion of Jon, Tyrion and Dany.

There are some complaints that Feast is a sideshow, that is doesn't advance the main storyline in any meaningful way, but I find that a little hard to grasp. Though there could be more focus on the chapters outside of King's Landing (I don't think three Ironmen POVs are necessary; having just Victarion or Just Aeron or just Asha would have sufficed - same goes for Dorne: are Arys' AND Areo's AND Arianne's chapters necessary?), their impact on the events to come are HUGELY important. Doran Martell's plotting against House Lannister is revealed, suggesting that Dorne will be a huge player in books to come. The Ironmen are making ever more aggressive strides toward conquering the Seven Kingdoms at large, and they also are interested in Danaerys. I'm still at a loss as to what people expected from Feast; no, it doesn't end in an epic confrontation like at the end of Clash or Storm, but the subtle advances of the master plot and the focus on the fallout of the War of Five Kings is just as important in the grand scheme.

I would like to make it clear to any potential readers; the only loss in A Feast for Crows is the loss of Jon, Dany, Tyrion and Bran. It is unfortunate, but I don't feel as if it ruins the series or even bogs it down. The pace of this book is on akin to A Game of Thrones, but where in the debut volume events were ramping up, in this volume they are winding down. Coming in at over 900 pages, even with the exclusion of the Dornish and Ironmen chapters, including four of the ball-carrying POV characters would have expanded Feast beyond a doorstopper; it would have been a veritable tome. Further complaints are, I feel, more directed at fans' annoyance at the absence of A Dance With Dragons. Feast is no weaker than any other novel in the series. It is as GRRM states it is in the afterword; the full story with half the characters.

Feast is a worthy entry in the series, and well worth re and re-reading, as are all the rest. The subtlety of the writing and characterization, the hints and snapshots we get of the larger events, the development of the characters and the overall tone of loss in this book are not the flashy, quippy, action-packed events of A Clash of Kings. Nor are they the epicly brutal events of A Storm of Swords. This is a book about the victors licking their wounds, the losers facing their fate, and those who have been left untouched preparing for worse.

5/5

The wait was long. I even had a reminder on my Outlook for the day Feast was coming out.
What can I say? As much as the previous books were excellent, so much the disappointment from this one. I can't understand what happened to Martin: it's as if he deliberately goes against himself and the saga he created. For a start, there are no Jon Snow chapters. Wait, also no Daenerys... what's going on? Hey, no Tyrion? What did I buy this book for? It goes on: no mention at all of Bran and Rickon, etc.
Instead, we get endless (!) semi-psychological chapters from Cersei Lannister's view, supposedly allowing us to follow her totally losing her sanity (convincing? better say "embaracing"). Jaime goes on (and on, and on...) lamenting his lost hand. And then again, for a few more chapters. Well, you get the idea.
I am really puzzled. I loved the previous books. I truly believe GRRM has proved himself to be a great writer. I still give him the credit that he might be building something here, that will be fulfilled in the next book. Be warned, however: the road is long, slow, and (sad to admit) disappointing, on the verge of boring.