Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
A powerful novel of rare and intoxicating complexity, 16 Nov 2005
A Feast for Crows arrives with the weight of expectation crushing it. Three years overdue and split in two because of its length, A Feast for Crows was never going to appeal to everyone. Arguably the three main key characters of the series - Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen and Tyrion Lannister - are not present, having been shunted into the fifth book, A Dance with Dragons (out in 12-18 months time). A Feast for Crows instead focuses on the aftermath of the opening three books of the series. The War of the Five Kings is all but over. The Lannister-Tyrell alliance is victorious, King Tommen sits the Iron Throne under the watchful eye of his mother, the Queen Regent Cersei Lannister, and the rival King Stannis Baratheon has fled into the far north. All that is left to win the war is to capture Stannis' lightly-held strongholds of Storm's End and Dragonstone and force the surrender of Riverrun, still held by bannermen loyal to the dead King Robb Stark. Arya Stark has fled across the sea to the Free City of Braavos, whilst Sansa Stark has been secreted in the Vale of Arryn as the ward of Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish. Meanwhile, Brienne of Tarth has embarked on her quest to find the missing Sansa and Arya and Samwell Tarly is en route from the Wall to Oldtown to search for information on the evil Others. Meanwhile, in the Iron Islands the Greyjoy family is riven by rival claimants for the throne, and in Dorne Prince Martell is under pressure to declare war against the Lannisters for the death of his brother.AFFC is about picking up the pieces after the epic struggles of the previous volumes. There are two major battles but one happens off-screen and we join the other as it is about to end. This novel is more about politicking, prophecies and preparing for what is to come next. Cersei's stupidity (untempered by a loyal advisor for the first time) and her grief over Joffrey's death and her father's murder is threatening to destroy everything the Lannisters have worked for these past twenty years. The Tyrells' ambition is becoming more pronounced. The Martells of Dorne have a shockingly ambitious plan that is years in the making and not done yet. The Faith of the Seven is trying to restore its reputation as protectors of the people, not sycophants to the king. In Oldtown the Conclave of Maesters are playing their own game. A Feast for Crows is deep, powerfully-written and Machivellian in scope. Characters are seeking power (Euron, Cersei, Victarion) or redemption (Arys Oakheart, Brienne, Jaime), but rarely finding what they are looking for. The post-war Seven Kingdoms is a murky world where one misstep means death, but a lucky gambler can win all. Perhaps the book lacks the thunderous pace of its predecessors, but its quiet and subtle advancement of the story is every bit as gripping and surprising. The book has its flaws - the Dornish and Iron Island chapters could have been done through one new POV character apiece rather than introducing numerous one-off characters - but these are minor. The biggest gripe is the use of the old maps, but that was a publishing mistake, not GRRM's. AFFC is a superb book which confirms Martin's place at the forefront of modern epic fantasy.
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41 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
A Little Light Elevenses for Crows?, 17 Oct 2005
I'll try to review this without spoilers, but that may be quite difficult!
This arrived in the post Saturday morning, and I've spent the entire weekend devouring it.
As the fourth book in "A Song of Ice and Fire", this isn't the place for new readers to start, Martin's world is far to complex to come to half way through. If you've read the first three books, you know what to expect, and this doesn't disappoint.
The last book, "A Storm of Swords" was a magnificent jaw-dropper of a book; it was the end of the first half of the series. "Feast" is the begining of the second half (There are now seven books planned, apparantly). It's a very different book to "Storm", and comparisons are a little unfair. Overall, it's a lot closer in style and pace to "A Clash of Kings".
That's not to say it's without incident. It's chock full of incident. But this time George has chosen to focus only on about half his character storylines - the next book will focus on the others. So what we have is a book chock full of goings on in the South of Westeros, primarily in and around King's Landing. We also get some new storylines set in the Iron Islands and Dorne (those Martells are an interesting bunch - why has George waited so long to introduce them to us properly?) Some of the other characters get "placeholder" chapters that merely move them around the map without really achieving anything.
"Feast" is more than worth five stars. It's a great book, written in Martin's unequalled style, and full of jaw-dropping moments. But it does suffer from being "half a book" as it were. This feast was worth waiting five years (?!) for, but somehow I don't feel sated. Instead, it's merely whetted my appetite for "A Dance with Dragons", which should be along in 2006 to take us to the Wall and over the Narrow sea. And at the end of the day, that's what a great fantasy series should do - leave you hungry for more!
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
worth waiting for, 14 Dec 2006
Alright, if you've not read any of this series before, then stop right here and go and get a game of thrones first. That was the first in four [well, five really] books that tell the increasingly long story of a war in a fantasy kingdom, and the struggle to see who emerges king.
These are superb novels, ever so well written and bursting with detail and compelling characters and they really command your attention. It's just a shame that the writer couldn't have waited till he'd got them all written before publishing any! I read the first one in 1997, the second in 1999, and book three was so large that it came out in two halves, and I read the first in 2001 and the second in 2002.
So by the time I got onto this one, it was four years since I'd last visited this world. And whilst half the cast of characters are missing and we won't see them again till the next volume [which is in essence book four and a half. Confused? You will be!] That wasn't really a problem because I couldn't remember all of themm anyway! And tyrion's absence is actually rather clever because he's on the run for all of this book, so you spend all your time trying to work out where he might be, and that's effective.
So after four years away from this world, would I be able to get back into it?
Absolutely! It was incredibly compelling, and a really good read. And I really want to know what will happen next! Brienne became a very interesting character and her storyline ends on a cliffhanger. So how many years am I going to have to wait to find out what happens to her?
An excellent read. Just don't make me wait too long for the next one!
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