If a one word book review was acceptable, a simple "Wow" would suffice!

A Feast for Crows is the 4th installment in George R.R. Martin's epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. This was by far the best to date. While the entire novel was engaging, the last 50 pages of the 976 total leaves the reader feeling physically and mentally abused. It's impossible to provide a decent synopsis without spoiling the story for others (and going on for 100's of pages since the plot is so rich in detail) but in a nutshell: Cersei finally gets what she deserves, Brienne doesn't, Sam is on track to become the hero of the entire series and a character we thought was dead reappears as Lady Stoneheart.

I have to admit that this book sat on my shelf for quite a while. I need to be in the "mood" for Martin. Now I really want to continue the series. Like many of his fans, I'm concerned that it may never come to conclusion. This book was published in 2005 and the "Back at the Wall" states that the next installment will be available "next year.” (2006) There's even a preview of the next book stating A Dance with Dragons is "coming soon." However, here we are at the end of 2009 and the book still has not been published. The release is now scheduled for September 2010. For Epic Fantasy genre fans, visions of Robert Jordan may be coming to mind. George isn't a young man and with the series being unfinished at this time, we may be having a different author decide the outcome of the Seven Kingdoms for us. ( )

George RR Martin is starting to suffer from the large number of characters and plot threads in this installment of 'A Song of Ice and Fire'. Forced by his publisher to split this one, he made the sensible decision to split the narrative by geography and character. He still maintains his overview by incorporating a few chapters set in the Iron Islands, Dorne and Oldtown. I didn't have a problem with not knowing of the exploits of Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen and Tyrion Lannister during this book (except indirectly). However the focus of the book seemed a bit off. A main thread is Brienne's search for the Stark girls, which requires her to return through the war-ravaged riverlands. But no one's story was really 'finished' in the book.

For me though, the least successful element of the book was the Cersei Lannister narrative. Cersei has been a bitch-queen since the first book, but seeing the world through her eyes doesn't make her less hateful, as it did for her twin Jaime. In fact, she comes across as a rather pathetic egomaniac and bully. Also *stupid*, surrounding herself as queen with fools and flatterers and generally running the kingdom even more poorly than Robert Baratheon did. The Maggy Frog prophecy seems to have been rather hastily bolted on for this book too. I thought there was too much of her and that a King's Landing perspective could better have been provided by someone close to, but still fearful of Cersei (like the viewpoints of Sansa Stark and Tyrion Lannister in the earlier novels).

I liked the descriptions of the ruined and ravaged landscapes of the Riverlands, the hangman trees, Dorne and the ironborn chapters with their Drowned God. One thing which annoyed me (and did so in Storm of Swords too) was that wretched inn at the crossroads. Everyone seems to coincidentally meet there, and the place doesn't even have a name (the Old Inn, maybe?). Is there only one inn in the Riverlands in Westeros? If everyone has to pass it by, why is it never fortified or held by some lordling? It seems to be constantly being taken over or at least frequented by outlaws of every persuasion. ( )

Out of the four books currently available in this series, this is my least favorite. I so enjoyed the other three and was looking forward to this one to sum up so many things, but,unfortunately, It only created more characters and problems that go unresolved. I hope the next one, which was to be out soon, will be more specific to the story line. The hardest part to writing a book is often the ability to end a story and he missed the mark here. It became almost tedious to read because of the new characters and remembering more names. However, I still enjoy the way he writes. ( )

Most of this book centers around the characters of Cersei, Brienne, Jaime and Samwell. So it will depend on how much you have liked or disliked these characters. The two major expansions of characters in this volume are with the Ironmen and who will be their next King, then with the prince of Dorne and how they respond the the death of the Red Viper. This volume was still very good but my least favorite of the four so far. ( )

I am disappointed with this book. After the first three 'action packed' (you could say) pieces of the series we get this stupid slow-burn of a book that's filled with pages and pages of filler chapters from tertiary characters, leaving out all the prime movers and shakers of the series. At the end of the book we get an apology notice from the author saying how the book was too large and so he split it in half, putting the characters with interesting storylines into the other book. Which has not been released, for years. Great. Maybe if you cut out half the blase Cersei chapters and all the pointless Brienne-walking-around chapters you could have had room for someone interesting? ( )

This is probably my least favourite of the ASoIaF series so far, mostly because all of my favourite characters are absent! GRRM's decision to split his characters between the 4th and 5th books isn't one I'm sure I agree with -- particularly with how long he's kept us panting for the next one! Nonetheless, this book is still a masterful work of fiction. GRRM's talent is in no way diminished by his odd choice to break the narrative -- the storylines weave and expand, the world gets a little larger, and we finally get to learn more about those Dornishmen and what their world is like. And Certain Characters who shall remain nameless for spoilers' sake finally get a well-deserved comeuppance, which is always a delight to behold. Anxiously awaiting A Dance with Dragons, George! ( )

Long awaited, and oft delayed, this book was setting itself up for disappointment. Happily though, while its not as good or as concentrated as the previous books, it is still an excellent addition to the series. It does, however, leaves asking for more, and book 5 seems to be a very long way off. ( )

George Martin must have some exceptional gifts to induce readers to stick with this story through 4 books. He writes well. Indeed, his descriptions of battles are frequently gripping, and he imagines beautiful intrigues with complex characters who frequently surprise you.

But this book is simply not a very good story. The whole series is heavily overwritten, and it seems that this caused a problem for the author in writing this book - such that he then simply jettisoned the points of view of half the characters. Unfortunately it was largely the most interesting storylines that were jettisoned, and we were thus treated with hundred upon hundreds of pages of ... nothing very much. At the end of this book I cannot think what intrigue has really been advanced, nor what stories have been concluded. It feels like one of those American TV shows that spans 10 series and here is series 7 which does nothing but sow confusion and fill air time.

The faults of this series remain. It is set in a faux medieval world with all the derivative elements such as knights and jousts and carousing and such like. Terms like "Ser" instead of "sir" and "your grace" instead of "your majesty" don't create a sense of difference as they are so close to the classical terms. The one innovation - the seasons that span many years - is entirely irrelevent in this book, and having read this deep into the series, there really is nothing particularly magical about the land. What is more, the characters all seem to speak with the same voice - and I am peculiarly fed up with "half a hundred" and all the other "half a ..." that are charactersitic of the author's idiolect. Don't the people of Westeros have a word for "fifty" (although that admittedly would require just one word rather than three)?

This is the weakest book of the series thus far, and the most heavily overwritten. It is not entirely without merit (see my opening paragraph), but it is becoming increasingly difficult to recommend this series. ( )

http://www.piruett.se/2009/03/26/allt...
http://www.piruett.se/2009/03/27/lite... ( )

Summary: A continuation of the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. Now that King Joffrey is dead, his mother Cersei has taken over as regent but her reign only brings more unrest as the Seven Kingdoms are splintered further and characters fight for survival and victory.

Review: George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series is an established favourite with me, so unless there is some massive upheaval like the kind that happen in the plot, I’m going to like it, nay, love it. A Feast for Crows continues the tradition of Martin’s brutal, realistic, gloriously vast imagination. His world isn’t safe — you can’t expect favourite characters to survive and you can’t expect happy endings — but that’s what makes reading him so satisfying. You may rage at his decisions (say the Hound isn’t dead. Say it isn’t so!), but you respect his willingness to take risks and present people in all their flawed complications. This is epic fantasy at its deepest and most human. This is what I would give to people who scoff at the genre.

A Feast for Crows is actually only half a book. It contains about half of the cast’s stories; Martin says in a note that originally it was meant to include all, but then it grew so large that he was forced to split the story in two. As such, A Feast for Crows isn’t quite as good as its predecessors because it always feels like half a story. Certainly its half includes some of my most-liked characters such as Sansa and Brienne, and I loved the venture into Dorne and the Martells, as well as the politics of the Greyjoy family, but it’s not the whole picture and sometimes I felt that loss.

Yet it’s still a fantastic book on its own. It opens a lot of doors for the rest of the series by continuing the stories of characters we’ve known, loved, or hated from the first three books, but it also introduces new characters to flesh out the struggle on all its sides.

Conclusion: Not the best in the series because it always feels incomplete, but come on. It’s A Song of Ice and Fire. It’s like preferring one van Gogh to another. In the end they’re all worthy of praise. ( )

What more can I say? Love these books. ( )

This is the fourth book in A Song of Ice and Fire. I continue to be amazed at Martin's consistent writing and intricate plotting. He has no scruples about killing off his major characters or having bad things happen to them, even the children. This book focused on King's Landing, and Jaime, Cersei, and Brienne in particular, with many other character perspectives not even touched. I can only imagine how frustrating this must be for folks who started the series when it was first released and have been waiting years to find out what happens next.

It says a great deal about the impact of the series and the characters when I can look at this 1000-page plus book and feel frustrated because it wasn't long enough. I'll be very glad when A Dance with Dragons has a firm release date. The cliffhangers will drive me bonkers in the meantime. ( )

I don' limit myself to reading just fantasy, but next to Tolkien this is the best series ever in my opinion. (So far, anyway). ( )

As an aged, experienced and incurable reader, I buy books in great numbers. Sometimes I will buy a book that I have already read and I know that this is a title I want to have in my library forever to re-read it any time I want to. Most of the time, like many other readers, I buy books based on opinions of others or reviews I read or even just a brief synopsis of what the book is about, usually written at the back cover. During my bright career in a mighty bookstore as an ….inventory supervisor (hmmm) I would buy books that were being bought by customers most often. I also would buy an unreasonable amount of them then. One of the titles that caught my attention was a fantasy series ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ by George R.R. Martin. It comprised four books and yesterday I finally finished book number four: ‘A Feast For Crows’ and I will not be buying an upcoming part five.
I struggled with writing this review for the whole time while I was reading ‘A Feast For Crows’. I wanted to write an ok review simply because it is a part of a true epic and any writer who is capable of writing nearly four thousand pages without boring the reader to death deserves to have some praises written about them. Mr. Martin did manage to write a true epic and I know that he has hundreds of thousands of fans. One has to have one heck of an imagination to create all the complicated characters, all plots of revenge, raging wars and keep track of it all.
However, ‘A Feast For Crows’ made me immensely upset and frustrated. I really wanted to like it, I love reading fantasy, it is a genre I have read since my teenage years and I had hoped this book to be what I expect a fantasy fiction to be. I wanted hardcore magic (both black and white), supernatural beings and animals with great powers. I found only small instances of feeble magic, there was a mention of sinister supernatural beings that were threatening to overtake and destroy the human population and of big vicious direwolfs. But all that never really came to fruition, I thought that after reading the three previous books I would finally be rewarded for my patience in the fourth one and see these characters play a major role but I was disappointed. All I got was more killings, more fighting and some scheming. A lot of times I felt I was reading some poor replica of Bible’s ‘Exodus’ with descriptions of clans, this man was a son of that one and a cousin of another one and great-great-grandson of this one and married to the girl that came from yet another family of highborns, etc. I skipped many pages because of that, I didn’t see the point in reading something I couldn’t keep track of anyway.
All and all, even though there are supposed to be two more parts to this series I will not be buying them. And going back to the reasons for buying new books I mentioned at the beginning, maybe reading the praises at the back covers that convinced me to buy this one in the first place also created great expectations towards the series. One of them praised Mr. Martin as an American Tolkien and believe me Tolkien he is not. ( )

Please don't die George!

Please don't die George!

I had intended to hold off reading this one, knowing it would be the last one for a while. But I was so hooked after A Storm of Swords that I couldn't help myself. I can't wait to find out what's going on up north, and maybe finally starting to make some sense about where this whole thing is going - I still have no clue, hope GRRM does! I'm going to wait til after the first of the year, then start over from the beginning. I figure the first book will make more sense now that I have a better idea who ALL these people are. I enjoyed A Feast for Crows more than I figured I would, I was prepared for a big letdown, but I like where this one went. ( )

It was a bit of a disappointment, compared to the previous books, but there were enough flashes of his storytelling genius to keep you panting for more. I really missed my favorite characters, Tyrion, Jon Snow and Dany and what there was of Samwell Tarly, wasn't nearly enough. Since he decided to split this book in two, I wish he would have made this one a lot shorter. So many of the other chapters were a chore to get through. Now, the interminable wait for the 5th book in the series. ( )

4 in the Song of Ice and Fire epic fantasy series. I had pre-ordered this book when it became available because this is without a doubt one of my very favorite fantasy series. Then I heard a lot of fans saying it wasn’t as good as the others because Martin “split” the book—this one and the next were originally intended to be one book but it was too cumbersome. So this book only deals with about half the characters. Some are ignored completely and others only briefly mentioned. I still loved the book, though I can’t wait to see what the other characters have been up to, and I’m mightily sick of Cersei Lannister! I love Martin’s writing style and his “world” and will likely pre-order A Dance With Dragons when it comes out too, but I don’t think I’ll be waiting as long to read it! ( )

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. ( )

Not as I expected but enjoyable nonetheless. Waiting for the next installment with eagerness. ( )

This book is the indrawn breath after the shocks of A Storm of Swords. A large part of this book involves dealing with the consequences of the previous book.
...http://icantstopreading.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/a-feast-for-crows-by-george-rr-martin/ ( )

Loved it, though I’m not champing at the bit for the next one just yet. ( )

More of the same from this author. If you enjoyed the first three books of this series, then you will enjoy this one too. If you've grown frustrated with the author, like me, because there seems to be no attempt to complete a single story line or even move one more than a couple of scenes, then I recommend you stay away. The descriptions are sweeping, the dialogue gripping, and the intrigue is complex and mesmerizing. In short, Martin is an excellent writer. However, he is a terrible story teller. As far as I can tell, there is no plot here, just a large number of characters stumbling around with no rhyme or reason. In fact, he's created so many characters in so many different places and situations, he couldn't fit them all into one book. This one only cover's half of his characters, the other half are supposed to be covered in the next book. Worse yet, he's added several more characters, schemes, and twists. I find it difficult to care about any of them, old or new. ( )

4th in the series A song of Fire and Ice.

Keeping true to the reviews on this series, the 4th book is nowhere so fast paced. Partly that’s due to the structure of the book; while Martin has kept the multiple narrators, each segment is much longer than in the previous 3 books, reducing the sense of cliff-hanging suspense that so dominated the earlier books. There’s more going on now, as the dangers from the north intensify, and the war turns even uglier with guerrilla tactics on the part of a band of partisans loyal to Robert. Martin just needs more time to develop the action.

But this book is also something of a transition book, as now Martin starts to move his players across the board in order to get them where he needs them for the final confrontation. Certain threads are starting to come together.

But there is still no end of surprises, twists and turns to the plot. The end of the book leaves the reader in almost as much suspense as in the previous three books.

While not as good as the first three, the fourth is still outstanding, suffering only in comparison with its siblings. Highly recommended—but be sure to read the other three first. ( )