The fourth instalment of George R R Martin’s classic A Song of Ice and Fire, continuing the most ambitious and imaginative epic fantasy since The Lord of the Rings.
A Feast for Crows brings to life dark magic, intrigue and terrible bloodshed as the war-torn landscape of the Seven Kingdoms is threatened by destruction as vast as any in its violent past. The War of the Five Kings has ripped Westeros apart. The bloodthirsty, treacherous and cunning Lannisters occupy the Iron Throne, with allies as ruthless as themselves. Lord Frey was host at the Red Wedding, so called for the massacre of the guests, their screams unheard above the music of the feast. Euron Crow’s Eye is as black a pirate as ever raised a sail, sworn to deliver the whole of Westeros to the ironborn.
No less to be feared are their enemies. The Starks of Winterfell and the Martells of Dorne seek vengeance for their dead. And the last of the Targaryens, Daenerys Stormborn, will bring fire and blood to King’s Landing when her young dragons reach their terrifying maturity. The last war fought with dragons was a cataclysm powerful enough to shatter the Valyrian peninsula, now a smoking, demon-haunted ruin half drowned by the sea.
Against a backdrop of alchemy and murder, victory may go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel … and the coldest hearts.
- ISBN13 9780002247436
- Publish Date 17 October 2005 (first published 1 January 2005)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 9 August 2008
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
- Imprint HarperVoyager
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 784
- Language English
- URL http://harpercollins.co.uk
Reviews
mitabird
boghunden
clq
Sure, it is fairly entertaining, the story is solid, and a lot of things happen. The problem is that, for a bit too much of the book, these things happen to people I don't really care about. I'm sure I'll start caring more about these people as the story progresses, but for now it failed to captivate me. It held my interest, but not in a way which made me want to pick up the book instead of doing something else.
Yes, there are also stories about characters I care more about, and yes, many of them were very good, but they felt few and far between. The book lacked what I liked so much about A Game of Thrones: In GoT the narrative skipped swiftly between characters and places, but I always felt like I was reading exactly what I wanted to read about. With Feast for Crows I felt like I was being told to read a story rather than being told a story. It's probably my fault. Perhaps I didn't invest enough in getting immersed, and perhaps my returns were diminished because of it. I'm still blaming the book for that.
However, I love the story, and I'm very much looking forward to the rest of it. I just feel that Feast for Crows didn't tell it as well as it could, and perhaps should, have done.
layawaydragon
The series is long and often long winded with facts repeated. But considering the scale of the story and the length between publishing, it's understandable and I would think helpful for those reading this as it came out. Hell, I'm reading it straight through one after the other and find it helpful to keep everyone and their great-great-grand mother straight. It does get difficult to remember. I'm sure I will go to read the wiki on this book to find a hundred little things I missed or forgotten, even though I just put the book down.
This book does not feel like a complete book. A very WTF moment when it ended. Not surprising since Martin had to chop it in half due to the complete book being too long. It does help that Martin explains this in the afterword.
The scale and cast of point of view characters is growing. I hope Martin can keep it all together in the next books as well as he has. It does get frustrating wondering what the hell as been happening with some characters. I can't even imagine how it must have felt for people waiting for these books to be published.
I couldn't put this book down. I was more engaged in some passages than other due to not liking the POV character. However, it wasn't unpleasant and wanted to know them more, or at least what's going on.
I eagerly devoured this entire series. I went in looking for answers to some questions but only found more questions. It's like wanting desert after the main course only to have more horse put in front of you. I want the sweet ending. Give me the lemon cakes already Martin you greedy fuck. I want to know what happens to my people!
{sigh}