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What did you think of A Feast for Crows?


cteresa

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It's no comparable for me, also.

I read AGOT and ACOK with no external influence. When reading ASOS I had wandered a little through the net, but still I was still virgin somehow.

But Feast has been a very different book. I have been reading it with pen and paper at my side writting down everything I deemed worthy of further reflections, theorizing as I was reading and having much more knowledge of the world of Westeros than before.

In a way, that has made me enjoy the book more than the others. In other ways, less.

We also knew one third of the book via spoilers, and we had predicted with some degree of accuracy what would happen on the second third. Things like Jaime going to Riverrun to lift the siege, or the downfall of Cersei were not surprise. I found that it was cool to read it anyway.

A very good book. Brilliant. Perhaps not as good as the others, but it's hard to tell. There are definitely chapters that are among the best GRRM has written.

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Well, just finished it around an hour ago.

The worst book in the series thus far but still an excellent read.

The Cersei POV was revolting and Brienne's wasn't that enjoyable either.

I liked the parts that took place in Dorne but the ones in the Iron Isles were so-so. Sansa's and Arya's POV were interesting as was Sam's as well.

The Kingslayer's POV introduced some interesting info and some interesting characters but he's still as pathetic as ever.

I think my new favorite non-pov characters are Prince Doran Martell and Areo Hotah.

Will write more later.

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I finished AFFC about a month ago, and just started the reread of this week´s chapters. I did some discussion on the boards but not a lot, not much time available and maybe also the new board factor, it felt just strange for the first couple weeks.

I got quibbles with somethings other said, totally agree with others. Cersei seemed mad already to me, and wildling´s points seem a lot like mine.

I will first complain of something which is totally completely not GRRM´s fault, the british hardback sucks. Sucks really badly, bad paper, bad maps, glued binding. This was the most expensive book I will buy this year, I wanted something with better quality. Oh well, should have waited for the US hardback.

I thought it was so well written, the chapters as good as any, love how he can bring up new settings on the same world and they are so complete and fascinating, each facet is brilliant. That being said, writing the reread schedule the book did look unbalanced. We have 3 chapters only of a few very interesting plots and characters, while others get 10 or 8. I can understand that the story is being told, things are setting themselves up and aftermaths are being told, but still, no surprise the balance is a bit off. Though am so glad it is out, perfect is impossible and the book really is good.

On other bits, am embarassed how many names I forgot, I knew hundreds more characters than the names I remember right now. Google and the concordance will be my friends to spare all -whats-his-name-that-dude!

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I found the book unbalanced as well but I guess we need ADwD in order to get the whole story he was trying to tell in this installment.

Edit:

Did anyone else think that this book was much more gruesome than the last ones. Some of the imagery was very disturbing to say the least. I hope GRRM doesn't continue to keep pushing this aspect of the series. It's starting to feel like a horror story. And I'm getting tired of all the undead floating around. Next thing you know half the characters will be zombies.

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Did anyone else think that this book was much more gruesome than the last ones. Some of the imagery was very disturbing to say the least.

Yes. Very much so. I could very much do without the image of Biter eating Brienne. *shudder.*

My immediate impression upon finishing was that the book was sad, and I was left dissatisfied and frustrated, and spent a lot of time on the board picking up details I missed, then began to reread with a bit of distance. IMHO, the book is SO much better on reread. I'm not coming into it with expectations, I'm not frustrated because the first half of the book I've already read through the spoiler chapters (which I will definitely not do again), and I'm a little more prepared for what the books is (gore and all).

And, with distance, I noticed something else: no one is Westeros is satisfied, either. They're all battling over the leavings of others, forced to do things that are distasteful, or making a muck of what good was left to them, and just everything is bad, bad, bad. They are just picking at corpses, and it's not pretty for them, or easy or simple, and when I noticed that, everything else just sort of clicked into place. Now I can read it and enjoy it.

Of course, if I could just dive into A Dance With Dragons right after, it would have been a much better experience. I don't know if it was here or in the book signing I went to where I learned Martin intended to parallel storylines (like Cersei v. Dany), and that would have made it so much more satisfying for me, personally. I'm telling people I know who won't like this book without Jon, Dany, etc., to wait until ADWD to read this one.

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Well, I wasn't dissatisfied with the book because I knew ahead of time that this only part one of what he was hoping to put out.

However, it seems every book is getting a little more gruesome. If this continues I shudder to think what the last book will look like.

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However, it seems every book is getting a little more gruesome. If this continues I shudder to think what the last book will look like.

They'll all be dead and the Others will be feasting on their innards and we'll get 1000 pages of Others' POV ;)

Honestly, though, I'm not sure I found this one more gruesome than, say A Storm of Swords was - between the vivid descriptions of Jaime's pus-filled, infected rotting stump and his rotting hand slung around his neck, for kicks, and IMO, almost nothing tops the grimness and gruesomeness of the Red Wedding - between what was described and what was left to our imagination (sewing Grey Wind's head onto Robb? Catelyn gouging the marks into her cheeks and sawing through Jinglebells's throat?) That was at least as gruesome as Brienne's encounter with Biter!

I think it is, though, that this book is more melancholy (as befits the end of autumn) - the fighting and the great deeds and the excitement are over (so far as anyone knows) and the strong personalities are mostly dead and gone and everyone who's left is picking up the pieces and that's partly why it's so sad.

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I was watching an old movie the other day - Alan Alda and Jane Fonda, much younger than they are now played a couple - once married now well married to other people who have come together in the same room because of a child they have in common. Jane Fonda looking all jaded and interesting asks Alda if being with his current wife is the best ever. Which is a stupid question to ask becuase you set yourself up for great disappointment and sure enough Alana Alda say "yes it is". Jane Fonda pouts and furrows her eyebrows puffs on a fag and asks him, eventually, why? (another stupid question I don't know why people have to ask questions beginning with why) To which Alda replies "because it's happening now". And that is basically how I feel about AFFC in comparison to AGOT, ACOK and ASOS. Books which by now are beginning to look like the three brothers on Old Wyk born after a long line of sisters and so alike no-one really knows which is which.* Wild and far away they are as we sail different if no less choppy seas - but enough of that, I would like to say one more thing - GRRM's work has a way of improving with age. I know this seems to be a paradox with what I said before but it's true. GRRM's stuff survives re-reads - in fact re-reads improve it. Exponentially. That's got to be fantastic writing.

* and who remind me of the look alike brothers in the Arthurian legends. The lads from Orkney who slew their own mother - the powerful and ever -young Marguase - having found her in bed with a man their age. Must remember to put that in a (GRRM inspiration) thread.

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I've bitten on every one of Martin's hooks, no matter how cheap of cliffhangers some of them seem to be. Every book that goes by makes me want to read the next more and more, and this one was perhaps the worst, both because of the smaller capsule of time it takes place in, the missing pov's upcoming in Dragons, and the ability Martin has to "tie up" his loose ends with frayed string and create ten more uncertainties.

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I enjoyed the book greatly.

I won't go over too many why's except to defend one PoV, and for that I have to go back to the other books.

I hated Brienne in the other books. I hated her PoV for two reasons, the first is that she was all good, solid white and in any given situation she would always do the brave and good thing. The second was that I felt she was very poorly developed. In a book that developed everyone so carefully I felt she jumped onto the scene fully complete.

Arya wanted to learn to fight but they wouldn't let her, the north is less proper than the south. I felt like GRRM went to realistic when developing Arya including Ned hiring a special trainer and I loved it. Arya should have grown into Brienne, and her popping up fully formed was to me a detraction from Arya's PoV. Well, I'll probably be rebutted and that's fine, but that's the way I felt.

Now back to my original point. I felt like Brienne got some much needed fleshing out in this book. I thought that he wrote her PoV in this book very well and that she was used as the only PoV that showed the state of the Westeros. There were what I felt were some pointless loops in her travel, but I also felt like her PoV showed a lot of important background for her character and I loved the ending. I feel like "sword" has to be the word and I think she'll at least go about trying to fulfil her obligation to the word.

I hope so for if she does at least start the journey toward killing Jaime it'll be the first sign of gray in her character, and that I'd applaud too. I'm not saying she needs to do the wrong thing but there's nothing more invigorating to me than someone that's all good being faced with the choice of breaking oath or killing someone they love.

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This book gets so much better on the reread. I loved it the first time through and am enjoying it MUCH more the second time.

I believe its a mistake to compare AFFC with the other books in ASoIaF simply because its really only half of the story. Its unfair to Feast to compare it to Thrones, Kings or Swords because some of the best POVs are absent from its pages. Wait for ADWD THEN combine the two books and compare it with the others. Feast the way it is printed, is more of a publishing neccesity than it is the authors complete vision. In the present this is rather disapointing, but thinking to the future, I can't wait going back and see how the absent POVs fit in with the events of Feast. If both books had been published as one I think we may have missed out on some of the fun tie-ins and throw backs that we will see in ADWD.

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I read through AFFC pretty quickly. I didn't always take the time to take in everything that was being said. And I know that because of that I did miss out on things that others spotted.

Parts I enjoyed

-more development of Jaime, he definitely has the most interesting arc in this book.

-Arya, even though her involvement in this book is brief (far TOO brief, but I hear she will be in ADWD too, so that's okay) she does learn some lessons. I think being so young she learns life lessons more quickly than an adult would do. I LOVED it when she offed Daeron, he totally deserved that.

-Brienne thinking about how she learned to fight. Not that was interesting. And watching her fight. Because until then we hadn't seen her have to fight for her life. I know that she fought Jaime, but that was more for show, or for the sake of contest than a fight to the death.

-Sam's POVs - these were all great. I loved the part where he had a fight with Daeron, it showed he has some steel when it's needed.

-Sansa's POVs I liked. She didn't annoy me at all in this book. She's growing up now and she's learning how to play the game.

Parts I enjoyed less

-Dorne just bugged me. The Arys bits were okay, but all the others just didn't spark any interest for me. Loads of descriptions of people and places and families. I'm sure it was all necessary but it took too long.

-Brienne - too much, just too many chapters

-Cersei - too much time spent on her for too little action.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Late to the board, and thus late to this thread, but I want to add my opinion of the book. I think the writing it excellent. Compare any chapter to chapters in the other books and it holds up well. There are no blockbuster chapters like the Red Wedding or Dany turning the former slaves against their former owners, but still very good stuff, and very important to advancing the story.

That said, I think it is the least of the books so far. This is primarily due to the way GRRM chose to break his long story up. Someone in this thread made a comment about its lack of balance, and I made the same comment on another forum. The balance he achieved with the multiple viewpoints was significantly weakened by breaking it up the way he did. I know that he didn't want to end it with "to be continued", but I've said elsewhere that I would have prefered to wait another year to have a double book rather than one broken up as this one is. I would be surprised of the publishers would have refused him in this, but I'm not a publisher, so maybe...

This book felt more like the setting of the stage for what is to come than any of the previous three. And I have to agree with one of the posters here that, if he was using this book to fill in the 5 years that were to be the gap in his original idea for the story, he certainly did not do so. Does that mean that we are going to find the series extended by more than 3 more books? Actually, that would be fine with me! This is not like Jordan's series, where the author seems to have lost his way. I thoroughly enjoy every word of these books and feel that Martin never pads, but always adds to his story in significant ways. But I can't help but feel that A Dance with Dragons was originally meant to take place 5 years hence, and that now the title will be attached to an earlier time period and a different part of the story.

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Late to the board, and thus late to this thread, but I want to add my opinion of the book. I think the writing it excellent. Compare any chapter to chapters in the other books and it holds up well. There are no blockbuster chapters like the Red Wedding or Dany turning the former slaves against their former owners, but still very good stuff, and very important to advancing the story.

That said, I think it is the least of the books so far. This is primarily due to the way GRRM chose to break his long story up. Someone in this thread made a comment about its lack of balance, and I made the same comment on another forum. The balance he achieved with the multiple viewpoints was significantly weakened by breaking it up the way he did. I know that he didn't want to end it with "to be continued", but I've said elsewhere that I would have prefered to wait another year to have a double book rather than one broken up as this one is. I would be surprised of the publishers would have refused him in this, but I'm not a publisher, so maybe...

This book felt more like the setting of the stage for what is to come than any of the previous three. And I have to agree with one of the posters here that, if he was using this book to fill in the 5 years that were to be the gap in his original idea for the story, he certainly did not do so. Does that mean that we are going to find the series extended by more than 3 more books? Actually, that would be fine with me! This is not like Jordan's series, where the author seems to have lost his way. I thoroughly enjoy every word of these books and feel that Martin never pads, but always adds to his story in significant ways. But I can't help but feel that A Dance with Dragons was originally meant to take place 5 years hence, and that now the title will be attached to an earlier time period and a different part of the story.

My sentiments to a T. :cheers:

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I'm not going to write a very long post about my likes and dislikes, re: AFfC since most have been covered, but I will say this: my major problem with the book was that I felt it didn't really have a satisfying climax and conclusion, but rather simply stopped abruptly. Maybe because I didn't feel so involved with the Cersei PoVs and that my favorite chapters, Brienne's, ended on such a cliffhanger, but that was my impression.

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Well, besides the 'half a book' point which really applies and was probably unavoidable after GRRM had written so much, I think GRRM erred when he added Maggy’s prophecy to Cercei’s storyline. I would have also liked a more concise effort to lengthen the time covered by this book. Even with all this, AFFC still is better then 99% of other fantasy out there.

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Well, besides the 'half a book' point which really applies and was probably unavoidable after GRRM had written so much, I think GRRM erred when he added Maggy’s prophecy to Cercei’s storyline. I would have also liked a more concise effort to lengthen the time covered by this book. Even with all this, AFFC still is better then 99% of other fantasy out there.

I agree that the Maggy the Frog aspect to Cersei's PoV was contrived and unneccesary, but the addition of Cersei's infatuation with Rhaegar was worse, IMO. What really, really bothered me though was how Aemon's death was handled - not only did GRRM make Aemon seem far to involved with Rhaegar and the PwwP, but he all but crowned Daenerys as the saviour of Westeros. That was a mistake, because part of the strength early on in the series is that no one really looked to be the 'ultimate' saviour of Westeros.

And I think it goes without saying that AFfC is better than every other fantasy series/novel out there. :P

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  • 4 weeks later...

Looks like I'm a little late on this bandwagon, however as I've read all of your posts, let us remember...I am The Heir to House Lannister...and a Lannister always pays his debts :P

I bought AFFC the day it came out (in New Zealand) and on that day I started to re-read the previous books to catch up on things. Now I'm finished, here's my take.

Generally Speaking:

I agree with the posts I've read thus far in that this book sets things up, and that Brienne's character is there to show the impact on the common man, as well as to keep us up to date on characters like Sandor, the Bloody Mummers she killed and also Randyll Tarly.

Specifically:

I was really keen to see more of Dorne and it delivered. This book has done a good job of building up the look and feel of Dorne and those who inhabit it. It has also shown why Dorne has remained fairly removed from the books thus far. Now I am awaiting the inevitable clash. What would happen if Cersei has to face off against one of the Sand Snakes? When Dany gets to Westeros, where will she dock her ships and where will the battles take place? etc etc etc

I loved Jaime's rise to become the dominant Lannister (confirmed at the end with Cersei's situation).

Cersei's POVs were good as you can see how when faced with a threat to her kids, Catelyn reacted one way (going for peace at all costs) but Cersei reacted in another (eliminate the threat ASAP)...the old fight or flight behaviours. That said, I think that I enjoyed seeing Cersei lose it as she reminds me of my old boss. Always wants to be the centre of attention, wants to be admired, puts her lickspittles and catspaws into positions of power, knowing that they will never disagree with her. Seeing how the book ends and knowing the prophecy of the Queen to take from her everything she holds dear is definately something I cannot wait to see!

The Iron Islands chapters were OK and delivered on giving us a feel for how life is there. I cannot wait to see some of the interaction between them and the other denizens of Westeros.

I liked the Braavos chapters and especially the part where Arya meets Sam. I am really keen on seeing how Arya develops and how she is used in future. She is being made into a weapon, the question is, who will weild her? Given Jaqen H'ghar's devotion to his promises, it would be interesting to see what she would do if somehow she had to get rid of someone she is related to...

Sansa's POVs were alright and gave us an insight on how to effectively play The Game. I'd see that this will give Sansa the ability to weather the storm and survive the series (is there a thread for predicting who will be alive at the end?). The question here, is will she exact revenge on Littlefinger...he has saved her from the Lannisters and probably orchestrated killing Joffery so she does owe him that...

I also think that it will be cool to see where Brienne goes from here given her desire to keep oaths and lets hope that Sandor is still alive and living as a priest...

Where to from here...

Mace Tyrell and Randyll Tarly are heading for Kings Landing, Cersei is locked away and Jaime ain't gonna save her...I sense a shifting in the balance of power.

Sam is in Oldtown, however that will soon be beseiged by the Ironmen and somehow, I don't think that they will look kindly upon the chain-necked thralls.

Arya will come back at the end of ADWD and kick someones ass.

And then we have Tyrion and Varys, Jon, Dany and Bran. Davos is dead from the look of things and the spectre of Rickon who will retrun somewhere sooner or later.

This is the opening match...the Main Event looms...

I'll consider my debt for having to read all of your posts paid :P

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A reply to Geoff, who wrote: "I know that he didn't want to end it with "to be continued", but I've said elsewhere that I would have prefered to wait another year to have a double book rather than one broken up as this one is. I would be surprised of the publishers would have refused him in this, but I'm not a publisher, so maybe..."

I do work in publishing, and I can completely see them forcing his hand on this. It's not just a matter of the extra time. It's also a matter of the higher expense of doing a high-quality hardback of a thick book and the impact of that on the retail cover price. Most of us probably bought the book on the first day or two, right? Would you have done so if it had a $60 cover price instead of $28? Or would you have been tempted to wait for the much cheaper paperback version? Well, maybe some of us would have shelled out 60 bucks, but not everyone is hard-core. If a large readership is willing to buy two hardbacks, that is much better than having them buy one paperback.

GRRM is dedicated to the story, for certain, but publishing is a business. And, frankly, it's not the most profitable business around by a long shot, so every little bit helps. And it's the blockbusters like this that make it possible for more obscure books to see the light of day in print, so I (for one) don't begrudge it.

Sorry if that came across like a rant--it wasn't meant to be. Just a different side of the story.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I enjoyed it.

My favorite parts were Doran's blood and fire revelation to Arianne and Maester Aemon learning about Dany and the dragons. It would have been nice if he could have spent just a little while with her but at least he did hear of her before he passed away. I had this bad feeling that Sam would find out more information only to come back and find Aemon had died before he could share it with him. Like Aemon said, if he had had just 10 years back he coulda made it to her.

Death to Cersei!

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