Is A Feast for Crows not good?

[Elainia Cassel]

Every review I read says that A Feast for Crows is not as good as the others. I'm currently reading it and although it has new people to get use to I can't say its not on the same level. I especially have a larger interest in House Martell and what Doran plans to do. I see as another book setting up the ones to follows like A Game of Thrones.

[Alexius]

Every review I read says that A Feast for Crows is not as good as the others. I'm currently reading it and although it has new people to get use to I can't say its not on the same level. I especially have a larger interest in House Martell and what Doran plans to do. I see as another book setting up the ones to follows like A Game of Thrones.

There were a discussion of AFFC recently:

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/50396-please-tell-me-that-a-feast-for-crows-gets-better/

[Songlian]

Every review I read says that A Feast for Crows is not as good as the others. I'm currently reading it and although it has new people to get use to I can't say its not on the same level. I especially have a larger interest in House Martell and what Doran plans to do. I see as another book setting up the ones to follows like A Game of Thrones.

Why are you reading reviews before reading the book? :)

I loved AFFC. It's slower than the rest, but still great. I prefer it to ACOK or ASOS, to be honest.

To each his own.

[Grazdan]

I certainly didn't enjoy it as much as the others. It gets a bit better on reread tho I think. Maybe it's just the fact you miss out on your fav characters but some of the new povs I really didn't like. Cersei, too insane, brienne.. where the hell is this going?? So yes, that also bothered me. At least it had Jaime. It's still good but I expected better.

[PetrusOctavianus]

It has too much content that seems detached from the main story, like the Dorne and Ironborn chapters. And the three most major characters - Jon, Tyrion and Dany - are missing.

OTOH we get som brilliant chapters detailing the scheming at the royal court, which are among my favourites in the whole series.

My first impression was that Martin had done a Jordan and started to include filler content to make more money (for the publishers). There is a difference between AGOT and AFFC in how consise the writing is, but on second thought that is often a natural progression for a writer over the years. Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion books from the early 70's are much more consise than the ones he wrote 10 years later, for example.

So in my opinion it is slightly weaker than the previous books.

[Jon Lannister]

Yes, I agree with you. aFfC is very good, although everyone says it's bad. But I read the book and I have a great interest in House Martell too. Still, the best book is aSoS.

[Monday]

I loved Feast, specifically the Jaime chapters, Cersei chapters, and even the Sam chapters. It's not my favorite book in the series, but it definately has more than it's fair share of favorite moments, for me anyhow. Genna Lannister, Septon Maribald's speech, the Margaery-Tommen-Cersei dynamic. Easter eggs all over that book. For me the books go Clash>Storm>Feast=Thrones. My issues with Feast are that I don't connect with the Iron born (and there are a lot of Iron born chapters), I don't find the Arya chapters as interesting as I did in Clash and Storm, and it seems a little disjointed (for lack of a better word). Ther disjointment probably comes from the removal of the five year gap, and all things considered, I think GRRM did a FASTASTIC job considering the obsticals presented by the five year scrap.

[Rockroi]

I have always maintained that due to the break-neck speed of SoS, AFfC is a "market correction" wherein the pace and tempo of the series had to be slowed down. And they were. Considerably. And this is just common sense; there is no way that the series could have maintained the level of mania that reached a crescendo in SoS.

At the same time, the lack of meaningful conflict; the lack of sequential events leading to incremental tension and finally being resolved with some sort of climax left the book feeling hollow. And it read that way. Yes, it improves on a re-read, but the improvement is not dramatic. The proliferation of POVs is also a significant issue with many characters being introduced for the first time; others getting POVs for the first time. Add to it the introduction of the Iron Isles and Dorne, and it leaves a very fragmented, destabilized reading experience.

The overall book says less and covers a very brief window of time. The events are disjointed and there is no overarching presence in the book to guide the narrative. The machinations of Brienne (new POV), Cersei (new POV), Victarion (new POV) and any in a number of other characters all with new POVs do little to assist the reader. The reader feels so little connection to these stories and the POVs have so very little connection with each other. Paradoxically, the POVs are remarkably repetitious; Cersei talks to Jaime who talks to Kevan who repeats what Cersei said back to Jaime. There are three Iron Born POVs- they all regurgitate almost identical information. Dorne has, IIRC, three POVs as well- all brand new characters. They cover all the same ground. And yet, there is little to connect the Dorne POVs to the Iron Isles POVs with the KL Povs, etc.

Some claim the book is more "subtle", but subtlety is a style, not a final product. The final product is a jumble of events that do not amount to much. Yes, its a post-war world, but we saw traces of that in SoS. Why do we need a whole book to revisit all this? Some claim that characters grow quite a bit, but I actually think most of the growth they described occurred at the end of SoS, not as much in AFfC (most notable is Jaime). Yes, some chapters are "beautifully written," but that's just par for this course. We know he's a good writer already.

Its akin to saying that a great chef is masterful and then he serves you toast. Yes, the toast may be delicious, but its still toast. Where is the main course?

In the parlance of my generation, "where's the beef?"

[Ran]

Abelena,

Glad you're enjoying it! I think in many cases, readers who say it's "not good" really mean, "It's not as good as the previous novels". Which is fair enough (for my part, it's not my favorite, but I think it's the equal to ACoK -- just different). And, sure, others say it's not good at all, but you can decide for yourself whether you agree or not.

Right with you on the interest in Dorne, too. I particularly think that the Areo Hotah chapter has one of the most beautiful openings that George has written for the series. Something about it clearly inspired him. And it's not just the opening of that chapter that's quite good... Keep reading. :)

[Lord Toblerone]

I liked the Dorne stuff, and I liked Brienne's story, (a lot of people here seem to have disliked Brienne's portion of the book). Cersei got tiresome but Jaime's chapters gave some interesting stuff.

It's all aftermath or preamble though, I can see why people would be frustrated by that.

[Targaryen loyalist]

AFFC is widely recognised by many fans as the worst book of the series (so far) essentially for two reasons:

- nothing happens in AFFC

- AFFC is "too slow"

The two key points have both their pros and cons.

"Nothing happens in AFFC":

From a superficial reading, AFFC seems to lack of events. But thinking better has important events in it: the raise of the Faith in KL, the role of the Maesters and the Grey Sheep, the Faceless Men ideology, the fall of Riverrun, the Dornish "let's send quentyn to marry Dany plot", the Iron Islands Kingsmoot and "steal the dragons" plan, and what UnCat is doing. However, most of this events happen in the last chapters of the book (especially the Brienne-Uncat subplot and Arya's).

On the other hand if compared to other books, AFFC is really lacking of events because half of the cast (but I humbly say more than half of the cast) is missing: Jon Snow, Dany, Bran, Tyrion, Davos are all in ADWD. Also ASOS - my favourite book so far after AGOT - also has its "slow" moments like many Arya chapters... But the overall idea is that a lot of stuff happens during "Storm". The second part of AFFC is surely much more better than the first half: in my opinion some plotlines of AFFC are extended far their 'natural' page count, like Cersei's, Jaimie's, Brienne's and Arya's. Sansa'a chapters are surprisingly dense and interesting - as the Dornish ones - because they have they right "size" in the novel

"AFFC is too slow"

As just stated, some plotlines have the right "speed" (Dorne, Iron Islands, Sansa) others are 'overstretched': this creates a sense of "slowness" for the whole book.

[Chilly]

I enjoyed it. There is no bad book in this series, some are just better then the others. I was terrified when I found out Cersei had chapters in it. I dislike Jamie a bit less after reading his pov's (He still threw a kid out of a window). Good to know Cersei still has no redeemable qualities and all my hatred was justified. I also liked the Sam & Sansa chapters. It's always fun to see LF at work.

[James Storm]

I enjoyed it, I read the first four books all in 2006, so I didn't have to wait years for it to come out like some people had to do. I suspect that if you had to wait for it, you might have been disappointed. It is kind of like some TV shows where if you watch a whole season or series on DVD, and don't wait a week in between episodes as they air, you don't find certain episodes as annoying.

[Nukelavee]

I agree with the James Storm idea...:)

I also agree with my buddy who says "the story is the thing"... it happens to be a collection of chapters that, as a section of the narrative, is weaker. Doesn't mean the quality of every chapter or even most is low, just as not every chapter in the otherr books is solid gold.

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

There's a lot of filler, and you'll feel like every other chapter is Cersei or Brienne and start to roll your eyes when you see their name. A lot of the storylines go nowhere (or take a long time to go anywhere). So it's much much much less satisfying a read. Also, I think it suffers from insufficient editing (I think the publishers were anxious it'd taken so long, and GRRM released it before he'd had a chance to really "trim the fat").

[DireLlama]

I enjoyed it, I read the first four books all in 2006, so I didn't have to wait years for it to come out like some people had to do. I suspect that if you had to wait for it, you might have been disappointed. It is kind of like some TV shows where if you watch a whole season or series on DVD, and don't wait a week in between episodes as they air, you don't find certain episodes as annoying.

But on the other hand, people who didn't have to wait will have read it straight after experiencing A Storm of Swords for the first time, and will probably go into Feast expecting more of the same. I did. So I was disappointed, but only at first. The further I got through Feast, the more I started to appreciate it for its own strengths rather than expecting another ASOS.

[PetrusOctavianus]

But on the other hand, people who didn't have to wait will have read it straight after experiencing A Storm of Swords for the first time, and will probably go into Feast expecting more of the same. I did. So I was disappointed, but only at first. The further I got through Feast, the more I started to appreciate it for its own strengths rather than expecting another ASOS.

That's excactly how I experienced it. Initial reaction was disappointment since it was a bit different from the previous books, but the more I read the more it grew on me.

[Elainia Cassel]

Why are you reading reviews before reading the book? :)

Nothing with spoilers. Just the ratings from the place I got it from. All the same it was a risk :D

[Elainia Cassel]

I enjoyed it, I read the first four books all in 2006, so I didn't have to wait years for it to come out like some people had to do. I suspect that if you had to wait for it, you might have been disappointed. It is kind of like some TV shows where if you watch a whole season or series on DVD, and don't wait a week in between episodes as they air, you don't find certain episodes as annoying.

Thats a good point considering ADwD will be out soon. I guess I timed it right :P

[Black Betha]

I don't think A Feast for Crows is any worse as in less entertaining than the other parts of the series, but it is weaker as a novel. I got the picture that GRRM's huge scheme is finally start to rip apart - the three previous parts have been neatly narrated by chapters divided relatively evenly between characters and followed pretty much everything that's going on, but AFfC breaks this trend. We have several narrators who only feature once or twice and some who seem to be there all the time (Cersei, Jaime and Brienne). As a result, it doesn't feel as smooth a read as the other books and even though Brienne and Jaime are among my favourite characters and I found the Cersei plotline very interesting, I could have done with their chapters being spaced further apart.

Another "problem" is that the book focuses a lot in Dorne and the Iron Islands, bringing lots of new (new in the sense that they are not known very well before) characters and places to the forefront. I felt it difficult to suddenly relate to lots of new people while not hearing anything of some old favourites, and I think I'm not the only one. AFfC doesn't have the similar familiar feel as the previous parts of the series, which at times made me sad, but on the whole it is very good nevertheless.