Reading "A Feast For Crows" and "A Dance With Dragons" at the same time...

[locke and key]

If it helps I live in the uk where ADWD is split into two volumes. The publisher decided to do this Mainly to gain more profit and to reduce printing costs however cleverly they decided to split it just where the timelines catches up and dance moves beyond the timeframe of AFFC and they call the second volume after the feast. Now, I don't know whether this is what GRRM says the timeline catches up or just what the publishers think but they put the split between the end of the chapter Tyrion IX (the one where he spots the slaver ship at the end) and the beginning of the chapter "The Turncloak" (the one where lady dustin goes to the crypts with theon). I don't know what the chapter order would be before that but I Know that from that Theon chapter onwards you only read ADWD.

Otherwise, I don't know what the chapter order would be but i assume that It'd be difficult chronologically as quentyns first chapter in ADWD is long before timewise than the princess in the tower chapter where doran reveals his journey to arianne so spoilers and reveals like that and the fact that davos survives manderley would be tricky things to avoid spoilerwise (mind you I guess that if you're doing this system then you've probably already read the two books before in the order they came out)

[metr0man]

I am doing this right now actually. I downloaded an ebook which spliced the chapters (note, I purchased kindle versions of both Feast and Dance so I don't feel I'm doing any harm by downloading spliced versions of books I already bought). I'm kind of trusting the order of the person who put it together...

This is a reread, keep in mind. I would not suggest anybody do this for their first read-through.

It came with a text file with the chapter order so ill post it if anyone is curious once I get home.

It's early in my reading but my two main takeaways:

1) boy that's a lot of prologues and set up. Pate, varamyr, then Aeron, then Atoeh in Dorne. All before getting to a recognizable character.

2) Moving seamlessly from Cersei 1 to Tyrion 1 is outstanding. The timeline is a bit off though, as Cersei is the next day after Tyrions escape, then Tyrions chapter makes it seem he's been on the boat for a little bit. Still, dramatically it works EXTREMELY well.

I'm curious to see how the Dorne chapters play when I assume Quentyn chapters will have already started...

[Jussi]

This is the original plan by Martin:

The Prophet

The Captain of Guards

Cersei

Daenerys

Jon

Cersei II

Jaime

Samwell

The Kraken's Daughter

Brienne

Jon II

Arya

Brienne II

Sansa

Daenerys II

The Iron Captain

The Drowned Man

The Soiled Knight

Tyrion

Brienne III

Cersei III

Jaime II

Tyrion II

The Queenmaker

Alayne

Jaime III

Tyrion III

Daenerys III

Jaime IV

The King's Brother (?)

The Princess in the Tower

Alayne II

[ends here]

Bran, Reek and Davos are missing - maybe we were going to meet them later in the book. I wonder who is the brother in The King's Brother chapter.

[Longspear Ryk]

This is the original plan by Martin:

Bran, Reek and Davos are missing - maybe we were going to meet them later in the book. I wonder who is the brother in The King's Brother chapter.

Where did you get that list? Also the kings brother was probably a victorian chapter

[Jussi]

Where did you get that list?

Here. Look at the right-hand side of the photo (Chapters from early draft compared with final...)

Also the kings brother was probably a victorian chapter

Thanks.

[locke and key]

one of the things which I think makes this quite difficult is that there are very few references to events going on in AFFC in ADWD, while there are tonnes about things in the north and east in affc, maybe cos grrm wrote AFFC first

[kraziness]

I did the boiled leather plan on my reread. It seemed pretty consistent, but it wasn't as enlightening as I was hoping it would be. All in all though, I think I liked it more than keeping two separate like in the original publishing.

I read the entire series (both times) on my smartphone, so the worst part (for sure) was going back and forth, keeping track of where I was. By the end I had developed a pretty good system, but it took a while.

[therustman]

I too have just done a boiled leather re-read and did prefer it, however, it can be impractical to juggle 2 massive books!

[Belwas's Bitch Tits]

I'm working my way through this right and now and I prefer it to the original. It's a long read this way, but it makes a lot more sense.

[SerDanielstanTheBold]

Yeah I did A Feast For Dragons combined read too, well it was actually the audiobooks which made the whole switching books thing a non issue. They're Roy Dotrice versions too so the transitions aren't as jarring as having two readers. I think it makes AFFC less of a bore. You read about Davos getting killed in a Cersei chapter and sure enough a few chapters later hes with Manderly and they explain whos on the pike. Then reading about how Cersei fears Tyrion is still in kings Landing or lurking somewhere in Westeros and next chapter hes well beyond the narrow sea.