Anyone else having Difficulty Reading the book?

[NorthernBird]

Yes, it's all very intriguing.

[Lord Joker Of FunLand]

It's a bit tougher than the other books, but i love the Dorne Chapters and the Ironborn chapters aren't that bad either.

Seeing how Cersei thinks is pretty interesting, her POV chapters aren't exciting or anything...but it's fun to see how she thinks.

[Warlock Vetolgar]

It's a bit tougher than the other books, but i love the Dorne Chapters and the Ironborn chapters aren't that bad either.

Seeing how Cersei thinks is pretty interesting, her POV chapters aren't exciting or anything...but it's fun to see how she thinks.

Be grateful that you find it funny. At this point I can almost hear her voice, and it makes me want to take a cheese grinder to my ear.

[secretninjaboy]

For those having issues with this one ...

The first time I read AFFC, I'll admit it read it too fast, and with reading too fast and having this sudden explosion of characters, I was overwhelmed, but I powered on and read it a matter of days and hated it.

It now stands up very well to rereads. Yes the beginning is slow, but you also have to remember that GRRM didn't plan to write most of this stuff, he was going to gloss over it in the 5 year gap. Still not my favorite book in the series, but definitely much better on rereads. Lots of creepy little details to pick out and the new characters aren't so bad the second third or whatever time through.

[Ser Arthur Robert]

It's a bit tougher than the other books, but i love the Dorne Chapters and the Ironborn chapters aren't that bad either.

Seeing how Cersei thinks is pretty interesting, her POV chapters aren't exciting or anything...but it's fun to see how she thinks.

I agree, I love the Dorne chapters, they are as good as any in the story. I also find the Cersei chapters.....interesting. It's kind of amusing how highly she thinks of herself, and how she looks down on everbody else.

[starkcontrast1]

I went in to AFFC expecting a Silmarillion style borefest. I've got to say I was pleasantly surprised.

I found the much derided political intrigue to be fascinating and gripping. Kings Landing has often been called a serpents den and I feel AFFC is where we really see it. The Cersei chapters were sublime in my opinion, the Jaime ones were mostly fantastic for the sheer depth they gave Jaime as a character. My opinion of a character has never been changed as much with ASOS and AFFC.

I also found the Iron Island chapters to be quite fascinating too, Euron is a promising villain and his plans of conquest and terror are somewhat of a parallel to Dany's so far.

I actually found Sansa' chapters to be thrilling to too, the nefarious scheming of Littlefinger is always a great read.

The only chapters I found to always dread were the ones concerning Dorne, I know GRRM is introducing Dorne for the end game and that we have had very little exposistion on the kingdomso far, but the chapters in AFFC just felt like tacked on filler.

ASOS was a hard act to follow and I think AFFC was unfairly bashed for a number of reasons, lack of certain chracters, extraordinarily long wait, etc

Not as good as others in the series so far, but still a very enjoyable read. :)

[Alisa]

I'm enjoying it just as much as the others, still got a long way to go though. I think after A SoS I needed the plot to slow down a lot.

[Quentyn Baratheon]

I don't like Brienne chapters. Otherwise it's a bit slow, but there is A LOT going on behind the curtains, and inside the heads of the characters.

[Mista C]

My first read of this book last summer was tough, I'll admit. But I'm half-way through my re-read now and I am enjoying it much more this time. It seems like it's much easier to follow and all the new names are more familiar to me now. I am also picking-up on many little things that fell through the cracks the first time.

[Lannister Hamster]

I found it exactly the same when I was reading it and I would say the Brienne chapters are the problem. Because we know where Sansa is the entire search just feels frustrating for us as readers.

Second time around I'm enjoying it a bit more and seeing where all the puzzle pieces really fit in.

[King of the Road]

I thought AFFC was one of the better books. Much more political plotting, and it was nice to get something from the POV of people like Cersei and to hear more from Jaime.

[MostInterestingManWesteros]

AFFC is my favorite one so far haven't gotten to 5 yet. I'm not a kraken fan, but I love the Dornish chapters. I like everyting that goes down in KL as well. I think people don't like it cause you don't get some of the older POV's, I'm just wondering how all of these pieces that GRRM has set up are going to fit together. There are so many new characters that we're just meeting and I wonder how everyone is gonna fit into the final struggle.

[Lord Elrosir]

I know exactly what you mean. I read AGOT, ACOK, and ASOS in probably 3 weeks time. It took me over a month to get through AFFC. Terribly paced and boring compared to the prior three books.

ADWD went down in a couple weeks. Plenty of action.

[Lord Tyrion]

I know exactly what you mean. I read AGOT, ACOK, and ASOS in probably 3 weeks time. It took me over a month to get through AFFC. Terribly paced and boring compared to the prior three books.

ADWD went down in a couple weeks. Plenty of action.

Didn't Martin say he had a hard time writing AFFC anyway?

ADWD wasn't any better IMO. Aside from the jon story, I think it was decent.

The Dany story was confusing at times - it wasn't that interesting and I wish tyrions story was a little better. I just miss Tyrion in Kings Landing

[Lord Elrosir]

Its not that ADWD was better, but I enjoyed the hell out of Tyrion, Aegon VI, and Jons story. Dany still annoys the shit out of me. I just felt like it was a chore getting through AFFC.

[Arya-Underfoot]

I'm only a few chapters in so far. I found the first chapters tough because of the sudden introduction to new characters and cultures - interesting, but not yet fitting into the rest of the story. I made a few notes on who's who to try to keep track of the Greyjoys and Martells. It usually takes me a while to get to care for the new characters and subplots (Davos took me until ASoS to get my attention) It's interesting to have Cersei's point of view. She's gradually started to be a bit more fleshed out than the evil ice queen she seemed at first and I'm curious to see how that develops.

[Saxony]

I'm just a few chapters in as well and suddenly I feel like I'm wading in mud because I'm having to stop every few pages and seach the entire appendix of houses for a name that I know I've heard before but can't remember who they were 'fraternizing' with or what they even did....... very frustrating.

I know I should be making connections that I'm not. Instead of thinking, "Oooh he's working for him!!" it's more like, "Ok... he's friends with him...."

And now we've Arys and Aeron and Aereo and Euron and Aegon and the 3 G brothers and their father whose name starts with a G and on and on.

And don't get me started on what happened in the tunnels with Jaime/Varys/Tyrion. Wtf. Jaime and Varys got down there AND got Tyrion out and Jaime's trying to figure out what happened???? What? Why is he questioning people and getting unexpected answers... ?

[Dragonreaver]

I must admit that when I started reading it, I had the same thoughts as the OP. I think it was the deluge of new stuff that I didn't like at first. I think the end of that sort of 'difficult' period was around about the chapter after Princess Myrcella's abduction got foiled by Areo. Everything after that just kept me wanting more, exactly like the other books.

I actually quite like the fact that this book gives you more of a history and a 'story so far' kind of view of things, without moving the story onwards at such a breakneck speed. I like learning about all the cool characters that have been created but not explored or fleshed out as much as yet. Especially the chapter where Brienne goes to The Whispers with Dick Crabb; Crackclaw Point reminds me a lot of the area around my home (Cornwall).

As for the names... there are a lot of characters in the book, obviously. There has to be. Continents tend to have lots of people on them. My advice would be to stop worrying so much about trying to work out EVERY connection and EVERY plot and learning EVERY name in one read-through. Generally speaking, GRRM does a great job of making sure you remember who is who when that person is important in the current chapter or storyline. The extra characters are more like "secrets" that can be worked out after you've finished the book, IMO.

I also LOVE the Cersei chapters. I was so worried that having her as a POV character would make her more "human" and "likeable" just through virtue of the fact that we can see how her mind works and how she rationalizes the batshit insane things she does. But instead of that, they've made me despise her EVEN MORE (which is pretty impressive). The way she treats Jaime, particularly. Cersei Macbeth,

[Saxony]

Yeah, Cersei isn't some misunderstood character. She's a complete witch through and through.

[Elder Sister]

@Saxony...you need to edit this post. The b word is not an acceptable way to refer to female characters and the mods will get after you for it.