Anyone else having Difficulty Reading the book?

[SlackBladder]

I found it good it fits and starts. It's odd that despite so many new characters and locations little seems to happen compared to the previous books. I suppose George had to take the time to intoduce all the new storylines we hadn't encountered so far.

I generally liked the Cersei and Jaime chapters as we're seeing what events are happening at the heart of the kingdom. I liked seeing the aftermath of Tywin's death, Jaime's maturing and how after finally getting the top job, Cersei makes a total hash of it. I also liked Cersei's chapters as we get to see her reasoning behind some of the more questionable things she does. The way she doesn't just dislike Tyrion but has this irrational terror about him made me understand (if not sympathise) why she acts so awfully towards him. Maggy's prophecy was also an interesting discovery.

Now, the Dorne Chapters. I very much liked the plot of what was going on down in Dorne but I found the PoV characters generally dull. GRRM once said that he doesn't want PoV characters to be a "pair of eyes", however this is exactly how poor old Areoh Hotah felt to me. He takes no part in what's going on asides from standing around and holds no opinions about anything that's going on around him. Having said that, his one chapter was my favourite of those set in Dorne; Prince Doran is a very interesting character, a melancholic and incredibly pragmatic man keeping the peace in his realm even if it earns him the scorn of his fellows.

The events unfolding in the Iron Islands are generally exiting, I really liked the Kingsmoot chapter and the starting of a new war between them and the Iron Throne. It felt like there was one too many PoV characters, Aeron certainly felt very one dimensional to me and could have been dropped. I quite liked Vicatrion's chapters, he's a hard and not very nice man (beating one of his wives to death!) and Asha's until she disappears from the story.

Despite being characters I liked in earlier books, Samwell and Brienne's chapters suffered from a great deal of nothing going on. It takes the entire book for Samwell to get to Oldtown and takes the entire book for Brienne to get nowhere (I really enjoyed her last two chapters though, shame we had to read through so much to get to them).

All in all I think the more negative reviews are being unfair, it's by no means a bad book, I only feel that GRRM must have had trouble trying to fit all the characters and plot into this book as well as tying up a few loose ones. Brienne's chapters in particular feel like he's just trying to fill up her chapters while things actually happen in other areas of Westeros.

[Waarg]

What I didn't like about AFFC is that most chapters felt more like internal monolgues. Aside from what was going on in King's Landing, there wasn't much dialogue, not enough character interaction. Many PoV characters were disconnected from the rest of the world (Brienne, Arya, Dany, Sam, and pretty much everyone in Dorne) and don't get me wrong, I like the book, I really do. I just feel it has more character development than plot. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when you have 900 pages of character development you're wondering when stuff is going to start happening again.

[direwolf_of_white_fangs]

Aaahhh....it is good to read again about Jon :cool4: , Stannis :bang: , Tyrion :devil: , the wall , the Direwolfs Ghost :bowdown: , Summer :ph34r: and Shaggydogg :bawl: (Shaggy for friends :eek: ).

I finished Feast and already read the Prologue in Dance which is a very nice sort of detached tale about Wargs (Skinchangers) *George is fond of synonyms*...

Also the first 3 chapters so far are very nice (Tyrion, Daenerys and Jon's). No spoilers here! :drunk:

It just surprised me to read at Jon's first chapter in aDwD that Sam (AKA "The Slayer" ) was still at the wall. So the story plot is not linear. We as readers have to exercise going back in time before Sam departed with Gilly to Oldtown (in aFfC).

But is okay. We are told in the beggining of the book by George that the Story plot in Dance happens in parallel with aFfC until a certain point in the book where they join again in real time.

[dylan]

AFFC was actually my favorite book in the series

[Rolex Baratheon]

George rapidly lost the very identity of his series with AFFC. No Theon, no Tyrion, Starks seem forgotten, total buzzkill everywhere. Good thing ADWD is fixing that

[ebevan91]

It was hard at first especially with the Dorne and Ironborn chapters. But the latter half of the book picked up big time.

[sillent]

Even though I wouldnt rate AFFC in my top asoiaf book rankings I actually read this book the fastest. The starting and ending chunk of the book were very hard to stop reading on.. even though some chapters were a drag

[WakeTheDragon]

It's a weird pace definately slow. There's a lot going on but at the same time nothing is actually happening. You can tell a storm is brewing though. I'm just under half way so ill reserve judgement till I'm finished. I miss Jon, Tyrion, Dany and Davos big time. The only storyline I can't seem to get is Briannes. It's not even because I know where Sansa is i just don't understand her relevance to the overall plot at this point. That's the only POV that's felt like a chore to read so far.

[sillent]

I hated Briennes POV to death.. not only did it seem to not go anywhere, but she keeps muttering the same old dialogue you get really tired of it.. I enjoyed Jaime, Sam, Dorne, Arya + Sansa a lot though!

[Joyodongo]

I honestly think AFfC is poor... A 900 book where almost nothing happens... I don't read a book for this...

And I also think it was a mistake the structure of the book: leaving out the most interesting characters and PoVs... for going back in time with ADwD and the "forgotten" characters.

I'm finishing now ADwD and for me: 3>1>5>2>>4

[sastelise]

I’m half way through AFFC, and I’m having difficulty focusing on the Dorne and Iron Islands chapters. To me, the central storyline is about the Starks – the splintering of their family and *hopefully* their reunification and triumph in the end. With the parade of new characters that seem to have little to do with this main story, I find myself wondering, who cares? Even Dany’s storyline in the previous books seems to have little relevance to the central story. Though I have enjoyed a few of her POV chapters, I don’t see her leaving Slaver’s Bay.

The Sansa and Arya chapters are too few and too stagnant. Unlike many readers here, I don’t mind the Brienne chapters. She’s one of my favorite characters because I see her as being a potential guardian for Sansa, a more honorable version of the hound. I have this fantasy that Brienne and Sandor Clegane will eventually get together to protect Sansa as she becomes a player in the game, and a romance will develop between them out of their mutual love for Sansa – since neither one can really have her. Crazy, I know!

But the slower pace and randomness of AFFC can be forgiven if it turns out that that this is GRRM’s way of setting up a shift from a male governed Westeros, to a land ruled by the women. Doesn’t it seem like that’s what’s happening? Sansa, Asha, Dany, and even Myrecella seem to be gaining in significance as their characters develop. My hope is that these women – unlike their bellicose male counterparts – will unite against the throne and disempower the unjust and illegitimate Lannister rule.

Cercei’s POV chapters have demonstrated what I’ve suspected all along. She’s bitter, paranoid, and arrogant. She should be locked up in a tower and made to stew. Isolated and unable to manipulate anyone, she would jump to her own death soon enough. And what better way for Cercei Lannister to meet her end than by Cercei Lannister?

[Isilud]

The thing with Feast is that it generally seems, well, mediocre compared to the first 3 novels when you first read it. On a reread, however, I've noticed a lot of people tend to re-rate Feast as one of their favorite in the series. I'm one of these people, so I suppose I'll defend it. Feast is a different sort of story in that it concentrates very heavily on character development and developing the setting of Westeros (and how it's been affected by the war) whereas the other books were more plot oriented. Coming down from Storm, where things happened almost every page and the reader is anxious to see what's going to happen next with Stannis and Jon at the wall and Daenerys storming the slave cities, a slow paced exploration of several character's motivations and what the wars have done to the smallfolk isn't what people expect. Which is why, on a re-read, people have the time to appreciate Feast for what it does well.

Whether or not this is a good thing is still very subjective. I mean, was it a good idea for Martin to have written Feast and Dance the way he did, with respect to what his audience is going to want. Honestly, probably not. Feast is well written, but appreciating it the first time around is a lot harder than it should be.

[WakeTheDragon]

The thing with Feast is that it generally seems, well, mediocre compared to the first 3 novels when you first read it. On a reread, however, I've noticed a lot of people tend to re-rate Feast as one of their favorite in the series. I'm one of these people, so I suppose I'll defend it. Feast is a different sort of story in that it concentrates very heavily on character development and developing the setting of Westeros (and how it's been affected by the war) whereas the other books were more plot oriented. Coming down from Storm, where things happened almost every page and the reader is anxious to see what's going to happen next with Stannis and Jon at the wall and Daenerys storming the slave cities, a slow paced exploration of several character's motivations and what the wars have done to the smallfolk isn't what people expect. Which is why, on a re-read, people have the time to appreciate Feast for what it does well.

Whether or not this is a good thing is still very subjective. I mean, was it a good idea for Martin to have written Feast and Dance the way he did, with respect to what his audience is going to want. Honestly, probably not. Feast is well written, but appreciating it the first time around is a lot harder than it should be.

I kind of understand why he had to though because Feast and Dance were essentially filler books Martin didn't initially intend to write. After Storm of Swords the next book was intended to take place 5 years later but Martin decided he couldn't skip that amount of time without giving any backstory so he intended to write 1 book detailing those 5 years but it became to much and he to split it into 2 books. I think Feast was a good come down after Storm.

[YuvalTheVal]

I juat finished it, and I loved it. Just great, like the first 3. slower, but very smart, well structured, and with a satifsfying finale for every single storyline.

Oh, and cersei is just awesome! amongst the best chapters ever!

[SlackBladder]

I really enjoyed reading aFFC but when you get to the end you realise that very little has actually happened.

[The Tower of Joy]

See a lot of people here saying they skimmed trough the book the first time, but I just started aFfC and I'm reading every word of it for a simple reason: It's ASOIAF.

My expectations for this book were lowered so much by opinions I read online, so now that I'm reading it I find it a very much enjoyable experience, and the pages go by surprisingly fast even tho' I'm not skimming. About the missing characters... I don't really care because I know that when I'm done with this book, aDwD awaits me and within, my two favorite characters :)

[direwolf_of_white_fangs]

Besides the lack of our beloved main characters, aFfC is a slow book. Not a lot happens.

Or typically, as in George other books except in Storm, the really significant things happen only at the end of the book.

The story plot of each POV takes AGES to happen in aFfC and aDwD. The characters spend most of the book travelling on a side quest or something. At least in dance we are happilly readign again about Jon, Stannis, Tyrion, Daenerys etc...

That has to do with a big increase in the amount of POV characters from aGoT (8) to aFfC (17) and aDwD (18). Imagine how hard it must be to connect all the stories and the timming of it. In the end of the day what happened? a chacracter travelled from one city to the another. yeah, and that took the whole book!

I hope for the next books (winds of winter) things can happen faster and more dynamically.

[ebevan91]

So many POV characters.... ADwD suffers from this too but ADwD is slightly more interesting to me than AFfC (I'm not done with the book yet, only on page 540 or so). I liked the first 3 books better where we had 8-10 POV characters and most of them had 6+ chapters.

[SlackBladder]

So many POV characters.... ADwD suffers from this too but ADwD is slightly more interesting to me than AFfC (I'm not done with the book yet, only on page 540 or so). I liked the first 3 books better where we had 8-10 POV characters and most of them had 6+ chapters.

In AFFC and ADWD whenever I came upon a PoV character we've never seen before I thought "oh boy here we go". With the Iron Islands especially, it felt like most of the chapters were a justification for us to see the kingsmoot first hand, but for some reason we needed 3 chapters of Aeron talking about the sea as well.

[YuvalTheVal]

Besides the lack of our beloved main characters, aFfC is a slow book. Not a lot happens.

Or typically, as in George other books except in Storm, the really significant things happen only at the end of the book.

The story plot of each POV takes AGES to happen in aFfC and aDwD. The characters spend most of the book travelling on a side quest or something. At least in dance we are happilly readign again about Jon, Stannis, Tyrion, Daenerys etc...

That has to do with a big increase in the amount of POV characters from aGoT (8) to aFfC (17) and aDwD (18). Imagine how hard it must be to connect all the stories and the timming of it. In the end of the day what happened? a chacracter travelled from one city to the another. yeah, and that took the whole book!

I hope for the next books (winds of winter) things can happen faster and more dynamically.

I just wanted to say I agree Martin saves most of the plot for the second half of the books, but the book that does not follow this structure is GOT, not SoS. let's not go into this discussion though since it's a FfC forum.