A Feast for Crows

by George R.R. Martin

A little background: George Martin released the first book in his epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire in 1996, with the next two installments following in 1999 and 2000, the latter of which ended on a series of dramatic cliffhangers. His dedicated fans then waited not so patiently for another five years to find out what happened. Coincidentally enough, the next book, A Dance of Dragons, was supposed to take place after a five year break from the end of the third book. Martin changed his mind however, and announced that an extra book, A Feast for Crows, would cover the five year interim. As it happens Martin still hasn't finished what he intended to be the fourth book of the series, but as it was getting so large he decided to split it into two. A Feast for Crows covers half the characters over the five years, with A Dance of Dragons (hopefully forthcoming next year) chronicling the remainder of the plotlines over the same period of time.

So after such a long wait there this book carries the weight of a lot of expectations. Especially seeing as the series has grown more complicated and slow as it goes on, leading some to worry that he might have come down with a bit of Robert Jordan syndrome. Those criticisms are neither confirmed nor mollified by this latest volume. While not a lot happens compared to the earlier books, it's still miles ahead of Jordan's snooze fests, and considering that this was a book he originally didn't intend to write the lack of action isn't that surprising.

I did start to have misgivings about half way through the book. The three characters that this volume focuses on are some of the blander in the series, and there's not that much excitment in their storylines. However the beginning of the novel resolves a few of the outstanding cliffhangers (which is a bit of a relief after five years of waiting) and the end of the book perks up considerably, dropping a few unexpected twists and surprising revelations, and of course introducing a bunch more cliffhangers.

Martin's strengths continue to serve him well in this volume. His characters are as always very well drawn and he uses magic sparingly in comparison to other fantasy writers, who often turn it into a stupid gimmick. His prose style is sparse and direct, but this doesn't hinder him at all as it is a very action oriented story. The one strength Martin does away with in this installment is his passion for bloodthirsty violence. As I said there is less action than in earlier volumes, but fortunately he makes up for it by upping the frequency of dirty sex scenes. Good work George!

Some more plot specific speculation, arranged by character, for anyone who has read the book: SPOILERS! - Highlight to read.

Brienne: So is she dead? It seems a bit weird that he'd dedicate a third of the book to a character who's plot does nothing except kill off a few secondary characters and show us what happened to Catelyn (which we pretty much knew from the last books epilogue anyway) and The Hound. Plus there's some unresolved plot stuff with her and Jaime... so I'm betting she's not dead.

Jaime: This plot line was fairly interesting, if a little slow. The resolution of the seige of Riverrun was pretty cool, and quite unexpected. His final scene with Cersei's letter was damn good though...

Cersei: Easily the most entertaining plot thread. Martin's made a bit of a signature of the Big Betrayal Scene, and while Rob, Eddard and Tyrion's betrayals were so effective because they were so unexpected (at least on the first read, it's always cleverly foreshadowed when you read it a second time), Cersei's went in another direction. Every time I finished reading one of her chapters I was slapping my head in frustration at her stupidity, so that when it finally all came crashing down around her it was quite satisfying. Although again the exact manner of her downfall was a bit of a surprise. It will be interesting to see if we actually see her get it in The Winds of Winter or if it's the end of the road for her, but I guess we'll have to wait another five years to find out...

The Hound and The Mountain: Well I don't know what Qyburn has done with The Mountain, but from the sounds of things it sounds like he's gone Frankenstein styles... And I hope no one thinks the Hound is dead. I think Martin stumbled a little when describing his fate, making it a little obvious that we'll be seeing old Sandor again. (Was that him that Brienne sees digging a grave when she enters the monastery? What happened to his scars? Did the monks heal him?) My guess is that The Hound will live a quiet life at the monastery for a little while, until whatever The Mountain has become shows up for a bit of rape and pillaging, facilitating their final confrontation.

Ser Loras: I'm a little suspicious that we didn't see the seige of Dragonstone first hand, it would have been a good opportunity to show some action in a book that was somewhat lacking in that respect. Maybe there's something going on that we don't know about (perhaps Loras isn't dying at all, and has made a deal with Stannis' men in Dragonstone...)

Sansa and Myrcella: These two plotlines are no doubt important to the larger plot but were a bit dull in this installment. The cute playing around with the POV protaganists names annoyed me though.

The Ironborn: Fairly interesting, but ended just as it started to get good.

Arya and Samwell: The most interesting plot threads by far, a pity we couldn't see more of them but I guess there's not much more to tell at the moment. I was particularly blown away by the revelation at the end of Sam's last chapter that the Maester's are behind the death of magic, an unexpected but cool twist.

In general: No Jon! No Tyrion! No Bran! No Daenerys! I can't wait till A Dance of Dragons!