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647 of 666 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Feast For Statisticians, November 20, 2005
OK, I did something a little different in this review. Soon there will be literally hundreds of reviews for this book, all giving similar reasons why people like or dislike A Feast For Crows. Instead of adding, and probably losing, my voice in amongst the clamour, I've done a bit of mathematics for you. I actually went through the book and noted which characters had chapters of their own and how many pages each of those chapters had, then I figured the numbers out as percentages (yes, I know, I need to get out more). So now, for your literary edification and illumination, I present to you a list of what actually happens in the book, according to my calculations (all rounded off).
CERCEI: 22.5%. That's right, folks, the Lannister Queen has more than one page in five, and nearly one page in four, devoted entirely to her point of view. If you've always wanted to know what goes on in her scheming little mind, then boy, do we have a show for you! Considering that there are thirteen people altogether who get chapter viewpoints of their own, Cercei's 22.5% share means that, on average, everyone else only gets 6.5% each. You could say that Cercei has the lion's share (terrible pun, I know).
BRIENNE: 17.5%. Next on our little list comes the Maid of Tarth. Most of the time we spend with her is on character development, rather than juicy action. Not that there's anything wrong with that at all, but you've been warned. If you were expecting her to become Lara Croft: Tomb Raider reborn, think again. Also, of some small statistical note, more than 60% of the pages in this book are devoted to the female character's points of view. Just so you know.
JAIME: 15.5%. The ever-more-interesting brother, and erstwhile lover, of Cercei continues in his evolution from out-and-out bad guy to, well, kind of a good guy. We're going to have to read the next book to see which way he jumps for sure, but so far he's certainly more inclined towards honesty and honour than he seemed to be in the first couple of books.
SAMWELL: 9%. The first character with less than ten percent of the ink investment is Sam. One of the more down-to-earth minor characters from the previous book, he gets fleshed out a little more here (excuse the pun).
SANSA: 8%. One of the few remaining Starks, and one of only two who get chapters of their own in this book, Sansa is also evolving as a character. In this book she is very slowly starting to show signs of an independence that she heretofore lacked. Of course, with only three chapters of her own, she doesn't show much. Not that she was ever on the front lines of either political intrigue or physical combat.
ARYA: 6% The only other person from House Stark with chapters from her own viewpoint. Arya has always been an interesting character to me. Her moral ambiguity, like Jaime's, is stretched further in this book. I'm a little nervous as to how she'll shape up in the end. At this point, it's a little difficult for me to tell, though I have optimistic expectations.
WHO? WHAT? HUH?: 21.5%. Seven people, some of whom are hardly mentioned, or not mentioned at all, in previous books, have their own chapter or two each in this book. So more than one page in five is from the viewpoint of someone you probably can't remember reading about before. And half the time the same viewpoint doesn't come up again in this book at all.
TYRION, JON, DAENERYS, STANNIS, DAVOS, ETC.: 0%. These characters don't appear at all. We have to tune in to the next episode for updates on their adventures. I wondered about this when I bought the book and saw that the maps at the front only showed Westeros.
So there you have it. If you're here reading reviews because you've gotten halfway through the book, don't like it, and want to see what everyone else thought, then I'd recommend that you keep reading. Slog through a few more pages; it does pick up at around the halfway mark. Although, in my mind, the endings for the various characters are fairly anticlimactic. Nothing is really resolved, unlike the previous books. And it's going to be the same for the next book, apparently, since Martin says that it will only focus on the characters who were expected to appear in this book but didn't.
I've given A Feast For Crows three stars, where the previous books in the series would have each earned at least four stars from me.
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1,053 of 1,102 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The song is becoming a noodling free-jam, November 15, 2005
It's doubtful that any sort of review will stop someone who has read the first three books from reading this long-awaited and justly anticipated instalment. Nevertheless, I'd like to voice an opinion which falls between the extremes which seem to be the most prevalent sort of reponses to this book.
Mr Martin is a great fantasy writer, and I don't think that has changed. However, A Feast For Crows is not up to the standard of this first three in the series. What I suspect HAS changed is the commercial pressure that has been placed on Mr Martin, combined with (I hate to say it) a growing over-indulgence which has been allowed him. When George Martin defends the delays, longer-than-expected lengths, and the seemingly extraneous side-stories, he is fond of referring to Tolkien by saying that "the story writes itself" (or something like that). I don't doubt that Martin experiences this "divine inspiration" like many other great artists, but this time around he seems to have been unable (or more likely, unwilling) to step away from that feeling to undergo the painful process of editing. When the pressure to make a release led to a cutting in half of the anticipated book, thus allowing two books of about 700 pages rather than one of about, say, 1000, it seems that Martin took it as a cue to go easy on the editing. The splitting of the book is itself substantially detrimental, but Martins lack of self-criticism is the real reason why this book is somewhat disappointing. Not everything created by the divine inspiration of great artists is great art.
People who are claiming that there is no plot development, either within the book or for the series, are of course exaggerating. There are certain interesting revelations and developments that will no doubt play a role in the eventual (and I say that optimistically) resolution of the series. Take for (spoiler-free) example the potential rise of the Church of the 7 gods as a major political player, the implied motivations of the masters in Oldtown, the (loss of) direction that Berric Dondarions outlaws have taken, the grand plans of the new king of the Iron Islands etc. However, these sort of developments are only seen accidentally through the characters, who have become the real focus of this book.
This is where Martin seems to have gone astray. The chapters of the three characters who by far dominate this book in terms of length (Cersei, Jaime, and Brienne) are all in turn overly-dominated by a personal theme. Cersei has become paranoid to the point of insanity, particularly with regards to a prophesy she was given as a girl (which, by the way, felt like a new idea of Martins specifically for this book, but doesn't seem to fit entirely comfortably with Cersei's character from the previous books). Jaime is torn between love/trust and hate/mistrust of his sister. Brienne struggles with doubt about her worth in playing the role of a knight as opposed to an ordinary, though ugly, high-born maiden. The problem is that not only are the bigger events of the "game of thrones" made subordinate to these longwinded inner struggles and dialogues, but that they tend not to go anywhere. Admittedly Cersei's paranoia has important ramifications in her final 2 chapters, but is it really necessary to spend her first 8 chapters or so just to give the sense of her paranoia? I feel it could have been done in 3 or 4 chapters, and thereby made more engaging rather than tiresome. The same applies at least as much for Jaime and Brienne.
Speaking of Brienne, I think that Martin has blatently sacrificed the flow of the story within and between books in favour of setting up a "cliffhanger" ending. In the previous books, anticipation for the following book has been achieved by a partial resolution of the characters (Jon Snowe becomes Lord Commander and refuses Stannis' offer, Tyrion kills Tywin and leaves Westeros, etc) and leaves you able to intelligently speculate about their future. Brienne's predicament at the end of her final chapter is a matter that would be resolved in a matter of seconds in real-time, but unfortunately Martin has opted to finish it like a lame soap opera full of cheap tricks to make me watch the next episode, or a typical horror movie setting itself up for a money-making sequel. I dare say she will survive, but I am still left feeling a little more cautious of Martins artistic credibility.
When I say that those three characters dominate the length of the novel, I am not exaggerating. The rest of the POVS are a mixed bag. I thought that the ones covering Dorne and the Iron Islands contained some interesting developments, although they are yet to take on their full significance, which makes them less engaging. I felt Arya had potential to become one of the more interesting characters at the end of the previous novel, but so far (in her 3 chapters) has failed to deliver. Her primary role here seems to be to describe life in the city of Braavos. Sansa's chapters are somewhat interesting but still contain a lot of filler (especially her last one, which I barely skim read up to the last page, something I never felt inclined to do in any of the prevous books). The same goes for Samwell.
Essentially, AFFC contains writing that is as good as any of the previous books, but it is hidden and scattered between too many words, which costs us readers more of our time and money. Martin just seems to do a little too much taking and not enough giving in this instalment, and if things continue like this in the next instalment, he will lose my interest. I'm sure he is aware of the dangers of prolonging a story to the point of tedium. Let's hope that feedback to this book will make him raise his editing game, and get this song back into a refined composition rather than a noodling free-jam.
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453 of 490 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well, OK..., November 29, 2006
I have to say this book was a disappointment. The first three books in this series were unquestionably 5-star reading.
A Feast for Crows, however, truly was -- as one reviewer described it -- a chore to get through. I wondered often as I read it whether Martin would have fared better to collapse this book and the sequel, A Dance with Dragons, into one volume after all. The argument that the book would have then been too long doesn't wash with me since many of the chapters here -- far too many -- felt like "packing material", the popcorn and bubblewrap that you have to dig through to get to the good stuff that you really wanted and paid for. A Feast for Crows would have been a far better book if the dross chapters had been eliminated and the pure gold chapters from the next book added in. Ah, well. Too late for that now.
Sadly, in this book, I just got bored. Not only once, but again and again. And I am astounded to say that because Martin is a magnificent writer and storyteller. But I was seriously bored with much of this book.
I did not like Martin's departure from the style of previous books of adding so many nameless ("The Prophet", "The Kraken's Daughter", etc.) point-of-view (POV) chapters. Sheesh. Why not just say their names? "Aeron" ... "Asha" ... Worse still, most of these "secondary" POV chapters were quite dull. I did not like these characters and I did not want to invest my time in them because it is not THEIR story I am interested in in this series. Many of these secondary characters are repellent, dull, and/or unpleasant, and each new character's chapter(s) carried the baggage of (seemingly) 50 to 60 new names and characters apiece.
Even the primary POVs in this volume, including Brienne, Jaime, and Cersei, are not particularly likable or interesting. That leaves about 20% of the book that really held my interest. Only the Samwell, Arya, and Sansa chapters held my attention here, and the latter two characters appear very little in this particular volume. The one good thing about this overall structure was that at least I knew before reading a chapter that I probably wasn't going to enjoy it: "Brienne", "Cersei", "Jaime", "Unnamed" = Not Terribly Interesting. Best not be sleepy if you want to get through any of these chapters in one sitting.
To the author's credit, the pace of Feast for Crows does pick up toward the end of the book, which, alas, once again leaves us hanging for heaven knows how long until the next book is published -- longer still if these particular "King's Landing" POV plot threads are not to be picked back up until Book 6. Patience, more than any other quality, is required of readers of this series.
Even so, I am committed to this series for the long haul. Martin at his worst is better than most writers in this genre at their very best. He is a most gifted and talented writer, and I trust he can get back on course for the next book in this series. I am keeping my fingers crossed that there is someone in this process that can effectively tell Martin, for future volumes in this series, "Yo, dude. This chapter is well written, surely, but it really ought to be cut..."
EDIT, June 10, 2011--
In anticipation of the publication of Book 5, A Dance with Dragons, next month, I have been rereading this series. The first three books were a joy (yet again), but this one, not so much. If you are tackling Book 4, A Feast for Crows, either for the first time or if you're rereading the series, and you find yourself struggling with this particular volume, I recommend the following:
(1) Read the Prologue.
(2) Then skip to chapter 5, the first Samwell chapter, and read it.
(3) Thereafter, read ONLY the Jaime, Sansa/"Alayne", Arya/"Cat of the Canals", and Samwell chapters. Skip all of the Cersei, Brienne, and remaining "Unnamed" chapters -- all of them.
(4) Finally, after that, check the A Feast for Crows Wikipedia entry for brief plot synopses of the portions you skipped past.
This cuts the book by more than half, I know, but trust me. It's better this way.
The Prologue and final Samwell chapter give the book a satisfying sense of completion and closure, and the story overall moves along at a much brisker clip. Of the two Lannisters represented here (how I missed Tyrion in this book!), Jaime is definitely more interesting than Cersei, and he lets you know all you really need to know about Cersei (and Brienne, too) from his point of view.
And, of course, the skipped chapters will always be there, waiting for you, just like the La Brea Tar Pits, should you ever feel inclined to wade through them.
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