A Feast for Crows: A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones)

By George R.R. Martin

Book Overview

THE BOOK BEHIND THE FOURTH SEASON OF GAME OF THRONES, AN ORIGINAL SERIES NOW ON HBO. Here is the fourth book in the landmark series that has redefined imaginative fiction and become a modern... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 055358202X
• ISBN13: 9780553582024
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Random House Worlds
• Length: 1104 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 1.5" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

Greed…tyranny…political intrigue; it’s all here

I was surprised when there was a chapter for Cersei just as I was when there was a chapter for Tyrion and Jamie. Even though she’s the cause of everything that happened, I’m still wary of her and I most certainly should be. I mean, I don’t even know if there’s anything she can do or say that will make me think otherwise. She’s the pure definition of a tyrant but I’ve learned to respect her evilness. Other than the introduction to a few new POV’s, this one’s the same as the rest. You still get the same action/adventure element, you get the same but not surprising deceitful characters like Cersei and witness how quickly she spirals out of control and you get the same detail oriented writing. Arya being in the House of Black and White reminded me of Pug from The Riftwar Legacy series which I thought was interesting. I dreaded picking up this book sometimes because all this series has been is killing after killing; let’s not forget the betrayal everyone faces around every corner. I even prefered skipping the Cersei chapters because I could care less about her. She’s started to unravel; meaning, she believed everyone was out to get her when they weren’t. All she is is paranoid. Her paranoia has turned everyone into a suspect; even the innocent. She is slowly unraveling in her decaying mind. Cersei had proven herself to be a tyrant using deceit and manipulation. I thought I understood cruelty before but she takes it to a whole new level. Granted, there’s different forms of cruelty but she’s proven herself to be capable of it.

Mass market paperbacks sizes mixed in with paperback editions

I purposely stayed away from mass market paperback editions because my husband wanted the larger paperback, but ended up with a small copy even though it was listed as paperback. Unfortunately, you have to scroll on the main page or make extra clicks on the all editions page to check the size before adding to cart. That means if you decide to switch to a different cover, you need to take the extra time to make sure the size didn't change.

George is the best at what he does

Masterfully plotted & written. Maybe not for you if you have no patience or thoughtfulness.

better quality than expected!!

i ordered a mass market paperback in good, and it was surprisingly almost brand new!!

A story bigger than its Characters

It's true, this novel is slow paced...is almost all intrigues and movements of players we have previously gotten little information on. To me it's all fascinating. For me, Martin has earned the right to a set-up book. I would never advocate this much preparation for an introduction to a series. A book should start off with a bang, I think, but in-spite of Martin's low-key approach to this chapter, he has created such a rich world, such an intricate political tapestry that I was never bored. The ending definitely kicks into old form though, and I won't say there isn't a contrast between stories...only that this one is still worth 5 stars, and will fit significantly into the whole. I also like the split. I like the shadows cast by the characters that we've previously read about, upon the Westeros landscape, as they all take on legendary significance. But Martin's story is bigger than any character, as we've all known for some time, and this book proves this further, by introducing a new cast of viewpoints that are all very interesting and all feel very relevent in the movement towards whatever it is that may yet come.

Quality read - just be patient for ADOD..very patient. Good thing I like rereadaing ane relistening

I'll start out by saying that I couldn't wait for it to come out and bought the UK edition and got it on Oct 18th and then sped my way through it in a few days. The general reader complaint with the book of course is the omitted POV chapters. However, had you been following along at George R.R. Martin's website you would have know that the book is really half a book as a result of publisher pressure and their reluctance to produce an 1000+ (possibly closer to 2000) page book (the bottom line rearing its ugly head). Mr. Martin would have preferred to make it a single book, but what resulted is a good compromise of full character arcs for half the "cast". Some have complained about the lack of chapters for Arya and Sansa, but quite frankly it makes a good deal of sense. Both characters are in situations where there is little going on that they can alter given that they are still children and are both students, learning their craft from their respective mentors while maturing towards adulthood. That is when they will be able to really make a difference in the world. More than anything, time has to pass for them to do this and extra prose would just take away from that goal. A Dance of Dragons which will contain more Arya and give us back Danerys, Tyrion, Jon, Bran, etc is essentially the other half of the book and will tie things together and move us into the future and a bit too. At the very least DOD will be a longer book than this volume, probably somewhere between ACOK and ASOS so we'll at least have something meaty to read (and reread while we wait for book 6) It does not look like books 6 and 7 though will be cut in half the same way 4 and 5 will be as the compromise does do a bit to reduce the richness of the overall story. What would be nice is after Dance of Dragons comes out is a timeline of the plot. Thus readers could go back and read book 4 and 5 together in the chronological order as originally intended. (Then I think we will have a 5-star book). As for the writing style, nothing has deteriorated in terms of Mr. Martin's approach and the quality. It is still excellent and the quality of his prose remains consistently good. The characters all have wonderful depth, all having their particular strengths and flaws giving them a richness that makes them feel like real people (I think we all know someone like Cersei who thinks she is smarter than everyone around her and gets in well over her head, relatively speaking of course) and not the same old tiresome archetypes and clichéd protagonists and antagonists of other series. The plot, logically so, has slowed down a bit. A Storm of Swords was a book where major changes occurred for some of the major players in this world and those characters that remain must now rebuild their power bases and their lives, which as in real life, tends to happen at an incremental pace. I highly recommend all current readers to stick with it and keep the faith. New readers go grab a Game of Thro

5 Stars for Content, 2 stars for Publishing

I'll start out by saying that I couldn't wait for it to come out and bought the UK edition and got it on Oct 18th and then sped my way through it in a few days. The general reader complaint with the book of course is the omitted POV chapters. However, had you been following along at George R.R. Martin's website you would have know that the book is really half a book as a result of publisher pressure and their reluctance to produce an 1000+ (possibly closer to 2000) page book (the bottom line rearing its ugly head). Mr. Martin would have preferred to make it a single book, but what resulted is a good compromise of full character arcs for half the "cast". Some have complained about the lack of chapters for Arya and Sansa, but quite frankly it makes a good deal of sense. Both characters are in situations where there is little going on that they can alter given that they are still children and are both students, learning their craft from their respective mentors while maturing towards adulthood. That is when they will be able to really make a difference in the world. More than anything, time has to pass for them to do this and extra prose would just take away from that goal. A Dance of Dragons (already more than halfway done and should have it out to us by early 2007 at latest) which will contain more Arya and give us back Danerys, Tyrion, Jon, Bran, etc is essentially the other half of the book and will tie things together and move us into the future. Hopefully books 6 and 7 though are not cut in half the same way 4 and 5 will be as the compromise does do a bit to reduce the richness of the overall story. What would be nice is after Dance of Dragons comes out is a timeline of the plot. Thus readers could go back and read book 4 and 5 together in the chronological order as originally intended. (Then I think we will have a 5-star book). As for the writing style, nothing has deteriorated in terms of Mr. Martin's approach and the quality. It is still excellent and the quality of his prose remains consistently good. The characters all have wonderful depth, all having their particular strengths and flaws giving them a richness that makes them feel like real people (I think we all know someone like Cersei who thinks she is smarter than everyone around her and gets in well over her head, relatively speaking of course) and not the same old tiresome archetypes and clichéd protagonists and antagonists of other series. The plot, logically so, has slowed down a bit. A Storm of Swords was a book where major changes occurred for some of the major players in this world and those characters that remain must now rebuild their power bases and their lives, which as in real life, tends to happen at an incremental pace. I highly recommend all current readers to stick with it and keep the faith. New readers go grab a Game of Thrones. Addendum: This was not intended to be a 5-star review on par with the first 3 books. I wanted to give it a 4-star based o