A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4)

Product Description

THE BOOK BEHIND THE FOURTH SEASON OF THE ACCLAIMED HBO SERIES GAME OF THRONES

Few books have captivated the imagination and won the devotion and praise of readers and critics everywhere as has George R. R. Martin’s monumental epic cycle of high fantasy. Now, in A Feast for Crows, Martin delivers the long-awaited fourth book of his landmark series, as a kingdom torn asunder finds itself at last on the brink of peace . . . only to be launched on an even more terrifying course of destruction.

A FEAST FOR CROWS

It seems too good to be true. After centuries of bitter strife and fatal treachery, the seven powers dividing the land have decimated one another into an uneasy truce. Or so it appears. . . . With the death of the monstrous King Joffrey, Cersei is ruling as regent in King’s Landing. Robb Stark’s demise has broken the back of the Northern rebels, and his siblings are scattered throughout the kingdom like seeds on barren soil. Few legitimate claims to the once desperately sought Iron Throne still exist—or they are held in hands too weak or too distant to wield them effectively. The war, which raged out of control for so long, has burned itself out.

But as in the aftermath of any climactic struggle, it is not long before the survivors, outlaws, renegades, and carrion eaters start to gather, picking over the bones of the dead and fighting for the spoils of the soon-to-be dead. Now in the Seven Kingdoms, as the human crows assemble over a banquet of ashes, daring new plots and dangerous new alliances are formed, while surprising faces—some familiar, others only just appearing—are seen emerging from an ominous twilight of past struggles and chaos to take up the challenges ahead.

It is a time when the wise and the ambitious, the deceitful and the strong will acquire the skills, the power, and the magic to survive the stark and terrible times that lie before them. It is a time for nobles and commoners, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and sages to come together and stake their fortunes . . . and their lives. For at a feast for crows, many are the guests—but only a few are the survivors.

Top Reviews

Too long by half but still draws you in
by Dan Berger (5 out of 5 stars)
October 8, 2018

I was pleasantly surprised by this fourth installment of the "Game of Thrones" series. It picks up the pace after previous installments dragged with various characters' endless wanderings.

The story line deviates from that of the TV series enough to make it fresh even if you watch the latter. I spent time checking maps and websites to firm up my understanding of what went by in a blur on TV.

This series is too long by half. Martin unnecessarily draws out scenes involving minor characters, and constantly introduces avoidable new ones. The cast of characters is so long it occupies nearly 10 percent of this volume. Martin has managed, though, to create a whole world, one even wider and more developed than Tolkien's Middle Earth, and in its many shades of gray more realistic and adult than the latter. I must credit him.

I found, say, a chapter on Arya's wandering through Braavos, selling shellfish to many as she gathers information, to be quite evocative and beautiful. Martin could have covered this episode in her saga in a few paragraphs, but instead took a longer and more artistic option, and the result is quite lovely.

This story begins after Tyrion Lannister murders his father Tywin and flees. His sister Cersei Lannister, still Regent but now in charge with her powerful father gone, needs a new Hand to replace him. Her brother Jaime won't take it, earning her resentment, and catalyzing a growing rift between the two.

For Jaime's own part he's jealous over the infidelities of his twin, whom he incestuously loves. Others turn her down too. Cersei is fun to read, but truly an evil queen. We don't dismiss her, though, because the theme of this vicious game is what it takes to seize power and hold it, and what happens to those who lose. Our world isn't that different, and we have to ask ourselves, if we were in Cersei's place, might we make the same choices?

Not wanting Jaime around, Cersei sends him north to secure the huge, strategic Harrenhal castle and to take Riverrun, where the last Tully brother holds out. The TV series didn't develop the siblings' growing alienation as much, or Jaime's realization of the monster his sister is becoming.

Sansa and Littlefinger hole up at the Eyrie. Sansa must keep a secret - that Littlefinger murdered his bride Lisa Arryn - and deceive Arryn bannermen, suspicious of this newly arrived usurper. Sansa sees the depth of Littlefinger's corruption: he murdered Lisa to protect Sansa, but had planned to all along to seize power over the fief.

Arya arrives in Braavos, finds the House of Black and White, and finally wins their trust enough to begin training as an assassin. She is ordered to eradicate every trace of her former self, but nurtures deep down her secret dream of revenge.

Sam endures a harrowing voyage south to shelter Gilly and her baby with Sam's family. They lay over in Braavos, where Sam encounters Arya without either realizing their connection through Jon Snow. They are stranded when the Night Watch's aged maester they accompany - one of the last of the royal Targaryens - is too sick to go on. Sam gloms to Gilly's tragic secret as he searches desperately to get to Oldtown and the Citadel.

In the Iron Islands, with Balon Greyjoy dead, a new king must be chosen by the people. Balon's niece Asha throws her hat in, but too few ironborn will accept a woman leader. Another of Balon's brothers, now high priest, desperately tries to stop another brother, the wicked Euron - whom readers know murdered Balon - from becoming king. A third brother contends but doesn't have Euron's ability to sway a crowd. The TV show had Asha's brother Theon involved here, but in the book he's been MIA for a couple of volumes.

Brienne roams the riverlands searching for Sansa, trying not to name and thus endanger her. Brienne must endure men resentful of a woman knight, including Sam's nasty father Randyll Tarly, who's scouring outlaws from the war-ravaged land. It's a lot easier when it comes to blows, since the towering Brienne can vanquish almost any man she fights.

The book develops, much further than the TV show, the Sand Snakes plotting in Dorne against their crippled and cautious uncle. They want revenge against the Lannisters for their father's death. Cersei's daughter Myrcella is a Martell hostage and a pawn in the game. The focus on TV is the prince's colorfully violent bastard nieces, but here it's on his more conventional daughter Arienne, who plays a high-stakes game using her feminine wiles on Myrcella's bodyguard, Arys Oakheart of Jaime's officially celibate King's Guard.

Back in King's Landing, Cersei surrounds herself with mediocrities after alienating those few good people who might have helped her. She wants to eliminate her young son's bride, Margaery Tyrell, as a rival. She fears the latter aims to depose Cersei through the boy king she increasingly influences.

We don't see Tyrion, Daenarys, Jon, Stannis, the Onion Lord, or Bran (I don't miss him, he bores me, along with his frog-gigging companions), but the story still drew me in.

Westeros is a chaotic mess after years of civil war. Much of it, particularly the central Riverlands, is a smoking, corpse-choked ruin, full of orphans, broken people and bandits. There are rumors of dragons across the sea.
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Not the best installment in the series
by Roger J. Buffington,Top Contributor: Fantasy Books (4 out of 5 stars)
November 16, 2017

This one is not the best in the series. Unfortunately, the author seems to delight in killing off the most memorable characters. Further, in this novel, the author deliberately tries to confuse the reader as to who the characters are. Sansa and Arrya both repeatedly take fake names and suddenly the chapters refer to them that way. Then the author introduces a gaggle of pretty forgettable new characters. All of this serves to make this installment only good, not great (as were the first three).

Make no mistake, this is still a novel worth reading and I am still captured by the whole Game of Thrones saga. But the author could have done much better and that makes this one frustrating. RJB.
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A slight let-down compared to the first three books
by Ken Helms (4 out of 5 stars)
September 7, 2018

This book continues to advance the story, sort of. Not all of the characters from the first three novels are present in this book but Martin assures his readers that the missing ones will appear in the next book which will cover the same time frame as this one. The familiar people we do get to follow in this book often seem to be chasing their tails and do not always advance the plot very much. By the end, Martin leaves us with several cliff-hangers with very little resolved. This book does introduce several new characters some of which may or may not be important or even interesting. It is still a very good book and I would not do so much knit-picking if the first three weren't so much better by comparison.
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Book 4 Disappoints
by Kindle Customer (3 out of 5 stars)
August 15, 2017

Even though I have watched the TV series closely from the very beginning, I still thoroughly enjoyed now reading Books 1, 2, and 3. But I have finally wound down my enthusiasm. Book 4 was just too crowded with nonessential information and characters. Maybe all this information will be necessary in the long run, but I didn't follow it as closely as with the prior books. It was tedious.

But I look forward to the next book anyway, and will order it tonight. So, here's hoping to return to the good action again.

Last night I watched the TV show as usual....nothing has dimmed my interest there. JON SNOW TOUCHED THE DRAGON'S FACE !! So they can do anything or kill anybody off now, I have seen the best part.
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Left unsaid
by Lori (4 out of 5 stars)
July 3, 2018

At first I was like "where is everyone else?" Then I got to the last page and read the authors note about how he broke it up into 2 books since there was so much to cover. If you haven't seen it read this, stop reading. Ok, so This wasn't my favorite book in the series so far. The chapters I was interested in reading were about Cersi, Jaime and Brienne (in that order) and I didn't get excited about Briennes part until the last chapter of her. Now I'm like WTF happened to her?! Anyway, back to Cersi, reading about her made me understand why she is like this. She wants to be treated as an equal so she does ruthless things that she believes men would do in her place. Still a bitch though. Jaime, he certainly changes after having his hand cut off and traveling with Brienne in the last book. I kind of felt bad for him, but I think he needed that to happen in order for him to change. Otherwise he'd still be a dick. I like that there was an underlining show of respect (or affection if you really wanted it that way) with Jaime and Brienne. A part of me wants them together lol The book also talked about Arya and Sansa. It was more about their journey of what they go through to end up where they should be in the next book or so. Exciting, nope, but I guess necessary. I see why a lot of people didn't like this.
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Awesome Universe
by muley (5 out of 5 stars)
December 21, 2017

I did not get involved with the TV show when it first came out, although my entire family was obsessed with it. I like to read the book that movie/TV projects are based on before I see how characters are portrayed, as I like to see the characters and story in my own mind first. OMG...this author is amazing. The word painting is incredible, he is able to transport readers in to his world, and he leaves you desperately wanting more. I still have not seen one single episode, but I have seen far more of this world than any viewer has. Great book.
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Narrator is Misrepresented on the Box - Not Roy Dotrice!
by SPad (3 out of 5 stars)
October 29, 2018

I'm about 1/4 of the way through this volume of GoT and having a very hard time with the narrator's mispronunciation of names and places and his much to be desired voice characterizations. The box alludes to the narrator being Roy Dotrice, who narrated books 1-3, but does not actually state he is THE narrator for "A Feast for Crows". Also the sound quality is muffled and much poorer than books 1-3. After some research I found that someone named John Lee narrated this book originally because Mr. Dotrice was too ill to do it. However apparently Random House had the book re-recorded by Mr. Dotrice at a later date due to fan demand. THE BOOK I RECEIVED FROM AMAZON IS NOT THE ROY DOTRICE VERSION! It's extremely annoying to hear Mr. Lee calling Sansa, "Sansar" and so on with other characters. Still loving the series, but this is really detracting from the story. Buyer beware!
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I'm sorry, it's dull.
by srvlives (3 out of 5 stars)
November 11, 2013

A Song of Ice and Fire is meant to be taken as a seven-part story, I think, though the 6th and 7th parts have yet to be written. Though written independently, it wouldn't make much sense to just pick up A Feast for Crows and read it, without having read A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords. That being said, I'm having a difficult time with this one. GRRM admits that this book was a bitch to write; for me, it's a bitch to read.

In the first three parts, I couldn't wait to get to the next page. I'm not feeling that with this one. Maybe the story has just taken too long to unfold; I don't know. But, while reading it, I find myself drifting off and wondering to myself, "What should I have for dinner tonight." Put another way, I just don't care about the characters. Even when I get to an Arya chapter, I'm less excited than I used to be. When I finished A Storm of Swords, I was eager to start on AFFC, but he didn't really pick up where he'd left off, at least not with all the characters. I won't write in any spoilers here, but some characters are teased on in the final bit of ASOS, and then ignored almost entirely in this one.

GRRM makes a big deal of mentioning his motives for writing stories that aren't predictable, and then sets about as if to break the world's record for unpredictability. It just seems to me that trying so hard to be unpredictable for the sake of originality is not a worthy goal. We all love being surprised, but enough already.

I have enjoyed this series and will continue to read it, because I want the entire story. It seems that two more books are due (after ADWD) and so I'll hang in there and hope A Dance with Dragons is a more entertaining read. My hope is that the popularity and style of the television show will not spoil his books to come, or influence his writing in a way that cheapens it.
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Not sure I want to read the rest of the ...
by Rno79 (1 out of 5 stars)
May 17, 2015

Not sure I want to read the rest of the series after this volume. It is painfully slow and goes nowhere after a promising third volume. Highly disappointing. I regret my purchase on this one, and sadly enough I bought them all in one shot, so I guess I'll have to read Book 5 at some point... Maybe in a couple of years or something. Save your money, and content yourself with the TV series: you won't miss much besides the time spent in front of your flat screen
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Martin Has Run Out Of Gas
by Robert Nuttmann (3 out of 5 stars)
December 17, 2013

I watched the 3 seasons of Game of Thrones on HBO. The end of season 3 is the red wedding and in my opinion that is where the story slows and runs out of gas. I bought the four books that were available six months ago to fill in some of the blanks of bit I missed when I watched the shows and then forgot parts. I flew through the first three volumes and about 200 pages into this book. At that point I realized that this was not a very long novel but a never ending soap opera. A very well written and engaging soap opera, but still a never ending story. These books already run 2 1/2 times as long as "War & Peace". Enough already. This is just turned into a meandering muddle of no real plot development. I suppose if you are aiming for 10 years of HBO shows you don't want to kill off the goose that has laid the golden egg.

About 10 days ago I picked up this book again and finished it. The reading is enjoyable. Martin is a writer to gain your interest. But frankly I waisted my time. I don't think this series will ever be finished. A number of years ago I read the brilliant Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer. The writing was beautiful and the story extremely interesting. It was about 1,300 small type pages and it ended with the words - "to be continued". It never was. And this series will never end either.

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