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A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4)
by George R. R. Martin
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Bantam (2005-11-08)
ISBN: 0553801503
EAN: 9780553801507
Dewey Decimal #: 813.54
Binding/Media: Hardcover - 784 pages
Edition: 1st American Edition
Release Date: 2005-11-08
SKU: 5200
Condition: Like New
Comments: THE HARDBACK BOOK WITH A BEAUTIFUL DUST JACKET. EARLY PRINT. IN PERFECT CONDITION. SHIPS RAPIDLY. AIR MAIL WILL BE USED FOR AN OVERSEAS DESTINATION.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
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.
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Customer Reviews
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the magic is gone
Rating  (1)
Date: 2010-09-02
This book definitely was not worth the wait. I wish he would just hire Brandon Sanderson to finish the series.
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A bad dance that never ends!
Rating (1)
Date: 2010-08-30
I'm sure you read many reviews so I will get to the point. All the good characters are taken out and the boring ones dominate this book. The only reason I finished it was because of the last 3 novels. I guess Martin has made enough money to retire on and has given up on creating anything interesting at all. I will say that Jaime has come a long way and holds the potential of becoming a great character that will stand the test of time. Besides that, if this can sell, then I should hurry up and start writing myself. Why must Martin go on forever and not really take me anywhere? If I wanted politics I can pick up a newspaper or tabloid. I read fantasy to escape the everyday dredges of life not to read more about it. If you really have to make everything dark and sinister with no real sense of justice, at least make it interesting. I for one, am seriously considering moving on to something else, (yes, even after 4000 pages of nonstop politics.) The only thing Martin has to his credit is his remarkable writing skill, but sadly nothing else.
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Not what I expected in the 4th installment of the series
Rating  (2)
Date: 2010-08-10
A friend highly recommended this series to me when I told him that I used to read sci-fi/fantasy many years ago but had not read any recently. I thoroughly enjoyed the books as I read and I began an abiding interest in the characters. Martin's writing struck me as very developed, rich and descriptive -- so much so that I felt immersed in this new world. I read all the books back to back and was excited to start A Feast for Crows, while being sorry that it was the last published book.
Very soon after starting it, it became apparent to me that this book was different, almost as if there were two writers or one with two different visions. What before had been depth and richness became too much detail and tedium. What before had been descriptions of the horrors of war and conquest became scenes of incredibly detailed torture, mutilation, rape and the slaughter of innocents (SPOILER ALERT: Throwing small boys in a bear pit and taking bets on which one the bear would eat first. Are you kidding me?) Previous scenes of love and affection degenerated into soft porn. I was utterly sick of reading the "C" word over and over again uttered by everyone from hardened warriors to children. Characters that before had depth were now fairly one-dimensional.
It does not take increased amounts of vulgarity, titillation and depravity to keep me interested in a book or series if the writing and story are good. I think this story is great and I would like to see it to its end, but I am hoping that the next installment advances the story with quality writing.
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Read this for what it's worth
Rating  (4)
Date: 2010-07-31
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This certainly isn't my favorite book of the series so far but given the review's I feel like I need to step up the defense of A Feast for Crows.(There's a few spoilers here)
Like some other readers, I was impatient on my first reading, feeling like the plot had slowed down and that I wished I could know what was happening in the north. But to read this book just for the plot (and the plot is great, as always) is to miss Martin taking the depth of his work to a new level. It forces one to view characters not just from whether we like their personality or whether or not they are personally honorable, but through the lens of the consequences of their actions on other people, unnoticed people as well as the famous.
Viewed through this lens, Varys can be viewed as the heroic ideal of ASOIAF. The Whisperer does not appear in Feast, but his ethos is fully echoed in Meribald's speech. Varys has no personal ambition; he has no lusts; he cares not whether he is liked or hated. Like Meribald, he has learned to shed his ego for a larger purpose. He is viewed with contempt and mistrust by those he serves. Once he is asked what his goals are, and he answers with a single word: peace. He strives to prevent what has happened in Feast, and his failure does not make him less heroic. He tries and fails to save Ned Stark's life, not for one man, but because he knows Ned's death means war and death across Westeros. Unlike Littlefinger who schemes for power, Varys schemes for peace. He is common born, mistreated, castrated, and he is one of the few in a position of power in ASOIAF who thinks of the impact "The Game of Thrones" has on the common man.
Coming back to Meribald's speech, it's worth noting where it occurs in both place and time. It comes halfway through the fourth book of a seven book series; it is halfway through Feast, and halfway through the whole series. It is a moment of calm. It comes after Brienne's fight with Shagwell and friends, Tarly's hanging of outlaws, and before Saltpans, the row of hanged outlaws, and Brienne's terrible encounter with Rorge and Biter. It comes as they walk through a peaceful, open land of water and marshes and simple folk, less than a day from the horrors of war. It is a call to peace and calm amidst the ravages of war. And it gives Brienne's quest a deeper meaning. Her quest to find Sansa or Arya and fulfill her promise to Catelyn can also now be seen as a quest to defend those unable to defend themselves, to be the 'true knight' that men will never see her as because of her sex. Brienne's quest is a quest of the mundane - it could occur in a world without magic or the fantastic.
I simplify of course, as there are countless other questers in the series. But I don't think it's too much at all to say this speech is the Heart and Soul of Feast; the reminder of the consequences of violence. If you doubt that this is what this is about, look at the character that one could say begins and ends this book: Catelyn. Her unexpected arrival in the epilogue of Storm shows her as something no longer fully human: she has become vengeance personified, like the Greek furies. In the epilogue and through much of Feast we are happy thinking of her - we take a grim delight in her hanging Freys and other scum wherever she finds them. But at the end, in hanging Pod and Brienne she seems cruelly unfair, whether or not they survive. Brienne has given so much to fulfill her word to Catelyn, and to be treated so seems unjust in the extreme. But Catelyn is neither fair nor unfair, she is simply vengeance - a demander of blood for what has been done to her and her own. We like it when the Freys bleed, Brienne not at all.
Thoros' speech near the end of Feast where he acknowledges how war has warped their band of 'honorable' bandits is a perfect echo of Meribald's speech. The best intentions of Dondarrion, who gave everything to uphold the rule of Robert, has ended through the process of war in a band of cutthroats who are almost as bad as those they hunt. Here, as in King's Landing with the new High Septon, the smallfolk are having their revenge, but with Martin, all violence brings an enormous price.
And with these ruminations ended, I, like so many others, can't wait for Dance and am thrilled beyond measure to read that GRRM is close to finishing A Dance with Dragons. For Feast is the pause and the reflection at the center of the series, and with Dance comes the plot roaring onwards downhill with full force, I suspect.
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A Song of Ice and Wild Cards
Rating (2)
Date: 2010-07-20
2 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
In this installment of the series I feel that GRRM has either gotten lost or he has decided to take the series in a new direction.
Part of my interest in the Song of Ice and Fire has been reading the divergent storylines and the tension of their inevitable clash. Feast takes a step back and focuses (or should I say unfocuses) on the storylines themselves. More and more, it seems that GRRM has abandoned his original vision of the series. The cohesiveness of the story has wandered dangerously and I worry that A Song of Ice and Fire will degrade into "Wild Cards: Westeros edition."
For those unfamiliar with Wild Cards, its a series of stories written in collaboration by a writers under GRRM's direction. Rather than being a single story, WC is a mish mash of short stories set in the same post apocalyptic setting. Sometimes the characters converge, ofttimes they don't. Their is no master story arc, no common resolution.
The writing in Feast is still good, but the epic feel of the first three novels has given way. Feast feels more like a collection of serial novellas. The book has its shining moments, but those moments seem to get their spark from the stored energy of the prior novels. Ultimately, Feast is a disappointment. I've re-read the first three novels, but I haven't opened Feast since I first slogged through it. I'll read a summary of Feast prior to reading Dance, but I'll never reread it.
To my friends to whom I've recommended the series, I advise that they skip Feast altogether. There are several online summaries that capture all the plot points (mostly minor sub-plots anyway). Hopefully GRRM will regain his focus in Dance. If he doesn't, I will declare A Song of Ice and Fire a great fantasy trilogy and ignore subsequent afterbirths.
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