Product Description

The fourth volume in the hugely popular and highly acclaimed epic fantasy. There is passion here, and misery and charm, grandeur and squalor, tragedy, nobility and courage. Bloodthirsty, treacherous and cunning, the Lannisters are in power on the Iron Throne in the name of the boy-king Tommen. But fear and deceit are in the air: their enemies are poised to strike. The Martells of Dorne seek vengeance for their dead, and the heir of King Balon of the Iron Isles, Euron Crow's Eye, is as black a pirate as ever raised a sail. Across the war-torn landscape of the Seven Kingdoms, Brienne the Beauty (thus named in mockery of her great size and strength) seeks for Sansa Stark, having vowed to protect Sansa from the wrath of Queen Cersei, Tommen's power-hungry mother. Meanwhile apprentice Maester Samwell Tarly brings a mysterious babe in arms south to the Citadel from the cruel frozen north where the sinister Others threaten the Wall! 'A Feast for Crows' brings to life dark magic, complex political intrigue and horrific bloodshed. Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, victory may go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel!and the coldest hearts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3954 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 976 pages

Review
'Fantasy literature has never shied away from grandeur, but the sheer mind-boggling scope of this epic has sent other fantasy writers away shaking their heads!' Its ambition: to construct the Twelve Caesars of fantasy fiction, with characters so venomous they could eat the Borgias.' Guardian 'In the grand epic fantasy tradition, Martin is by far the best!tense, surging, insomnia-inflicting.' Time Magazine 'Truly epic!with its magnificent action-filled climax, it provides a banquet for fantasy lovers with large appetites.' Publishers Weekly 'I always expect the best from George R.R. Martin and he always delivers. A Game of Thrones grabs hold and won't let go. It's brilliant.' Robert Jordan 'George R.R. Martin is one of our very best writers, and this is one of his very best books.' Raymond E. Feist 'Colossal, staggering ! Martin captures all the intoxicating complexity of the Wars of the Roses or Imperial Rome in his imaginary world ! The writing is always powerful.' SFX 'Such a splendid tale. I read my eyes out -- I couldn't stop till I'd finished and it was dawn' Anne McCaffrey 'A Game of Thrones offers the rich tapestry that the very best fantasy demands: iron and steel within the silk, grandeur within the wonder, and charactrs torn between deep love and loyalty. Few created worlds are as imaginative and diverse.' Janny Wurts 'George Martin is assuredly a new master craftsman in the guild of heroic fantasy.' Katharine Kerr

About the Author
George R.R. Martin is the author of nine novels, several collections of short stories and numerous screenplays for television drama and feature films. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Customer Reviews

A big wobble (possible spoilers)
First, let me say that I will be sticking with the series and I have not written off forthcoming instalments based on my opinion of this book.

A Feast for Crows is an extremely frustrating book. Martin has taken the very dubious step of ditching half of the characters and leaving their stories for A Dance With Dragons. This results in a constant, nagging feeling that you really are missing out on half of the plot and that the story would benefit enormously from the perspectives of those characters that have been put on the back burner.

The plot is supposed to be charting the mess left after the various conflicts of the previous books but instead is itself just a tangled mess as the author, trapped in his character per chapter format, is forced to chop backwards and forwards too often between a silly number of threads and in doing so loses the overall continuity of the story.

Sadly, there is the real possibility that Martin has overreached himself and is struggling badly to stay on top of the various sub-plots he has created. I really hope that he quickly consolidates the multitudinous threads in the next book so that the climax has the time to play out properly in the final two volumes. It does not bode well that Martin admits that the writing for A Dance With Dragons is not proceeding quite as he had hoped!

One more thing to get off my chest - I am becoming extremely weary of Martin's love of inflicting cruelty on his key characters. Occasionally it is good for the story (Jaime's hand for instance) but the rest of the time is pretty pointless. Still, it seems Martin will not be happy unless he has killed or horribly maimed all his characters by the conclusion of the series.

Overall this book puts me in mind of a car stuck in a muddy field, frantically spinning it's wheels and beeping it's horn but not actually getting anywhere. I can only hope that Martin rediscovers some of the direction that made the first few books of the series enjoyable.

Worth the Wait?
I have been waiting a long time to read this book and can't help but be a little disappointed because for the most part it ties up the loose ends left at the end of the 3rd book, and even that for only half the characters.

It remains a well written book and when there is some plot advancement it is very good indeed. But it is a flabby book. Virtually all of the chapters on Sansa and Sam could have been cut from the book, with little loss. The new chapters on Dorne and the Ironborn increase our knowledge in regard to these two peoples. But I worry that he is falling into Jordan's trap of having too many minor characters.

I am looking forward to the next book, which is really the second half of this book. But I hope that after that we will not have to wait 5 years for a book that advances the plot so little.

Jordanitis
I am one of the patient few who have managed to wade through Robert Jordan's bloated bank raids in the hope that he might finally be able to tie things up before either he or I die of old age. Imagine my delight then at the irreverence and breakneck speed of the horrendously titled 'Song of Ice and Fire' series. So much fun, such a visceral imagination and so like early Wheel of Time that it was impossible to resist.

In fact the similarities between the two are uncanny: breathtaking premise; check, beautifully imagined characters, social structure and landscape; check, increase in tempo and ambition in early sequels; check, grind to standstill after critcal acclaim followed by lazy and ponderous sequels; check.

This 700 page whopper (not for this genre maybe) furthers the plot line of only half of the characters about as much as three chapters of the previous books: how many times and in how many ways do we need to know that Cercei is a bitch, Jaime misunderstood, Tywin ruthless, Arya a bit of a scamp, Sansa a pretty princess and Brienne an ugly oaf with a heart of gold? I'm getting a bit old to read these books in public so I hope the next one rewards me for my bravery with a little less padding and lot more content!

Having said that, the man's a top storymaker and the book is surprisingly well written. Fans of the series will enjoy it but newcomers beware...