Book Review: A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin

This book is, in short, a disappointment. It's the fourth in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series (one that I loved up until this point) and is, by far, the slowest moving and least interesting.

Many characters we grew familiar with in the first three books - "A Game of Thrones," "A Clash of Kings" and "A Storm of Swords" - are now dead, including Balon Greyjoy, Robb Stark, Joffrey Baratheon and Renly Baratheon. Tyrion Lannister, the Imp, has fled Westros, and his wife, Sansa Stark, is in hiding with the help of Petyr Baelish of Eyrie. Cersei Lannister, who is now the real power behind the throne, sends her lackeys out to scour the land in search of Tyrion, a mission that ends in failure.

Brienne of Tarth (who some readers now deride as "Brienne the Bore" because of the lack of action in this book) sets out on a quest of her own - to find Sansa Stark and bring her back to Winterfell. Sansa's sister Arya, meanwhile, has escaped to the free city of Braavos where she finds employment in a temple of darkness.

I'm a big fan of George R.R. Martin. I've been reading his fiction eagerly ever since he published "Sandkings," a short story I highly recommend. When I found out he was writing fantasy, I was ecstatic, as I saw it as a sorely needed injection of quality to a field filled with so much garbage.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first three books in the series. It's fantasy writing at its best: realistic characters, compelling plot lines and a fictional world that is so rich and detailed that it completely draws the reader in.

Martin stumbled when he wrote "A Feast for Crows," however. He's a wonderful word smith and his prose is still lovely, poetic even. But he sacrificed the story to excessive character development in this novel.

Whereas the first book in the series ("A Game of Thrones") was relatively fast-paced, "A Feast for Crows" plods along like a crippled hunchback. I blame this on the way the series is written. The first book begins with one point of view (POV), which opens up to more and more, until you have several by the end of the novel. The number of POVs increases further book by book (despite the fact that he kills off a number of characters), until there are more than ten by the time you get to "A Feast For Crows."

This wouldn't be altogether bad if these were all characters you already knew, but he introduces several new ones - Aeron Damphair Greyjoy, Pate, Areo Hotah, Asha Greyjoy, Arys Oakheart, Arianne Martell, and Victarion Greyjoy - and he has to explain who they are, their history, what their motivations are, etc. This, on top of the backstory he has to write for characters we already know, filling us in on what they've been up to since the previous novel. Thus there's lots of blabbing, many asides, lengthy pondering, endless digressions and very little action.

What irritates me the most, though, is that the character I like best, Tyrion (the disfigured dwarf), doesn't even appear in "A Feast for Crows."