Feast For Crows rocks so far!(small spoilers)

[Endur]

A Game of Thrones is AWESOME! I recommend not reading the summaries. Wait until you get A Game of Thrones to read it.

I'll be getting AFfC in the mail sometime next week (damn slow shipping to South America ), and I don't think I'll have tuime to reread the previous books. Any ideas were I can find some good summaries?

Thanx

 

[Harmon]

God I love Arya Stark

No one has ever tried to eat my worm before.

She is one of the truly great characters.

 

[Dagger75]

God I love Arya Stark

No one has ever tried to eat my worm before.

She is one of the truly great characters.

Mine too. Except round these parts everybody hates her. Don't know why.

 

[Furtive Noise]

Whew.. just finished it. Great to get sucked into one of these books again, though keeping track of all the different lords of Riverrun and the Vale gets a little tedious at times. True that its not as strong as the other books in the series but I think it was still great.

I think people may come at the series from a few different angles.. if what you like is rooting for the Starks and seeing how they will survive and ultimately take revenge then this book may not satisfy you all that much. I love the politicking and different factions manouvering so I still got a lot out of this one (though I did miss Tyrion). Glad Cersei wasn't made to be a more sympathetic person, not that that would have been likely... I can understand people getting sick of her chapters but no one else had the view of events in Kings Landing like she did, and to an extent the story is just as much about the Lannisters as the Starks. It was nice to see Sam grow up a bit, didn't think they needed more of him than they showed. I was surprised we didn't get just one more Arya chapter, what kinda crazy blind ninja/assasin training comes next? For me the saddest point in the book (as in tragic, not badly thought out or something) was seeing Dondarrion's band of robin hood like men turn into desperate vigilante types. Anyway.. gonna let it all sink in and hopefully find another book to get half as involved in while the wait starts for the next one.

 

[Theron]

I finished it over the weekend. Definitely the weakest of the series so far, but still head and shoulders above the vast majority of the fantasy field.

Re: the complaints about Cersei's screen time. I knew she was going to be a POV character this time around and I feared that Martin would have me grudgingly caring for her by the end of the book, much as he did with Jaime's first POV book. Looking back, I think he was playing on that expectation with every intention of making us like her even less. He did need to show us how things were falling out in King's Landing, and more importantly, he had to show us that things were going to hell pretty much entirely through Cersei's actions. If he'd done it from without, through the eyes of another party, it wouldn't hold as much impact. If you think about it, we've had three volumes of POV from a tremendous schemer in Tyrion. All along, we've gotten the feeling that Cersei was a conniving rhymes-with-witch, but one also got the idea that she did have a bit of an inkling of how the Game of Thrones was played.

In this volume, we really see that any clout she had was entirely due to family and station. She's the classic case of someone believing their own press and getting destroyed by it. When she started hatching her plans to undo Margaery and kill Jon at the wall in one Rube Goldbergish swoop, I found myself laughing out loud at the sheer incompetence that would dream up such a notion.

In short, I didn't mind her having all that screen time. I'm not sure who else you could have given it to. She's a hateful little beast, but she's readable, and after the way all the competent people vacated King's Landing, who else could he elevate to POV character?

 

[nakia]

I finished the book over the weekend as well and share much of the sentiment already expressed. I also felt that the varrying points of view for the Iron Islands and Dorne were distracting; this was only added to by not naming the chapters after people and using epithets instead. You know, I am not sure we needed all that Iron Island stuff anyway. Just give us the Dragon Horn in a prologue and tell us the reavers are up and down the Mander in some other POV's.

Some more spoilers and questions below:

If Brienne/Pod are Dunk/Egg, does that mean Pod is a Targaryen?
I felt there was a lot more going on in the Brienne chapters than I was aware of, precisely because it felt so meandering and occasionally pointless. I wonder what I missed.

Nice to see Sam grow up a bit, in more ways than one.

Seems like the big mystery has moved to Oldtown. What's going on there? How will that impact Dany and the return of magic and the dragons?

What will happen to Loras?

When will we see the return of Gregor in undead-invincible form? That will be scary. Qyburn creeps me out.

 

[Steel_Wind]

The Major Spoilers and Easter eggs from AFFC are as follows:

Spoiler

• R+L=J : The evidence mounts with a few offhand references to the “wolf bitch” by Cersei.
  
  
• Sandor is alive: The most likely explanation is that Sandor was rescued by a Septon or other brother or the Quiet Isle. Sandor is the grave digger whose face is not all seen but who is described as "bigger even than Brienne". He limps - as Sandor did when Arya abandoned him due to his wound. Above all, "Dog" sniffs at him and licks him.
  
  Lastly, Sandor’s warhorse, Stranger, is clearly described as the horse on the Quiet Isle. The Hound is dead; but Sandor Clegane remains.
  
• The Alchemist who kills Pate in the prologue is described – to a T – as the same face that Jaqen H’Gar assumes when he transforms in front of Arya in a Clash of Kings.
  
  At the end of the novel, Jaqen has now assumed the form of Pate and is in Marwyn’s chambers. What he is up to we do not know.
  
• Read closely and you will see that “Alleras the Sphinx” is androgynous in description. This is for good reason. Alleras spelled backwards reveals “his” true identity as Sarella of Dorne, the Viper’s daughter - the only child of the Viper who was outside of Dorne and could not be found to be locked up.
  
• There is reason to believe that Loras is not as injured as we are lead to believe. The injury to Loras is described to Cersei by Aurane Waters and he is vague on how badly burned Loras may be. Otherwise, Loras took two crossbow bolts, to shoulder and thigh.
  
  Cersei repeats Aurane’s tale to Margaery and Margaery cries. The same night Margaery is told of the injury, Lady Merryweather leaves Cersei’s bedchambers and says she spends it with Margaery to comfort her. What they discuss or what Merryweather tells Margaery / is told by Margaery we do not know.
  
  It is after Loras’ “injury” that we notice Pycelle is spending more time with the little Queen. It is also at about this time that Kevan Lannister vanishes.
  
  Lady Merryweather is also the only person who is privy to Cersei’s plots concerning Margaery. Indeed - she is the source for all of Cersei's suspicions over Margaery's virginity and tells her tales of Renly and the marriage and Pycelle's visits. But the same Merryweather refused to bring her son to foster with Tommen although invited repeatedly to do so. “Someone tells. Someone always tells.”
  
  It is Pycelle’s public confirmation that Margaery has asked for moon tea that prompts Cersei to expose herself by going to the High Septon and leaving her guards behind.
  
  After her arrest:
  
  The Merryweathers vanish. Pycelle takes over the small council, Aurane Waters puts the fleet to sea and Qyburne is deposed. Kevan Lannister is summoned to act as Regent.
  
  Meanwhile, Cersei has placed herself in a position where she is to be put on trial.
  
  In order to have Cersei fall at the trial, her champion must fail. The central point is that Loras – who would succeed against virtually any other champion - as a King’s guard cannot refuse the Queen Mother’s request to act as her champion. But Loras does not have to accept a request that is never made because he is “too injured” to be considered as a champion.
  
  
• There is a theory that the obsidian candles describe as “sharp as razors” and “slender as a sword” may not be candles at all but are the blades of ancient dragonglass swords. It may be that any one could qualify as “Lightbringer” as they burn, give off both heat and light but are not consumed.
  
  
• Another theory that the Horn found by Euron is not a horn of Dragon Control. It is a horn of Fire and is meant to oppose ICE – not control dragons. It may well be the horn meant to bring down the Wall. If so – Mance Rayder’s Horn of Winter (which is reportedly burned by Melisandre in AdwD) was something else entirely and after 8,000 years, critical mistakes are about to be made in confusing the purpose of ancient artifacts.
  

 

[Theron]

Nice summary, Steel_Wind. I'd caught a couple of those, a few others were "Oh yeah, duh," sorts of things and a couple I managed to miss altogether.

 

[stevelabny]

I finally finished it after re-reading the first three (originally read in 2003).
I havent been to the ASOIAF boards yet, but just read ths thread and now I'm gonna throw my opinions in the ring.

Going in, I wasn't as fearful of the split-book as others as I am NOT a fan of Jon Snow at all. (See previous threads about him being 1> stupid 2> evil and 3> the bad guy.)
The main thing I love about the series is the multiple POVs that let you actually see things from all angles and was intrigued by what Cersei might bring to the table.
My favorite characters in the series are the supporting cast. Sandor, Bronn, Asha, Loras, Littlefinger, Varys. Arya was the Stark I was drawn to originally, but I look forward even more to Sansa's transformation.

Coming out of the book, I'm not thrilled.

The book felt like it had way more recapping of the current situation in every chapter than the prior books, especially the first chapter for each, presumably to catch up the people who didn't bother to reread the other books after such a long wait.
Also, I thought there were way too many irrelevant history and heraldry lessons.
While all of the previous flashbacks with Ned and Rhaegar bear relevance to the current story, I felt like many of this books sidetreks did not.

I think the book suffered from being split in half, because the Jaime chapters would wind up to close to either the Cersei or Brienne chapters and all three would wind up repetitive.

But I think I know what I missed most from this book. The humor. Another fun part of the series is that GRRM gets that there is more than one kind of humor. Dolourous Edd, Hodor, Tyrion and Bronn, Shagga son of Dolf and more all provide different types of comic relief to the story. This book was missing ALL of the comic characters.

Now onto slightly more spoilery stuff.

[sblock]

Book 3 left Sandor and Gregor on the brink of death.
They both "die" off-camera in book 4 never being seen again.
Even before I read this thread, I was sure Sandor was alive and Franken-Gregor will rise again but it still came across as lame to give both off-camera deaths.
Throw in the possibility of Davos being dead, the contiinued lack of information on the fate of Theon (Asha offhandedly says he's dead, but doesn't provide any other information) , and then the brink of death endings for Brienne and Loras and its a bit much.
Can we go back to gruesome death scenes?

The absence of Sandor was extremely disappointing to me, made worse by the absence of Bronn. The constant teases to both characters without them actually appearing drove me crazy. Especially since I know that they won't be in the next book either.

I was hoping that either Varys or Jorah Mormont would show up somewhere in the book also, but no such luck. Now the pieces are truly scattered all over the board.

The revelation that Cersei was completely and utterly clueless was sort of an unexpected non-twist, but it felt like Catelyn and Eddard revisited. I do so prefer a character with brains.
Giving the morons too much page time is a real downer.

Brienne is a classic example of secondary character who should NOT be a focal point. She quickly proved to be disinteresting. Sticking her with Podrick and having her walk around in circles for a book (didn't Arya already do that?) didn't help matters any.

The Dorne chapters were interesting because Dorne has been such an enigma so far, and the Sand Snakes are almost as cool as the Red Vyper, but again, overall, not much happened.

The Iron Isles chapters suffered from shortage of Asha-attention, and not enough forward movement.

The Sam chapters were all one long boat-trip. fine, two boat trips.

Not much happened overall, which made the passage of time, or lack thereof, in this book a real problem for me. Since AFFC and its other half were supposed to cover the "5 year jump" , it really worries me that barely a year passes. While Arya and Sansa are both learning, I feel they didn't progress nearly as far as I wanted them too. While Cersei got herself into a whole bunch of trouble, I really felt like that should have been part of the "plot" of the book and not the cliffhanger. And the Citadel prologue and epilogue was a totally pointless tease. (Although I missed the Sarella / Alleras thing, and I almost always catch that trick)

My hope for the future remains simple. Any ending other than Jon and Dany live happily ever after. I want to see Stark vs Stark even more than Lannister vs Lannister (but not quite as much as Clegane vs Clegane)

[/sblock]

 

[Eosin the Red]

I finished it .... It delivered to my expectations of depresion, in a good way.

Katelyn sucks and needs to die...again.
Littlefinger is such a bad, bad man.
Little Robert just needs to be strangled.

Poor Davos.

I smell a great big ole fishy story round Merryweather, Loras, Longwater, Kevan, Pycrelle, and maybe a few others. I wonder if Jaime is involved? Speaking of Jamie ~ he is fated to kill Cersei.... I wonder what she will do and how he will get to her? IRC he is younger than Cersie by minutes.

Arya... our little girl has gone and all growed up. Kinda ugly.

Sandor... Hope he has found some peace. Was it being left for death by a 10 year old she-wolf who refused to even grant him mercy that prompted him to find faith?

I am itching for all the cliff hangers lift in this book... Sam, Breinne, Cersei, Loras, and the mysteries of Old Town. The next book promises to be more filling for me (I like "those" characters better) but I can't see how he can wrap up the story in four more books. Not that I mind a long series but having them 5 years apart doth suckith.

I tried to figure out the riddle of the Sphinx but couldn't get it. I knew it was there but not how to solve it, too many characters bubbling in my head.

I give this one a 4.25 out of 5.0.... The last book got 4.90 and at least a solid portion of that was based of the horror of the Red Wedding. I am glad GRRM didn't live close to my house, I might have done something rash-er than throw the book into the backyard.