The Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin continues in the fourth novel in the series; A Feast for Crows. The tale of the struggle for the Seven Kingdoms and beyond continues, and old faces and new are abundant as the politics of the realm continue. Like the other books, A Feast for Crows continues to confound and surprise readers with plenty of twists and turns, and old favorites seem to return from the dead while others fall from their untouchable grace. From a fantasy standpoint, the book is lives up to it’s predecessors. However, I think it is safe to note a few disappointments I had with the book.
Both my complaints have to do with the contents of the book. When Martin first started working on this volume, he had intended it to be like all the others, where each chapter told the story of a particular character, regardless of where he was in the world. As he continued to write, he realized that the book was going to be too long, so he decided to make it into two different books: A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. The problem I had was that, rather than continue to tell everyone’s story over the course of two books, he chose to split the characters up between the two books. That being said, as you read A Feast for Crows, you will not be hearing anything of the events taking place on the Wall (where John Snow and Stannis are), what Tyrion is up to, and, the part of the story I missed the most in this book, the events surrounding Dany and her dragons, as well as some other characters. I would have much preferred that he contained all the characters in A Feast for Crows and then continued all their stories into A Dance with Dragons, simply because I find myself missing these characters. Also, that being said, it will be important to remember that when reading A Dance with Dragons that it takes place at the same time as A Feast for Crows, so I’m sure there will be some overlapping.
My other biggest complaint, being a fan of the series, is the absence of A Dance with Dragons. At the end of A Feast for Crows, Martin has a brief note to the reader where he explains his decision to split the book into two separate books, and states that A Dance with Dragons will be complete within the year. That was written in 2005, and as of 2010, there has been so sign of A Dance with Dragons. Don’t get me wrong…I love his work, and if he really requires all this time to get it done right, then I can live with that. I just hate having to wait this long to read the next installment of the series. It reminds me of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, where there was a huge gap of time between books four and five. However, in the end he popped out books five through seven really fast and ended the series pretty quickly. I’m hoping Martin does the same thing, and is in the midst of not only working on book five, but books six and seven as well.
