Before blogging about this book, I would like to ask one very important question:
"What do you call the guy who graduated with the lowest grades in med school?"
"...Doctor."
Why does this relate to my post about the 4th installment of George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" high fantasy epic? Unfortunately, the reason is that "A Feast for Crows" was my least favorite of all the Martin books thus far. While to some, this may seem discouraging, the fact is that Martin's worst is still better than most people's best. When I told people how I was liking it, I would always say that I didn't like it "as much," not that I didn't like it at all...just not as much as the other books that have all made my top 10 books I've read this year.
The story still follows many of the trends that Martin has followed in the past few books. Although the previous war that has kept the realm in turmoil for the past three books is all but over, the land enjoys a "peace" for less than a few seconds before a new conflict arises. Once again alliances are formed and broken as a reader is transported to the wondrous continent of Westeros.
The problem with this book is the way Martin wrote it. When writing his 4th book, he realized that it would be huge, and although the logical point would have been to break it up into two books at some inadequate-but-better-than-most-places stopping point. Martin made the decision to tell all of the story for half of the characters instead of half of the story for all of the characters. Because of this decision, the storylines deal almost exclusively with what is going on in three locations: King's Landing (the capital of Westeros), Dorne (their tenuous ally), and the Iron Islands (home of the rebellious pirates the Ironmen). The unfortunate thing about this is that the characters in these locations mostly suck. The Lannisters, a family who has obviously been painted the villains up to this point, become the main characters of the story, and unfortunately this just ends up making you hate them even more, which would be alright if not for the fact that Martin is clearly trying to make you feel a little sympathetic for them. I'm all for a little bit of ambiguity, but COME ON, these guys have been dicks for three whole books and suddenly you want to give us a few reasons why their actions are justified (and weak reasons at that)?
The one thing that this book does well is give slight hints at the actions that will be occurring in the 5th (and most recent) book "A Dance With Dragons," which I am reading now. The characters you grow to miss in "Feast for Crows" are all back. Also, at the end of this book, Martin breaks the 4th wall and explains his storytelling decision to his readers. This is the point where I marked Martin as a truly great storyteller. This passage, however unnecessary it may have been considering that he could have said the same thing in a press release, makes you feel like you're listening to the story in a tavern around a campfire with a mug in your hand and a smile on your face. Martin shows you that even though he isn't a character in his story, his writing makes him into a wise old narrator that you could just picture telling the story. Don't take my word for it, though...enjoy this one for yourself (even if you enjoy it less than the others like I did).
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