A Feast for Crows (2005) Book Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. I'm back with another book review. This week I'm taking a look at the 2005 fantasy novel, A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin. I know I've said this in my previous two A Song of Ice and Fire book reviews, but I honestly don't know how much I have to say about this book. Because of this, there may or not be spoilers in this review. So let's get into it.

One detail about the production of the A Song of Ice and Fire series that I would like to take note of is that it took five years following the publication of A Storm of Swords in 2000 for A Feast for Crows to come out. A Game of Thrones was first published in 1996, then two years after that, A Clash of Kings came out, and then in 2000, two years after THAT, A Storm of Swords was published. So why did it take five years for this one to come out?

According to Wikipedia, Martin orginally planned this book to be called A Dance with Dragons and intended it to pick up five years after A Storm of Swords, but changed his mind when he realized that he'd have to rely on flashbacks to fill in the missing events over the course of those five years. Which would take away from the story itself. Then he split it up into two books, A Feast for Crows, and book #5, A Dance with Dragons, with each book focusing on a different geological location. As a result, Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister, and Jon Snow don't appear in this book.

The part I disliked the most was all of the stuff going on in King's Landing with Cersei. It started off fine, but after spending multiple chapters with nobody but her at King's Landing, it began to get tedious. Though, I did enjoy her final chapter, when she had to suffer the consequences of actions of which she's taken since before the beginning of A Game of Thrones. So that was good. Of course, even when I first read this book a few summers ago, I could see it coming a mile away since her uncle, Ser Kevan, had warned her of the turning tide of affairs for the Lannisters at King's Landing following the death of Tywin at the hands of Tyrion in the last book. 

I did enjoy Jaime's chapters quite a bit. Particularly when he was out in the field, dealing with the events at Riverrun, the former home of the Tullys. Events that were mishandled by lesser Lannisters and the Freys. During my last read through of this series, my opinion of Jaime didn't change all that much from when we were first introduced to him in A Game of Thrones to where we leave him in A Dance with Dragons. But this time around, I actually felt for him a little bit when he was dealing with the Freys, the other Lannisters, and Brynden Tully.

The character I enjoyed reading about the most though was Sansa, under the guise of Littlefinger's illegitimate daughter, Alayne Stone, at the Vale. I think it's because she cares for Robert Arryn and the way she does it, with much love and patience, reminded me of the nurse I had at school and at home when I was Robert's age, though Sansa is actually Robert's cousin through their late mothers and my nurse was my nurse, not someone related to me. It still reminded me of my nurse though, and her daughter, who was older than I was. 

Overall, I liked this book more than I did A Storm of Swords even though all of the King's Landing stuff lost its appeal to me by the end of the book. There were still alot of good character stuff in the book. Brienne, Jaime, and Sansa's chapters were my favourite, though I did miss Dany, Tyrion, and Jon. They're back in the next one though.

And that my friends is it for me for the time being. I will be back on Friday for my weekly Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode review. After this week I only have one episode left so not only will I have an episode review for you next week, but I'll also have my full season 2 as well. Oh and I'm also going to finish my reviews of the Star Wars: Dark Forces graphic novella trilogy before I finish A Dance with Dragons, which I've already started reading. So until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care my friends.