Book Review: A Song of Ice and Fire book 4: A Feast for Crows

"History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again".


A Feast For Crows, is the 4th book in A Song of Ice and Fire series. Comparing to the previous installment (A Storm of Swords), book 4 is a bit shorter, counting to 780 pages. However, this book also received some negative reviews from fans. Some readers complained the pace of the story is too slow, some complained there aren't enough story progression in this book. While some readers complained about the absence of major POV characters from the previous books. But is it really that bad? Let's find out.

Synopsis:

The story for A Feast for Crows, follows the story from the previous installment of the series. The plots in this book mainly focuses on King's Landing, after the war of the five kings has ended. The Stark family has been wiped out, but the realm suffers from the effects of these wars. And in this book, Martin has decided to tell his story based on a handful of previously unexplored characters, while introducing a few very interesting, new POV characters into the mix.



The story tells the aftermath of the war. Following Joffery and Tywin's deaths, Queen Cersei mourns

for her son and her father. Her second son, the 9 years old prince Tommen inherits the Iron Throne and became the new King, and is married to Margaery Tyrell, the daughter of House Lannister's biggest opponent. The boy king is very fond of his queen, but Cersei has fears that House of Tyrell is secretly plotting against them. In the meantime, Cersei and her brother Jaime's relationship began to crack apart. As a result, Cersei became more and more paranoid. Cunning but short sighted and vile in nature, Queen Cersei attempts to remove her opponents to stablise King Tommen's position on the Iron Throne at all costs.

In the meantime, Jaime Lannister has somewhat changed after his ordeal during the war. After loosing his sword hand, Jaime lost his identity as a knight because he lost his ability to wield a sword. He started to think about the past, and became a much changed man, recalling the honor he had lost as a knight of the Kingsguard.

This book also focuses a lot on Brienne of Tarth. An honorable warrior maiden with a manly and unattractive physical appearance. Brienne has been mocked all of her life for being bigger and stronger than most men, especially after she decided to pursue a career as a knight. After escorting Jaime Lannister back to King's Landing, it turned out Sansa Stark is missing. Jaime gave Brienne a treasure sword, and equipment, then set her out on a quest to find Sansa Starks and protect her, to fulfill his vow to Catelyn Tully. Charged with this noble quest, Brienne travelled across the realm on a quest to find Sansa Starks. Her quest took her to different places, witnessing different aspects of life and the devastation caused by the war.

A Feast For Crows, also introduces a few new POV characters. The most interesting one is Victarion Greyjoy, the brother to King Balon of house Greyjoy. Victarian is the lord captain of the Iron Fleet, and devout religious man.  He is a fierce, axe wielding warrior and seasoned battle commander. He often wears a full plate armor and donnes a war helmet shaped like a kraken. Following his brother's death, Victarion Grejoy contested for the position as the Iron King against his evil brother, Euron Grejoy, and his niece, Asha Greyjoy. The end of Victarion's story suggests he has a key role to play in future books.


What I think about the book:

A Feast for Crows is a little bit different to previous books. Jon Snow, Daenery, and Tyrion did not

appear in this book. Martin's explanation for this, is the original book 4 is too big to be published in one volume. So he decided to publish first half of book 4 in 2005, and the second half of book 4 as a part of book 5. I did enjoy this installment, I like these new POV characters such as Victarion, and Arianne Martell. I also appreciated those chapters where we get to know about Brienne. However, I do feel like in this installment, the story progression doesn't have a set destination. What I mean is, the story didn't progress much. Comparing to A Storm of Swords, the pace of this installment is rather slow, and it feels like this 780 page book could have benefited by cutting it down to 650 pages. However, this is not saying it is a bad book. It is just not the same as the previous books, and it is still very good but it surely could have been improved if Martin had pushed the story to develop a bit faster.

In this book, the story explores the devastation of wars. Through the view point of Brienne of Tarth, who traveled across the realm in search of Sansa Stark. We are taken on a journey, alongside Brienne to see the effects of war on every day people in Westeros. Another interesting aspect is, the series is beginning to explore religious fundamentalism and politics. Personally, I cannot wait to see how the story will unfold under the current patheos.

At the end of the day, I like A Feast for Crows, while it suffers from "middle book syndrome", it is still a good book and an enjoyable read. George R.R Martin is a skilled author, under his pen, he created one of the most vivid fantasy worlds, filled with interesting characters, to tell a grand fantasy story encompassed with realism. In this fiction world, the characters wrestle with the same struggles as we do, and make good and bad decisions as we do. I cannot wait to see what's in store for the next installment.