I can't say enough about this series. This book mainly follows the characters at Highgarden and King's Landing.

Love seeing Cersei getting her just dues!

The thing that astonishes me, continually, is the fans who cannot see it and, in some cases, cannot even perceive that the quality has fallen off disastrously as he got mired in unimportant sub-plots. He reminds me of a story told by one my bosses I used to have a long time ago. This guy was head director. When I started working in that department I found none of the rest of the staff would speak to him because they had decided he was completely incompetent. He wasn't. He was good at certain things but not all the things he had to do (such as managing people) as head director. Work piled up and up and his desk was a vast pile of papers which stuff disappeared into.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

I usually mostly read a chapter or two when I go to donate plasma, twice a week so it can take me awhile to get through books. This one has been going faster, however, and I'm very happy about that.

I'm not at all liking this one. If your familiar with Song of Ice and Fire (better known as Game of Thrones), you're aware that there are quite a few plot lines being developed and played out side by side in each book. In A Feast For Crows this becomes annoying as many of them have been deliberately left out of the book. Most of my favorites in fact. We briefly get a Sam chapter on the wall near the beginning, which is eventually followed by another Sam chapter (not on the wall). Arya gets similar treatment along with Sansa. Tyrion, Daenerys, and Davos appear to be completely absent so far, with the bulk of the chapters going to Cersei, Jaime and Brienne. The Ironborn plotline also significantly expands adding new characters, but little interest so far. An even more boring plotline focusing on events in Dorne is also introduced.

I think this one is going fast, because I just want to get through it and get back to the stuff I like in the next book.

My simultaneous re-read of A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons took longer than I expected, mostly because my reading plan during my vacation got blasted thanks to the state of Tennessee sending my tag and drivers license renewal letters one day apart meaning I received them a day apart which going to the same location two consecutive mornings.  Oh well, I eventually got time to read after making up time I wanted to write my practice novel which still didn't get as far as I wanted.

However I've started my next book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and am already 55% through after two days of reading.  By the end of September I'll have Patriarchs and Prophets finished as well so I should be close to finishing my challenge of 40 books but not close to the 40 I have listed below.  Oh well...

The War of the Five Kings is all but over with only a few holdouts remaining in the realm, however as Westeros attempts to recover enough before winter hits it appears that more carrion will be on the menu of A Feast for Crows.  The fourth installment of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series shows the ugly aftermath of war which other fantasy epics seemingly ignore after the triumphant conclusion, but as the middle of Martin’s series begins it shows that politics and opportunists use any situation for their advantage.

Unlike the first three volumes of the series, Martin divided narrative settings in half with some point-of-view characters appearing in Feast while some had to wait until the fifth volume (A Dance with Dragons).  With the focus on the events in southern Westeros, primarily King’s Landing and the Riverlands, the story feels more intimate than grand as the previous volumes did.  The fallout of Tywin’s death is felt in King’s Landing the most when Cersei takes control and attempts to outshine her father in governance, yet it caught up getting entrapped within her own web of intrigues.  Jaime’s story shows a man looking to redeem himself while taking advantage of his dishonorable reputation in wrapping up the war in the Riverlands.  Along with the Lannister siblings, readers followed Arya to Braavos where she happened to interact with a traveling Samwell Tarly headed for Oldtown who on his journey sailed around a conspiracy filled Dorne and saw the effects of events among the Ironborn.  Within the untouched Vale finds Sansa Stark under a false name watching as Littlefinger schemes to retain power and set up events for the future.  Yet Martin’s best writing is following Brienne of Tarth’s quest to find Sansa in the war ravaged hinterland, showing off the results of war upon the land and the populace which is often avoided in other epic fantasy.

While many fans have found the division of the narrative upsetting and following Brienne’s journey annoying, some didn’t realize how much set up Martin was writing for events in the last 40% of A Dance with Dragons as well as the last two books of the series.  In the chaos of war’s aftermath just like in battle, anyone can take power and some who thought themselves natural wielders of power are outplayed in the game of thrones.  The events in Dorne and the Iron Islands change the completion of the entire series, making it more epic in scale when seen in context of the whole story.  One of Martin’s best decisions was to both begin and end in Oldtown with characters introduced in the prologue appearing again at the end from the point-of-view of a favorite character in a sense connecting the whole book together.

A Feast for Crows shows the aftermath of war as well as showing that schemes for power never end, especially as a realm tries to put itself together after it was shattered by war.  While not as “epic” as the first three volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire, this book is still a fantastic read on why the game never ends.