"WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO US ROY???"
I enjoyed the first three books so much, I couldn't wait to get my hands on the fourth one. Sadly, it was a major disappointment.
I'm not sure what happened with Roy Dotrice but he ruined the previous main characters. the voices were off, he couldn't get the names right. All a sudden Kat-leen turns into Kate-len, Sansa turns into San-cer, Brienne turns into Bri-yan and so on... At one point Cercei's character sounded like Grand Maester Pycelle and then she sounded like Joffrey. It's all so confusing. He even got Arya to sound like Sameul Tarley.
I read the reviews for the fifth book, and from what I've seen I don't think I will be wasting two of my credits on the next one. It's such a shame because the first three books were superb.
Thanks for nothing Roy!
"Roy, your killing me"
I guess Roy Dotrice must have just completely forgotten how he pronounced half of the characters names in the last three books he read, it's seriously driving me crazy, He's pronouncing Catelyn: Katelyn, Brienne: Bernie, Petyr: Peter, and a whole slew of other inconsistent pronunciations. I literally cringe at every mispronunciation. But besides that the book is fine, I'm only a few hours in but i couldn't take the rampant mispronunciation anymore. I guess all we can do is stick it out and hope Dotrice remembers how to pronounce the names in the remaining books.
"Depressing!"
This story really lags in places and introduces a TON of new characters while completely igoring some of the most interesting characters from the previous books. The author crushes all hope whenever possible and gives the reader nothing, and no one, to cling to. I find myself having no reason to continue to follow the plot. Expect all respectable characters to die a brutal death and all evil or deeply flawed characters to succeed, if only for a short time. All of the characters are severely injured whether it be physical pain or emotional pain, no one is safe! This book is filled with pain, sadness, injustice and detailed descriptions of each.
Martin could allow a decent character to achieve a goal once in a while. Readers like to relate to the characters and he brutalizes every one of them which makes the reader feel brutalized, hopeless and ultimately DEPRESSED!
I enjoyed several characters until Martin savaged them and then killed them off. He really knows how to detach his audience...brutalize or murder their favorite characters. It's easy to let go of the plot when that happens.
This book inspired me to search for a different author.
"What Happened?"
When the third book ended everyone who had been anywhere near the wall made it clear that almost nothing else mattered. So how much of this book takes place anywhere near the wall? Almost none.
Once he sends off Sam and Aemon, John Snow isn't heard of for the rest of the book. Tyrian Lanaster isn't heard from at all. Nor are Stanis or Davos or the red woman. Sansa Stark is slightly less of an airhead, but just as boring. A large part of the book takes place in Dorn, and while some of the new characters are slightly interesting, it's mostly irrelevant. But the biggest problem is Circe Lanaster. About a third of the the book follows her and she spends all of it being a whiny self centered bitch, and worst of all not being very interesting when she does it.
Jamie does some personal development stuff I won't ruin, Aria does some interesting stuff I won't ruin, Brienne wanders around completely failing to do anything useful, Sam goes sailing, and everybody else plays politics (boringly). That's it. That's the entire plot. That took 31 hours. The last 2 hours had some other interesting stuff happen, but it's not enough to redeem the rest of it.
And to top it off Roy Dotrice has completely forgotten how he pronounced anything in the first 3 books. The accents are worse if anything, and good luck telling any of the Dornish apart.
Seriously, what happened? I genuinely want to know. With a decent editor you could get this down to 5 hours without losing anything interesting.
"Production was terrible and is distracting"
The audible quality is poor compared to the first three books of the series (which I loved). Even though this is read by the same narrator, it sounds like a different person due to the audio quality. The Narrator seems to have forgotten what voices he used for the first 3 books, all in all very frustrating, especially considering that the Price is more for this book than the previous 3 and the book is shorter.
The book itself starts you off a lot of side stories (Greyjoys and the Dutch) when I was very eager to get movement on the storyline from the 3rd book (which I will have to wait until the 5th book to get movement on some of it with the way the Author broke out the stories).
I really liked the first 3 books of the series that were read by Roy Dotrice but he seemed to drop the ball on this one, but not as much as the Producers who I feel should take the blame on this.
Really good series, and I highly recommend the first 3 books of the series, but for Feast of Crows, you are probably better served buying the written version of the book.
"What happened to the good narration?"
I would only recommend this book to a friend if they read the first 3 books, this is not a good stand alone novel
One thing that author followed suit with in this book is killing characters at unexpected times in unexpected ways. This author has a real knack for doing that, for better or worse. Personally, I like being kept on my toes....
He did ok with the first 3 books, then all of a sudden he started pronouncing characters names differently then he did in the previous 3, and gave them different voices as well (for no good reason that I could see). You would think if a narrator is going to narrate a series of books, they would go back and listen to the previous books to try and keep consistent. Very disappointed with his narration for this one, but the first 3 he did a good job
It soon will be. With the popularity of "Game of Thrones" on HBO, it should definitely make it past this book to finish the series
I was quite disappointed with this installment of the series. The author started story lines of characters that were not very interesting, and some characters for which I didn't see their relevance in the overall story. The story lines that were followed of characters who were in the previous books were of the more boring character. After reading this and "Dance With Dragons," it feels like they were written by the author simultaneously, and he decided to just talk about certain characters in each book. This was definitely the worse book of the series thus far. I was also very disappointed at the narrators lack of continuity for pronouncing the characters names and keeping their voices the same
"Awesome as usual - but Roy's gone mad"
I'm only a few hours in, and this book completely lives up to my expectations (based on the previous 3)! Lots of clever humor so far too.
BUT has Roy Dotrice gone crazy? He's pronouncing the names of a few characters inconsistently! Within the span of 20 minutes, he's pronouncing Catelyn as cat-uh-lin (as in previous readings) and also as kate-lin. And how can he mispronounce Brienne, especially after reading her oft-repeated reply to Jamie "My name is Brienne!"
I wouldn't dream of listening to this series read by anyone else, but geez - what's going on here, Roy?
"Shifting sands of characters"
I liked this character-driven book a lot. Martin is skilled at making those characters you once detested into new favorites and shifting the sands of his rather complicated characters a chapter at a time. I'm not a big fantasy nut, but I've enjoyed 'Game of Thrones' so far. Here is hoping he can continue this course through to a logical conclusion. I think I've got an idea of where he is heading, but I guess we will all see.
"Awful Narration"
What the what? Book four and the pronunciation of half the major characters changes? I want my $$ back.
"Dotrice, Go Home, You're Drunk"
OK, enough already.
This is the second time I've listened through the series and the first time I've gone end to end, and these have to be re-recorded with new narration.
I've put up with editing mistakes, where the last word of one chapter is followed with the name of the POV character without a quarter-second pause.
I've put up with occasional mispronunciations, as when several times during A Game Of Thrones, where he refers to Joffrey as Jeffrey.
I've put up with the times where he consistently mispronounces POV and other major characters (Brienne, and particularly Aeron Damphair, who is introduced once as the Damp-hair, and spends the rest of the book being referred to as the DamFair).
I've put up with how he uses two or even three pronunciations for various non-Westeros cities (Lys, Yi Ti, et. al.).
But if he changes a character voice from chapter to chapter within a single book, as when Tywin Lannister all of a sudden finds himself imitating Winston Churchill during his second or third appearance"A Storm Of Swords" or when Littlefinger gets all Yorkshire butch somewhere during the middle of "A Feast For Crows", after he's been played as a purring Londoner for the previous three-and-a-half books*, that's enough. These readings should be scrapped and they should bring in a multi-reader cast. Dotrice can even narrate, as long as they tell him how the various proper nouns are to be pronounced. The voice actors don't have to be well-known (although I have to admit I'd love to hear Hugh Laurie doing Tyrion) - in fact, they can be total beginners. All that I want is they have a pronunciation guide and a sense of consistency, which is what the current readings totally and almost fatally lack.