A Feast for Crows

A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4

By: George R.R. Martin

Narrated by: Roy Dotrice

Length: 33 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

GAME OF THRONES: A NEW ORIGINAL SERIES, NOW ON HBO.

Few books have captivated the imagination and won the devotion and praise of readers and critics everywhere as has George R. R. Martin’s monumental epic cycle of high fantasy that began with A Game of Thrones. Now, in A Feast for Crows, Martin delivers the long-awaited fourth book of his landmark series, as a kingdom torn asunder finds itself at last on the brink of peace . . . only to be launched on an even more terrifying course of destruction.

A Feast for Crows

It seems too good to be true. After centuries of bitter strife and fatal treachery, the seven powers dividing the land have decimated one another into an uneasy truce. Or so it appears. . . . With the death of the monstrous King Joffrey, Cersei is ruling as regent in King’s Landing. Robb Stark’s demise has broken the back of the Northern rebels, and his siblings are scattered throughout the kingdom like seeds on barren soil. Few legitimate claims to the once desperately sought Iron Throne still exist—or they are held in hands too weak or too distant to wield them effectively. The war, which raged out of control for so long, has burned itself out.

But as in the aftermath of any climactic struggle, it is not long before the survivors, outlaws, renegades, and carrion eaters start to gather, picking over the bones of the dead and fighting for the spoils of the soon-to-be dead. Now in the Seven Kingdoms, as the human crows assemble over a banquet of ashes, daring new plots and dangerous new alliances are formed, while surprising faces—some familiar, others only just appearing—are seen emerging from an ominous twilight of past struggles and chaos to take up the challenges ahead.

©2007 George R.R. Martin (P)2011 Random House

Critic reviews

"Of those who work in the grand epic-fantasy tradition, Martin is by far the best.... [He] is a tense, surging, insomnia-inflicting plotter and a deft and inexhaustible sketcher of personalities.... This is as good a time as any to proclaim him the American Tolkien." ( Time)

"The only fantast series I'd put on a level with J.R.R. Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings…. It's a fantasy series for hip, smart people, even those who don't read fantasy…. If you're new to the series, you must begin with Book 1, A Game of Thrones. Once you're hooked…. you'll be like the rest of us fans, gnawing your knuckles until book 5” (Marta Salij, Detroit Free Press)

“THE MOST impressive modern fantasy, both in terms of conception and execution, is George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.… A masterpiece that will be mentioned with the great works of fantasy.” ( Contra Costa Times)

Spare me the spittle, the toothless old men..

If you could sum up A Feast for Crows in three words, what would they be?

Ok great fantasy series, complex characters but this one did bog down a bit

Would you recommend A Feast for Crows to your friends? Why or why not?

Yes, with caveats

Would you be willing to try another one of Roy Dotrice’s performances?

I'd rather not. The major character's voices are fine but the minor characters (and there are a lot and what they have to say is frequently important to the story so you can't just fast forward)...the minor characters sound like toothless old men, there is a lot of saliva, they have the voices of 90 or 100 year old men not that are just hard to listen to for any length of time; it is literally PAINFUL. The hand of the queen coughs up blood which he spits into a red silk square...folks, it is really gross. Not only do you get the words, you get the coughing, the liquid, phlegm producing cough. It is simply painful. God help you if you miss something and have to listen to that bit again. I found myself cringing. I was annoyed as Cercie. I wanted a print version or a reader who would read the words which tells us about the red sputum and the red square of silk which is bad enough without the sound effects.

Any additional comments?

Just read the book. Leave out the sound effects. Its okay to distinguish between characters especially when there are so many but the lower class wench, the cockney, the little bit scottish, the lower class accent and the pompous class conscious englishman was not always well chosen and it distracted from the story

A puzzling change in performance from Roy Dotrice

I love these books, as well as hearing them brought to life by Roy Dotrice. However, having listened to the three previous Game of Thrones audiobooks, I noticed a great number of changes in already-established pronunciations, as well as voices used for major characters. While this may seem like a minor detail, I found it very distracting and kept me from being as immersed as I would have liked at times.

Somewhat Disappointing

A tougher read than the first three books, but still good. Very disappointed with the performance - a lot of mispronounciations, some rough cut editing, etc.

Worth It!

Narrator does a great job! Long book but so good! Game of Thrones is such a great story worth every dollar.

great store

as always, this leaves me wanting more. dreading the completion of book 5 since I know there is still story to finish beyond it.

spotty reading.

the narrator does not use the same voices for the same characters of throughout the book.

Are you serious

Oh my god it’s so can’t end like this every chapter makes you want to hear more and some of the chapters and in you’re like are like omg are you for real right now this is ridiculous now I have to listen to the next book right away because I am freaking out by the way epic so much better than the show and I absolutely love the show

the unequivocal worst book in the series

just skip this book altogether and watch the series. nothing on Jon, Bran, Tyrion, Dany, or Theon. too much focus on characters that don't matter like Brienne and the Greyjoys (excluding Theon who is only mentioned to be getting tortured; a way cooler story than the stuff Martin talks about in this book in regards to the Iron Isles). spoiler alert: you waste like 13 hours listening to Brienne and NOTHING happens in her story line aside from them all getting hanged at the end. great series but this segment was by far the worst so far. save your free book credit for something else.

trust me.

Not as bad as I thought it would be

Any additional comments?

After reading all these reviews I wasn't looking forward to this one. But it turned out most peoples issues were unfounded. Yes Dotrice botches some of the names (Gilly = Jilly, Catelyn = Katelyn, Petyr = Peter) but it doesn't take away from the story.

Arya's voice was a bit like an old woman, but it got better in the later chapters. The only thing that really bothered me was Petyr's voice COMPLETELY changed in the first Alayne chapter.

Otherwise the story was great, a bit slow in places, but it was nice to explore the other characters. Off to ADWD!

What happened to the names?

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

I do not understand how the same person that has read literally hundreds of hours of the same book suddenly starts saying some of the names differently compared to the previous 3 books.

Especially in the very beginning it's clear he is not sure how to pronounce some of the names so they differ from sentence to sentence. It gets better towards the end, but it's still funny that Petyr Baelish has suddenly become Peter for example.