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)

Pronunciation Consistency?

I love this series and as I’ve worked my way through it I noticed that in this book Roy’s pronunciation of people and places changed. I’m used to it now but at the beginning of the book it was very confusing. Other than that I loved the book and the performance!

Another good book in the series

I loved the book and it’s story but was a bit disappointed that they chose to change the pronunciations of certain names

OMG please hire a new reader!!!

As a GOT fan of both books and HBO program, I enjoy listening to the book read, but this actor makes it soooooo difficult to enjoy at times. I don’t understand:
1. Why was he hired in the first place?
2. Why he had to get the following book gigs?
3. His narration voice is fine, but almost all of his character voices suck.
4. It’s like he can only do one posh voice, then a medley of shitty working-class voices from maybe Scotland, Wales and Ireland, then a bunch of very strange women’s voices which verge on inappropriate interpretations of Asian accents (missing consonants), and then he loves the “Stromboli from Pinocchio voice”. This guy’s interpretations of the voices is WACK!
On the sequel to this book now, and the voices only get worse for the most part. For some reason Dany’s voice has changed to some pathetic sounding voice. And Missande’s previous inappropriate “Asian” mockery voice luckily has changed.

It would be great if the last book ever gets released that they hire a better reader all together.

Ugh!

The road keeps going winter is here

A amazing read extremely difficult to stop . Every thing is well described and NOBODY seems to be safe

Just fine, the haters are nitpicking

There are a lot of negative reviews for this book that made me nervous about getting it, but to me there was hardly any problem. Most complaints are about a few name changes and some voice switches.

True a few names are pronounced differently, and Arya Stark is given a more Irish sounding accent than she had before. But I get the feeling a lot of the people angry about this haven't listened to too many other very long book series with vast numbers of characters to keep track of. This is just what tends to happen in situations like this, and to me almost nothing was very jarring after a few chapters in. Even Arya's new accent isn't more pronounced than anything Roy Dotrice has done for other ASOIAF characters.

Some of these may have even been deliberate changes. Even the brilliant and talented narrators for the Wheel of Time series bounced around with how they said a few names more than once as they settled on pronounciations, and Dotrice doesn't do it nearly so strongly here. Seriously, I feel like the audio performance for this book is totally on par with the others- with some voices I don't like and most that I do. Don't nitpick and you'll be fine. :)

Good Story, Not So Great Narration

The story itself is fantastic.

Up until now, The narrator has been consistent with pronunciation, voices, and accents, but in this book he not only pronounces names differently than he did in the previous books, but also pronounces them differently throughout this one book. When you notice it, it takes you out of the flow and takes away from the story.

The accents and voices he uses for each character has changed from the ones he used in the other books which also takes away from the experience. Plus, they no longer match the character’s personalities.

I still love the story.

meh...

The story lags... it has gone downhill since book one. the worst part is the "voices" of characters change between books, and again during the book... There are a ton of characters, and creating unique voices for all of them is surely difficult, but consistency is appreciated.

really good

Amazing book, wouldn't read the paper version cause it's really long but when you listen to it, it's fine

Can't recommend this any more: just enthralling.

A fantastic book with an incredibly talented narrator. If your this far into the series this is the same excellent writing from Martin's previous entries, but what makes this audiobook stand out is the incredible narrator, who brings to life each of the hundreds of characters in the series with a unique voice for every character. From the wicked Cercei to the naivete but brave Brienne, every character has a voice that is perfectly fitting for their character, and truly brings them all to life. My only complaint would be Littlefinger, whom the narrator had a much better voice for in the previous books, but for some reason it was changed in this book from a sly and cunning voice to one much more gruff and hardy, which didn't quite match the character. Other than that this audiobook (as with the others in this series) cannot be more recommended, I had already read these books but revisiting them in audio form makes the stories truly memorable.

Game of Thrones Books are awesome

What made the experience of listening to A Feast for Crows the most enjoyable?

The story is very well written. Roy Dotrice is the best narrator of any books that I have listened to. He doesn't mess up accents and voices when switching between them and they all sound different which is wonderful.