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)

Why Mr. Dotrice?

I cannot get over losing the characters I knew for the first hundred hours of audio. Roy D. chose to change their voices and the pronunciation of their names. Aria and Petyr are the worst.

Mispronouncing names

For some reason the narrator kept mispronouncing character names in this book. I.e, calling Gilly Jill-y. It started to distract me and was very noticeable to me.
Not a huge deal, just an annoyance.

blood and fire

This story boils your blood with the fire of old Valeria.

The narrator brings each character to life.

I can't wait to begin again on book 5.

Roy Dotrice is back.

The price dropped because of the last narrator but they have seen to gone back to Roy Dotrice which is a good Improvement because the characters don't sound awful in the book. I'm not saying the other narrator was bad at his job just stick to one narrator when you do a series of books you get used to his voice and used his character voices in that book and when you change that you really can ruin the book for some people so I'm glad they switched him back.

Way better than I expected

I was fully expecting this book to be a chore to get through based on the few reviews I read before picking up Crows. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to find myself staying up reading until the wee hours of the morning several days in a row. The story itself is just as engrossing as the other volumes. Even the tiresome Sansa has become interesting in her own right.

Do I wish that there had been more of my favorite characters? Of course. Despite that wish, I never felt like the story was incomplete, only that I was looking in the other direction for a time. Some reviewers were particularly aggravated by the introduction of new POVs. On the contrary, I find that the wider the world becomes, the richer it feels, and the more I enjoy reading about it.

Of course, I will be starting Dance immediately. After that, I suppose I'll be waiting for years for the last 2 (3?) novels just like everyone else.

As always, Roy Dotrice has outdone himself. He's phenomenal.

A great read

Very enjoyable, listening and reading makes the story more entertaining. Then finishing up watching the HBO series really makes it special.

👍👍

👍👍👍 👍👍 👍👍👍 👍👍 👍👍👍 👍👍 👍👍👍 👍 👍👍 👍👍 👍👍 👍👍 👍 👍👍 👍👍👍 👍👍👍👍👍 👍👍👍👍👍 👍👍👍👍👍 👍👍you have to go in to work at 8 pm and cool

No complaints

I read some reviews that were critical of how Roy Dotrice changed his voices for some of the characters and even the way he pronounced certain names. However, I hardly noticed a difference. It could be that it's been a while since I listened to book 2 or that I'm just not that sensitive to this kind of thing. I felt I noticed a distinct difference in the voice of Aria Stark, but wrote it off to her aging and maturing as a character.

At times I wish the story would move along a bit faster.

GRRM and Dotrice both need a good editor

If you've gotten through the first three books, this one should pose no problems. It's nearly 1000 pages of Westeros goodness, though here, Martin falls prey to the follies of too much world building and not enough editing. He simply has too much material, much of which would be served just as well by being discussed by other characters (that is, hearing about what happened in Dorne or on Pyke would be just as interesting as being forced to learn a lot of characters I don't care about, and wasting nearly 500 pages in the process). The performance of the audiobook dips in quality as well; I've listened to over a hundred hours of Dotrice's narration, and have grown accustomed to his quirks, but even near the end of this book I found myself jarred by new voices on familiar characters. I miss Littlefinger's sly purr (replaced by a Baratheon-esque gruffness) and Arya's childish grumbling (she's Irish now?). Jaime's dialogue is oftentimes indistinguishable from the narration. Both the audiobook and the tale itself would have benefitted heavily from a strong editor, or at least someone skilled enough with a CD player to play back Dotrice's own voices from the first three books.

The book is ok but the performance is lacking

I like that this book familiarizes you with Westeros more than the previous books. It focuses more on the current state of the seven kingdoms and less on specific characters. This book leaves many of the characters out completely which was disappointing but still worth the listen.

The performance in this book is very poor. Dotrice does give each character their own voice but he changes them so much from the previous versions it really takes away from the experience that you come to expect.