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)

Amazing!

What did you love best about A Feast for Crows?

How well you get to know each character.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I can't pick just one. They are all so complex.

What about Roy Dotrice’s performance did you like?

Great character voices!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

YES!!

Overall Not Bad

Where does A Feast for Crows rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I don't ordinarily write reviews (out of three years as an Audible customer this is my first), but I was aggravated by A Feast for Crows. This ranks my least favorite out of the first four in the series.

What did you like best about this story?

I'm only halfway so I can't say what I liked best yet.

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

The performance is part of the reason I'm commenting at all. Read by Roy Dotrice, who did the first three, he is generally on point except for this odd Scottish inflection he started banging out at random times. It's fine with some characters (characters that he's been doing the inflection since book 1), but now Aria now sounds like a Scottish crone when she sounded completely different in the first three. It's fine to muck up minor characters whose names we can barely remember anyway, but when it comes to the key characters, let's be consistent. And please, please stop the Scottish inflections.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I didn't want to listen to it all in one sitting, but I would've liked the book to be longer. A Storm of Swords was nearly 14 hours longer.

Any additional comments?

I haven't yet finished so perhaps my opinion will change, but overall I'm disappointed, both by the story itself and the narrator. The story is branching off into new characters, which is great, but it's completely ignoring the ones we love (Aria, the Imp, Jon Snow, Dragon Momma, and Bran). The narration is getting difficult to handle. I may read the next story and avoid the audio version altogether. I still give this generally high stars as the series itself is phenomenal, the characters memorable, and Roy Dotrice is generally excellent. Unfortunately, I couldn't give it a perfect score because it's lacking compared to the first three.

accents and names?

I still love the story, but why did most of the pronunciations for the names and some of the accents change?

He Changed the Voices!

What didn’t you like about Roy Dotrice’s performance?

Biggest distraction for me is how Roy Dotrice changed the way he performed the voices of the characters!

Roy Dotrice is great

Would you listen to A Feast for Crows again? Why?

Yes.

What did you like best about this story?

I am drawn in by the whole series.

Have you listened to any of Roy Dotrice’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

no

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no

Any additional comments?

The reader Roy Dotrice does a fantastic job in this series. The range of characters he creates is great. One thing I found odd though in this 4th book was that he changed a few key characters voices; Aria and Little Finger are two that stand out. They are still well done and read, it is just a bit hard to get used to the new voices after having heard them in a different way for the preious 3 books. Otherwise, another great listen.

Unpredictable

Where does A Feast for Crows rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Very Enjoyable and you never know who will be done in and who will switch sides! Fun!

questionable changes

I'm not sure why character voices and accents changed between books (Arya specifically). aside from these inconsistencies, fantastic book

Horrible Narration

Roy Dotice's reading and of this book was so annoying. His accents don't keep with the background of the characters. He keeps pronouncing Brienne BRYEEN, which would be acceptable if the author pronounced his character name as such. Just annoying. I do not recommend Roy and really hope at some point in the future a new narration will be available.

Good book. Senile narrator.

If the gods are good, when A Song of Ice and Fire is complete, they will re-record all of the audiobooks with a narrator as skilled at narrating as George RR Martin is at writing, instead of a done old man like Roy Dotrice. But the gods are seldom good.

Dotrice can’t remember what voice he used for what characters. I get that there’s a couple hundred characters in these books, but you’d think he could at least keep the voices of the main characters straight. Nope. Littlefinger has a completely different voice than he started with, as does Dolorous Edd, who exchanges his endearing, unique voice for a generic one, only to regain it in A Dance With Dragons.

On top of that, there are many words and names that he can’t pronounce consistently to save his life. He pronounces “Brienne” about 4 different ways depending on... how fast he’s reading it? Whether he had his vitamins that morning? Your guess is as good as mine.

Don’t get me wrong, Dotrice isn’t annoying to listen to, like some narrators I’ve heard on here. 20 years ago, he might have been the perfect narrator for this project. But he sounds like he’s reading most of it on sight, with pauses in weird places and inflections on the wrong words.

That said, this is George RR Martin, and it is some of the finest fiction writing on earth. It’s probably my least favorite of the books so far though, as we have zero chapters from Tyrion or Daenerys, and instead we have to listen to Cersei’s whining thoughts, and try to care about these new characters in the side plots on the Iron Islands and in Dorne.

Just blaze through this book, then buckle your seatbelt and get ready for A Dance with Dragons, which this entire book is basically a prologue to.

good read between watching seasons on tv

Lots of fun to get all the background and the storylines not included in the tv version.