A Feast for Crows

Book 4 of A Song of Ice and Fire

By: George R.R. Martin

Narrated by: Roy Dotrice

Length: 33 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

The complete, unabridged audiobook of A Feast for Crows.

HBO’s hit series A Game of Thrones is based on George R. R. Martin’s internationally best-selling series A Song of Ice and Fire, the greatest fantasy epic of the modern age. A Feast for Crows is the fourth volume in the series.

The Lannisters are in power on the Iron Throne.

The war in the Seven Kingdoms has burned itself out, but in its bitter aftermath new conflicts spark to life. The Martells of Dorne and the Starks of Winterfell seek vengeance for their dead. Euron Crow’s Eye, as black a pirate as ever raised a sail, returns from the smoking ruins of Valyria to claim the Iron Isles.

From the icy north, where Others threaten the Wall, apprentice Maester Samwell Tarly brings a mysterious babe in arms to the Citadel. As plots, intrigue and battle threaten to engulf Westeros, victory will go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel and the coldest hearts.

©2005 George R.R. Martin (P)2011 HarperCollins

Critic reviews

"Fantasy literature has never shied away from grandeur, but the sheer mind-boggling scope of this epic has sent other fantasy writers away shaking their heads… Its ambition: to construct the Twelve Caesars of fantasy fiction, with characters so venomous they could eat the Borgias." ( Guardian)

"Truly epic...with its magnificent action-filled climax, it provides a banquet for fantasy lovers with large appetites." ( Publishers Weekly)

Almost unlistenable, such a shame

The failings of the previous books could be suffered for the story, but this one is ponderous with one tedious character after the next.

It’s sad to write this, but Roy Dotrice doesn’t seem well narrating this. The narration is bizarre at times, it misses the mood more often than not and every character seems to be a yelling pirate, drunken highlander or a weird combination of urchin child and deranged elderly person.

The worst part is that all the voices have completed changed, and the endless mis readings and mistakes are evidence no editing or direction took place. Roy Dotrice was a talented narrator, but I’m sure he’d sooner disown this if he was still with us.

Amazon is making off like a bandit with these books? The least they could do is invest in sorting out the narration.

Don’t waste your money, read the book instead.

an excellent book

I truly love this series of books.
The reading is beyond reproach.
sadly badly edited.

awful narration

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

our narrator sounds old and tired and all his characters sound old and tired. nt a god choice to have an old man read a story with so many young female protagonists

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

unfortuantely have bought the other books

Could you see A Feast for Crows being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

:)

Story slows down, voices change dramatically

As title says, the story slows down a lot in this book. a lot of meaningless characters and many key characters dont even have a chapter.
But most of all, the voices change a lot from other books, which is a bit annoying

What happened to the narration???

Would you listen to A Feast for Crows (Part One) again? Why?

Yes, as it is part of the series

How could the performance have been better?

Very poor narration, see comments below.

Any additional comments?

Although it had the same narrator as the previous books in the series, he for some reason changed the pronunciation of several of the characters names and their accents. Sometimes the accents changed mid-sentence! Don't know if he is getting too old for narrating but it really spoiled the story as you often had to mentally correct him, or couldn't work out which character was supposed to be talking. Very disappointing after the great job he did on the first 3 books.

Roy Dotrice is horrible, the story is very good

I know GRRM, the author, feels a great loyalty to the late Roy Dotrice so he was chosen to do the narration. But he was far too old and due to that his decision-making in adding accents, sound effects is bad and disturbing.

We need a fresh voice to redo all of the Song of Ice and Fire series. It is a mess currently - no matter how attached some are to the old narrator.

Making me wait!

The decision to abandon a whole swathe of characters and to focus in on a select few, while introducing a whole bunch of new characters that I had not really bought into was surprising at first, but I have come to trust the writer.

This book was written five years after the last one and it would be another six years until A Dance with Dragons would come out. If I was one of the fans who read this from the start, Id call this book a disappointment. However, leaping straight to ASOS to this and then to ADWD made this book a beautiful and satisfying bridge.

Though its sparse introduction of characters as a teaser is a bit cheeky.
Roy Dotrice is a God.
The voices do change for the same characters, but when one narrates a book that broke its own records with having the most characters in a fiction book, I certainly give him the benefit of the doubt.

amazing

I loved it and can hardly wait to start 'a dance of dragons' grrm is truly an amazing author

Fantastic book, not one of Dotrice's best.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

The previous books were done splendidly. However, Dotrice is irritatingly inconsistent with pronunciation and accents. Quite often I have to doubletake to realise who's name he just said or who is he now talking as. Previously, it was fantastic.

If part 2 is not better, I'm going to have to crank out the old fashioned paperbacks.

Love

I love this series. This is the second time I've read this book (I was reading a physical copy and listening to the audiobook when I was too bust to read).

I did struggle with it the first time because I missed my favourite characters but its definitely worth pushing through if you're struggling like I did.