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)

different

pronunciations were different in this book, but overall good. needs more emotion and fire :)

Roy Roy Roy.....

Roy would have done better had he kept the voices from the previous books but otherwise he did well. The story itself was well written, however it might have been better if there had been more points of view as in the previous books.

Details, details...

Most boring of the 4 books I have completed.
Performance/narrative top notch as always.
full of necessary details though, can't skip the book.

A little disappointed

Dotrice changed his voice on a few characters like Arya and Petyr. Kind of through me off. And pronounced names differently in the book for some reason.
Loved the story still!

good book

I loved the story, and the performance for the most part. the only thing I didn't like was that the narrator changed some voices from the first 3 books.

boom goes the dynamite

Roy Dotrice is an absolute BEAST! My mind started to melt and leak out of my ears around chapter 2. Top notch.

Good Story, Unfortunately Poor Narration / Editing

How did the narrator detract from the book?

As other reviewers have stated, I found it disappointing to the point of being insulting that the editors let the narrator's dramatic shift in the pronunciation of the characters' names, and their accents, make it through. Not what you expect for the fourth installment of a series. Even worse, there are several instances where it is inconsistent. For example, Dotrice goes from the "old" pronunciation of Brienne to the "new" pronunciation, and BACK, within the same POV session - sometimes only a sentence removed from each other. That is just unforgivably sloppy editing.I've always had some issues with the way Dotrice chose to handle accents. It made no sense to me that Robb Stark sounded more like Robert Baratheon than Ned Stark - it's not like he'd been fostered down south. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to placement of accents on characters. And I've just accepted that all children and most women will sound like uneducated whiners.But this installment takes it a step further with the dramatic shift in a character like Petyr, whose way of speaking was so much of how we perceived him. Overall, extremely disappointing. Some have offered up the years between production for the changes, and I understand that presents a challenge, but one just has to look at Michael Kramer's excellent work on the WoT series to see that it doesn't have to result in such a significant drop in quality.

Any additional comments?

As for the story, I didn't mind as much the shift away from some of the major characters, probably because I restarted the series from the beginning when I started listening, and so I didn't experience the disappointment of waiting for Book 4 for years only no to hear my favorite characters. We'll see how I feel after Book 5, because there's no denying that the story is very bogged down and plodding at this point...

The narration struggles to keep me in it

The narrator constantly changes the pronunciation of character names and the character voices are strange.

GOD, I HATE CERSAI

*sigh* what a despicable little thing

This book started out slower than the others; that, coupled with the fact that half the original cast is missing, made it feel perpetually like an intermission until about halfway through (almost 20 hours!)... After that though, it picked up and helps you along the GOT story quite well. Not a bad read, just feels more like tedium than entertainment, working to get to the next story.

Roy dotrice!

Probably the best narrator I've heard on audible. I hope he lives long enough to record all 7 books!