A Feast...
Polished off the last few chapters for A Feast for Crows last night. I feel like I can spew a bit now.
I have no complaints about Martin's writing. I'm a fan. I love his style. He has a knack for taking a complex story with many characters and presenting it in a way that is interesting and exciting. No complaints in that department.
That being said, I think this book felt padded. Not enough stuff happened. Cersei seemed to get a lot of attention, but not a lot really happened around Kings Landing. They dealt with Tywin's death and did a bit of political shuffling, but it never really felt like anything interesting got started. Not like when Tyrion was around. I thought things were getting kicked up when Kevan Lannister and Cersei had their war of words only to find that he sorta slinks out of town without any real confrontation. So most of Cersei's chapters are a little dull and felt stretched out. Then, in her last chapter, BAM. Shit hits the fan. How many years did you spend writing this book Martin? Whats the deal? Why couldn't you have had the shit hit the fan half way through and given us some resolution? Some massive carnage or sweeping change of landscape a-la The Red Wedding? Instead, you wrote a whole bunch of chapters just to give us a cliff-hanger. Almost like he's saying "I spent a lot of time writing and don't really have anything so here's a bunch of boring stuff with a teaser at the end just to tide you over".
The Jaime chapters sort of overlap with Cersei's a bit at the start, but then split off as he moves out into the Trident to sort of deal with the repercussions of the last book. He makes a stop at Harrenhall and a few other places before ending up at Riverrun where we get one of the only real resolutions of the book. Riverrun falls to the Lannisters and the Blackfish ends up on the run. It kind of feels anticlimactic though. We also learn that Jaime is trying to teach himself to fight with his off-hand but never really gets much better and nothing ever comes of it. Still, Jaime's character is still growing and remains interesting.
The Dorne POV was weird. There were only a few chapters and the POV switched from person to person a few times. We learn a few things about the intentions of the Sunspear and where they stand in the larger scheme of things but not until near the end. Myrcella almost dies, and ends up (presumably) quite disfigured. In all, these chapters were interesting in that it gave us our first look into House Martell.
The Brienne and Arya chapters are, hands down, the best of the book though we saw precious little of Arya's new life in Braavos. What we were treated to hinted at something I've assumed from the beginning - that Arya is fated for something great. Brienne's chapters are interesting because, well... she's on a quest! I love a good quest and her adventures take her cross country and into some interesting situations. The only real combat we see in the whole book is through her eyes, so you end up wishing there was more of her POV to read. And her cliff-hanger is probably rivaled only by Arya's.
And finally, there's Samwell. I enjoyed his chapters but have the same complaint as most of the others. Not much really happens. Aemon spouts some interesting tidbits just before dying at sea. Sam fucks his girlfriend. They sail bunch. Sam and Arya cross paths.
In all, I loved this book. I just wish that we had both volumes now. I don't feel like the wait has borne the fruit that I'd hoped it would. It has left me wanting more. But I guess that's probably a good thing for Martin and the success of the series.
I have no complaints about Martin's writing. I'm a fan. I love his style. He has a knack for taking a complex story with many characters and presenting it in a way that is interesting and exciting. No complaints in that department.
That being said, I think this book felt padded. Not enough stuff happened. Cersei seemed to get a lot of attention, but not a lot really happened around Kings Landing. They dealt with Tywin's death and did a bit of political shuffling, but it never really felt like anything interesting got started. Not like when Tyrion was around. I thought things were getting kicked up when Kevan Lannister and Cersei had their war of words only to find that he sorta slinks out of town without any real confrontation. So most of Cersei's chapters are a little dull and felt stretched out. Then, in her last chapter, BAM. Shit hits the fan. How many years did you spend writing this book Martin? Whats the deal? Why couldn't you have had the shit hit the fan half way through and given us some resolution? Some massive carnage or sweeping change of landscape a-la The Red Wedding? Instead, you wrote a whole bunch of chapters just to give us a cliff-hanger. Almost like he's saying "I spent a lot of time writing and don't really have anything so here's a bunch of boring stuff with a teaser at the end just to tide you over".
The Jaime chapters sort of overlap with Cersei's a bit at the start, but then split off as he moves out into the Trident to sort of deal with the repercussions of the last book. He makes a stop at Harrenhall and a few other places before ending up at Riverrun where we get one of the only real resolutions of the book. Riverrun falls to the Lannisters and the Blackfish ends up on the run. It kind of feels anticlimactic though. We also learn that Jaime is trying to teach himself to fight with his off-hand but never really gets much better and nothing ever comes of it. Still, Jaime's character is still growing and remains interesting.
The Dorne POV was weird. There were only a few chapters and the POV switched from person to person a few times. We learn a few things about the intentions of the Sunspear and where they stand in the larger scheme of things but not until near the end. Myrcella almost dies, and ends up (presumably) quite disfigured. In all, these chapters were interesting in that it gave us our first look into House Martell.
The Brienne and Arya chapters are, hands down, the best of the book though we saw precious little of Arya's new life in Braavos. What we were treated to hinted at something I've assumed from the beginning - that Arya is fated for something great. Brienne's chapters are interesting because, well... she's on a quest! I love a good quest and her adventures take her cross country and into some interesting situations. The only real combat we see in the whole book is through her eyes, so you end up wishing there was more of her POV to read. And her cliff-hanger is probably rivaled only by Arya's.
And finally, there's Samwell. I enjoyed his chapters but have the same complaint as most of the others. Not much really happens. Aemon spouts some interesting tidbits just before dying at sea. Sam fucks his girlfriend. They sail bunch. Sam and Arya cross paths.
In all, I loved this book. I just wish that we had both volumes now. I don't feel like the wait has borne the fruit that I'd hoped it would. It has left me wanting more. But I guess that's probably a good thing for Martin and the success of the series.