Sunday, September 19, 2010

A for "Feast for Crows" by George RR Martin

A for "Feast for Crows" by George RR Martin

I enjoyed this novel as much as any other novel by GRRM. However, I say this with a caveat: it is not a complete novel. I fully trust him to complete Dance of Dragons and and give us the missing half, but I do want to make my position clear on this book as a standalone: It was good.

Here are my thoughts from a few years ago regarding the split:
I didn't really mind the split between this book and "A Dance with Dragons", and while I found it frustrating to not hear about some characters that will only make me more anxious to read the next book. The plot moves well (for the characters that you do get to see). Really, I should be waiting till both books (this and Dance) are released to rate them, but I have to rate it something and since it's "A Song of Ice and Fire", it gets a 5. Note that I don't blindly rate it a five, but carefully consider before giving it a ranking.

As to readers that called this a "money grab" I'd point out that every book that is ever published is, in some way, "a money grab". It's up to you whether you buy the book or not. It was absolutely necessary to split the books into two copies, and although I'm disappointed the companion tale isn't around yet to fill in the blanks, I'm extremely happy with what he did in this book. The great characters are still there, the plot still moves forward, and the world continues to expand.

Saying that it isn't as good as the first three novels is not much of problem to worry about, considering the first three are some of the best fantasy novels ever written, if not THE best. GRRM may not be an incredibly fast writer, but his work is unbelievably well crafted.

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