George R. R. Martin

[dinadan]

In case you haven't heard, Martin's finished (sort of) A Feast For Crows.

The catch is, it's only going to deal with the events going on in King's Landing, the Riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands...all the stuff happening in the North and with Daenerys in the East will be in A Dance With Dragons.

I shoudl be outraged, but after five years with only one "Dunk and Egg" story to tide me over (and the few chapters he's been posting on his website), I'm starving for new Martin enough to take it and be happy with it.

[amodman]

I'm both ecstatic and outraged myself...at the end of SoS you see big things happening in the north and title in the next novel was 'A Feast for F'ing Crows'! Am I the only one who took the seeming hint that big things would be happening with the Night's Watch in the next book...and now all those events have been cut??!?!

[dinadan]

amodman said:

I'm both ecstatic and outraged myself...at the end of SoS you see big things happening in the north and title in the next novel was 'A Feast for F'ing Crows'! Am I the only one who took the seeming hint that big things would be happening with the Night's Watch in the next book...and now all those events have been cut??!?!

Well, I took the title to mean the crows that would be feasting on the corpses of the battlefields (i.e. the Lannisters and Tyrells, after having won the war in the South), not to mention Daenerys trying to rule Meereen, and, of course, the events on the wall following the great battle and the election of Jon Snow as the 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

But, cheer up...this means that he's got A Dance With Dragons halfway done...so we can expect another book in a lot shorter period of time than five years.

[laurelin]

Five years is a long time to wait for a book. I've resolved, however, not to make a row about how long someone takes to write a book. It may come back to haunt me. If not for that, I'd be storming the castle with a pitchfork right alongside the other crazy fans

[dinadan]

I heard a rumor through the grapevine that aFfC will be released in November.

[laurelin]

November 8th. It's posted on his site, now.

[dinadan]

I got the book (that is, A Feast for Crows) on Wednesday night and had it finished by Saturday morning. I don't want to give anything away to those of you who might not have finished it yet, but MY OH MY is this volume great.

Despite the lack of Tyrion, Bran, Jon Snow, and Daenerys (who, in my opinion, are some of the best characters, aside from Jamie and Sam), this one was super. The addition of Cersei as a POV character was neat, although it turns out that she's really about as dumb as a brick. The Dornish events were neat too, and the discovery that Prince Doran isn't quite as passive as he seems was a welcome twist.

Arya, as predicted, is in Bravos learning to be one of the Faceless Men (as it turns out, the Faceless Men have their roots in pre-Doom Valyria!). The magic quotient in this book definitely goes up...but Martin manages to keep it from becoming a "so what" vulgarity as it is in most fantasies.

Excellent read. Can't wait for A Dance with Dragons within the next year/year-and-a-half.

[Child of Immanuel]

I'm struggling with whether to read it or not. I don't like reading things with explicit references to sex, but the story is almost good enough to defeat my objections.

[dinadan]

Read it

[laurelin]

I went out and bought it when it came out. When I got halfway through it, I found that some of the pages were stuck together! So I took it back, and they were out...
Heh, they got more in the next day.
It was a fun read, even without Tyrion, Jon and Bran. It definitely cleaned up some of the mess he left in SoS, and put events in an interesting place...I was also pleased with Doran, as well as Jaime's and Sansa's development as characters. The thing with Cat was weird, though.
*wants more people to read and post*

[dinadan]

Oh my, yes. The way that Thoros reverences her (as Stoneheart), but also seems terrified of her in a way that he wasn't with Beric...confuses me, to say the least. Thoros even called her a "darker spirit"...which implies to me that Beric wasn't being possessed by the Lord of Light after all--although, as Melisandre has pointed out, the Lord of Light creates shadows. Not to put too fine a point on it, I'm confused greatly by the Red Priests and their R'hollor.

The stuff that I most enjoyed in Feast were the chapters dealing Sam (as always), Arya, Sansa, and the events in Dorne most of all. Doran Martell rocks--who knew the gouty cripple was playing that particular game all along? And I look back and think "well, I sure have just thought Dorne was this vast black hole...I should've realized they were actually doing things."

Also, Euron Crow's Eye has a MAGIC HORN TO CONTROL DRAGONS! This can only get interesting.

Also of interest...and tell me what you think...do the "old gods" of the north have no power where there aren't weirwoods? So, for example, when Sam and Gilly have sex, is that breaking his vows because, since he swore by the old gods, and they have no jurisdiction over the sea, having sex while at sea doesn't count against him?

The more I consider the whole problem of deities (godly and demonic) in Martin's universe, the more I am perplexed. It seems to me that R'hollor is against the Others (if we believe Melisandre). We know that the old gods (since they are identified so closely with the children of the forest) are against the Others. The Seven seem to me to be generally about human life (although, I must say, I have seen no evidence of the Seven actually being able to do something in the books the way R'hollor and the old gods, the Many-Faced One, or even the Drowned God have), so they should be against the Others. But, it seems to me, that R'hollor, the Seven, and the old gods can't possibly be all on the same side. The Many-Faced One, as a good of death, seems to me to be, if not the natural ally of the Others, at least to be neutral. The Drowned God is a question mark for me entirely.

And then, what about all those deities in the East? The old Valyrian gods? The gods at the Mother of Mountains? The gods of Quarth, of butt'hai by the shadow, of the Ghiscari, of the lamb-men? Where do they fit in?

Oh, confusion.

[laurelin]

I don't know about R'hllor; I think we're supposed to be confused by him, or rather, by his adherents. It does seem like most of the gods in that world are powerless, and the seven seem to be among them.
From what we know of the old gods, they seem more like nature spirits than gods, especially with their connection to the heart trees. If the trees are cut down, the spirits die; that's why advent of the seven kingdoms destroyed their power in the south.

[amodman]

laurelin said:

I don't know about R'hllor; I think we're supposed to be confused by him, or rather, by his adherents. It does seem like most of the gods in that world are powerless, and the seven seem to be among them.
From what we know of the old gods, they seem more like nature spirits than gods, especially with their connection to the heart trees. If the trees are cut down, the spirits die; that's why advent of the seven kingdoms destroyed their power in the south.

I don't think it destroyed their power, but severely weakened it. That's my outlook, anyway.

edit: And no, I have not read a FfC yet, nor do I intend to until I wrap up SoA again (an easy read during school) and then, if nothing else pops up, GoT-SoS at a, most likely, severely reduced pace. THEN I might think about...there's also the thousanfold though hitting, hopefully, in January . As time and thought went into it post-reading, Prince of Nothing has just popped up over Song of Ice and Fire in my brillance book .

[kg00ds]

COI what did you think of the one you were debating on reading or not?

[dinadan]

So, I just wanted to say that I finished reading A Feast for Crows in its entirety for the second time this morning.

And it was so much better this time around that I can hardly stand it.

Now, for those of you that follow the series (and have read the book to this point), tell me what you think about the spoilered out ramble below:

SPOILER: Click to show

So, I've read on the 'net that Aegon, Rhaegar and Elia's infant son, may not have been killed in the Sack of King's Landing, and that Varys--who, by now, it's clear has been working with Doran Martell and Illyrio Mopatis for the restoration of House Targaryen to the Throne--made a substition of babies and got the real Aegon out and to Dorne.

Now, if that's the case, where's the real Aegon?

Well, remember that dying man's ramble Aemon went on, especially when he said 'the Sphinx is the riddle, not the riddler'? Well, what if it is Aleras the Sphinx (who is half-Dornish...DING DING) is Aegon? I mean he's the right age. He doesn't have the hair that marks him as a Targaryen...but, in "The Hedge Knight" neither does Prince Baelor and his mother was a Dornish Priness too.

Plus, what if he's a riddle because (1) no one knows that he's still alive, and (2) there is apparently some question that he might've fulfilled the terms of the Prophecy? And, of course, The Dragon needs three heads...and I've been saying for a while that Jon Snow is really Lyana and Rhaegar's child. So a living Aegon (hidden down at the Citadel getitng magic training from Archmaester Marwyn), Jon, and Daenerys would fulfill that requirement.

So, what do you guys think?