Feast for Crows / Dance with Dragons (George R.R. Martin)


Feast for Crows \ Dance with Dragons…
Let me just cut to the point on these two novels. Regardless of how much I liked the books, I didn’t really enjoy reading them. They felt like absolutely nothing occurred plot-wise. Hold up there Hoss. I didn’t say that nothing DID happen, just that it felt like it. There were a couple hundred plot points that are important to the story development and moved characters forward, but all of the are small in presentation thus minimizing the feel of them. Hobbit steps to Mordor. I think this is just the by product of having to give pages to so many characters.
In the View Askew movie Clerks 2, Randal Graves (foul mouth extraordinaire) describes the Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies and I think that his statements? mirror (in part) my thoughts on both of these books.
Randal Graves: “All it was, was a bunch of people walking, three movies of people walking to a fucking volcano… Here’s the first movie…” [Walks in a straight line, doped]
Randal Graves: “… And here’s the second movie…” [Walks in a straight line]
Randal Graves: “…”
Randal Graves: “…You ready for the third movie?” [Walks in a straight line again, and, at the end, pretends to take a ring off his finger and throw it away, then shrugs]
[...]
Randal Graves: “If Peter Jackson really wanted to blow me away with those ‘Rings’ movies, he would have ended the third one on the logical closure point, not the 25 endings that followed.” ?
______
Replace walking with talking and you have these books pretty well described. Now, don’t get me wrong. I found both books fascinating, enthralling, and impossible to set aside for other reading. I am pleased with the outcomes of each book. Heck, Feast is my second favorite in the series so far and the Song of Ice and Fire series is of the best fantasy reading I have ever had the pleasure to consume.
Unfortunately, I do have to be a little bit negative. No matter how great these novels were, they left me feeling unsatisfied. The next two books had better be incredible. The back story and build up to feed them with said incredible-ness is in place (five books worth). Lets get to it now. Lets have a book that is enthralling AND fast paced for once.
This series is HIGHLY SUGGESTED, don’t let my nay-saying dissuade you, its worth it.. every stinking page. In a nutshell, George should keep up the great work, but damn it, I hope that there is more movement in book six! I am glad that I only started reading the series last year. Folks who have been waiting half a decade or more for Dance to be released, are worse off than I am by a long shot.

  • Title: A Feast for Crows
  • Pages: 784
  • Publisher: Bantam (2005)
  • ISBN-13: 978-0553801507
  • Title: A Dance with Dragons
  • Pages: 1040
  • Publisher: Bantam (2011)
  • ISBN-13: 978-0002247399

Comments

  1. TulioSeptember 26, 2011 at 6:59 AM

    Same for me...Im glad that I just recently discovered the series, thanks to HBO. I just finish the forth book last night... I thought that it was going to be worst with all the critic that I read, It wast not great, but not bad. It was intresting to know the other realms. Knowing Drone was excitment.....I read it in spanish, my mother language, so I meaby I wait to the spanish edition for the last one...but knowing that is out there makes me anxious about it, I relally miss Tyrion and his clever remarks.

    P.S. excuse my limited english writing

    ReplyDelete
  2. erisianSeptember 27, 2011 at 11:26 AM

    you type with better english than half the people i know :)
    so dont lessen yourself over it!

    book five will give you plenty of tyrion. he is a pretty key character. drop back in when you finish it and let me know what you thought!

    thanks for stopping in Tulio!

    ReplyDelete

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