Netts's Reviews > A Feast for Crows

Are you kidding me? This volume should have been called A Test of Patience. Where do I even start? First, there is a conspicuous dearth of crows (as in Nightwatch or anything at or beyond the Wall). There is also little feasting but by now I've grown tired of Martin's exhaustive medieval menu descriptions, so that's a relief. Curious about Jon Snow and The Others? Bran and that three-eyed crow? Tyrion's escape? The dragons!? Well, forget it. They don't make a single appearance. Instead we get to trudge along up a hill and down a river and up a tower and down a forest with Brienne who is as boring as she is ugly (remember how ugly she is? It's ok, you'll be reminded again. And again. And again. Just in case you have severe amnesia.) There are a few other people who are also on their tedious way somewhere but can't get there slow enough. And Cersei being evil and suddenly also dimwitted. A couple of interesting chapters in Dorne. And some pointless ones about the Iron Islands (which are bleak. You'll be reminded of that too, ad nauseam.) Did I mention the abysmal quality of the writing? It was easier to turn a blind eye to it in volumes where the action and characters were interesting but good luck with this one...

At the end of the book one finds a note from the author excusing himself for having served up A Cauldron of Crap. He insists he wrote more but his dog ate all the interesting chapters. Actually, he maintains he wrote "pages and pages and pages" (oh my!). So many he had to cut the volume in half and keep the good stuff for a second installment. That was in 2005 and we're now in 2011 so he was obviously too busy wanking off to rape porn for the past six years to walk down to the post office and mail those pages to his publisher...