In preparation for the Game of Thrones TV show and the summer release of A Dance with Dragons, I’ve been making my way through the series so far. And I’ve finally caught up by finishing A Feast for Crows. This book was originally going to be set 5 years in the future, but GRRM realized that it wasn’t working out, so he went back to pick up right after A Storm of Swords. And then when that book started looking like it was going to be double the size of the previous volumes, it was split into two. So, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons are really one big book split in half. And rather than split it in to time wise, GRRM decided to split it by geography. The first half of the book follows the characters in the Southern half of Westeros. So, let’s see what the Feast is about.

As expected with a book of several hundred pages, there are several main plots going on at the same time. Over in King’s Landing, Cersei’s youngest (and only surviving) son, Tommen, is now King. But, since he is so young, she tries to keep him away from the crown so that she can take her rightful (according to her) place as the Queen of the crown. But she has several things that are stopping her. First, she can’t find a competent Hand. Second, Tommen’s wife, Margaery, is trying to get Tommen trained to be King (even as Cersei) tries to stop it. And third, Cersei is way over her head with bad advisers and a devious mind that helps and hurts her cause at the same time.

Meanwhile, Jaime sent Brienne on a mission to find Sansa, who is watching Petyr work his plans from out in the Eyrie. Jaime then finds himself going on a mission to rescue Riverrun, which has been promised to his Uncle. Along the way, Jaime becomes more and more disenchanted with Cersei and her machinations. Brienne and Jaime find themselves handicapped by previous vows they have made.

Up on the wall, Sam is sent on a mission with Gilly and Master Aemon, by Sam. Sam finds himself hearing more and more about the dragons across the ocean. We also follow along with the Greyjoys, Sansa and Petyr, and the folks in the Dorne.

Overall, this is a good half of a book. It’s obvious that a lot of major characters and locations are missing, but Martin does a good job mentioning them without giving away too much of what they are doing. The best parts of this book are Cersei’s machinations to keep herself Queen while having to deal with incompetent help (which she picked) and unreliable family (who she has pushed away) and trying to keep Tommen away from learning how to be King too early since it will interfere with her running the kingdom. Cersei’s actions push away the people she needs most and in the end, when she needs her other half (Jaime) the most, he decides that he’s had enough of her. The book is good, but remember that it is only half a story. Recommended.

This post is part of the thread: Song of Ice and Fire Books – an ongoing story on this site. View the thread timeline for more context on this post.