ASOIAF LIVE READING: 1/3 A FEAST FOR CROWS (SPOILERS) (EDITED)

(find an updated version here: My ASOIAF Live Reviews)

Lo traduco...

My first thought: "Greyjoys. Why did it have to be Greyjoys?" Though I'm as hooked as ever, I'm finding this book inferior to the others, for several reasons. - Sloppy writing. Sometimes I have to re-read a phrase and still don't understand what it means. And it's not like I don't know English. (I don't speak it, though. My accent kills sparrows in the sky ten miles away.) - Shameless self-promotion. Who the hell is Egg in Maester Aemon near-delirious talk? I know who he is, because I've read the fine graphic novel "The Hedge Knight" from the GRRM series "Dunk and Egg", set in Westeros. I found that reference jarring, because it feels like "Buy it if you want to understand" (which is not easy, because the D&E novelettes are dispersed across various antologies). - Weird POV names for chapter titles, never used in the other 4 books. "The Kraken's Daughter"? Was "Asha" too easy? [EDITED: And what's up with Aeron being "The Prophet and "The Drowned Man" in two different chapters?] - On the other hand, is GRRM getting lazy with names? Having different people with the same name is realistic, it happens in our world too, and they can be told apart by nicknames. I also understand the AE-something tradition of the Trgaryens. But Euron and Aeron and Aemon and Arys all within the space of a few pages, not to mention the lingering shadow of Aerys? Which one again is the priest that drowns people? (All right, I do tell them apart, but it annoys me.) - Too many previously unknown POVs. Do we really need THREE Greyjoys to know what's happening in the Iron Islands? Unfair, I know. I like Aeron and Asha, and Victarion is not uninteresting. It's not their fault they are Greyjoys. And we have had tons of Stark POVs. But do we need two total strangers to know what's happening in Dorne? Now POVs start killing each other? (I'm sure it's already happened but I can't remember an example now.) Was it all for the sake of that porn scene between Arys Oakheart (can't even remember his face) and Arianne Martell? I prefer Arianne's POV and I'd like to read Doran Martell's. When I see more familiar names I feel relieved. - Not much is happening. I'm liking Cersei's point of view, but the council scene felt like the TV airing of a parliament debate. Please kill me, even painfully: it won't be worse. And we were left with some pretty big cliffhangers from "A Storm of Swords" - undead Cat, the Hound, Tyrion, Mance Rayder - which still haven't been addressed. "A Feast for Crows" sometimes feels like a totally different book, not ASOS' sequel. - The bad boys. There's an abyss between former baddies like Jaime and the Hound, and one-dimensional dangerous handsome guys like Euron Greyjoy and Darkstar (just goes to prove that not all Daynes are intriguing). Granted, they have barely appeared. But ever since "The things I do for love" I felt there was more to Jaime than a pretty face and a wicked heart. GRRM was great in that scene, putting doubt in our hearts with a single word, "loathing", which foreshadowed Jaime's evolution. Euron and Darkstar might pull a Jaime, but it would get repetitive. I hope they gain more depth, like the Hound did, little by little, without the big epiphany that Jaime had. But I'm starting to mistrust GRRM. THE PLUS: - Cersei, vulnerable and grieving, though still a scheming nympho. Knowing she's not getting any younger. Adult Jaime has finally taken his vows seriously and "doesn't like her anymore". I can't love her, but I uncomfortably understand her. I've gone back to check and was not really surprised to find that I never put her in my list of characters I don't like, or even "meh" characters. - Sansa and Sweetrobin. Waaaaay creepy (she's an older woman!), but sort of sweet. Sansa wins the "Greatest number of weird suitors for one woman in Westeros" prize; I think she beats even Daenerys, who is not in Westeros anyway. Let's see: Joff, Sandor, Willas (bit unfair since we haven't seen him yet), Tyrion, Petyr, Sweetrobin (not really, but still)... am I forgetting some other misfit she was promised to? I vote for "Sansa's Maidenhead" to be a POV character in its own right in future novels. - The Kingmoot at Nagga's Bones. SEA DRAGON. Nuff said, even though I don't like Euron. - Sam's harrowing journey by sea, with the final revelation that Dalla always cries because they switched babies - she's nursing Mance's son. - Brienne's fool's errand (literally) with Pod and poor misunderstood (?) Nimble Dick. There was genuine tension, though the knight that followed them was revealed to be yet another of those new character I had completely forgotten about. But it's just little things here and there. I've yet to see a scene to take my breath away like Daenerys emerging from the funeral pyre with the dragons, the Battle of the Wall or Ned's vision of the Tower of Joy. I'll keep reading...