A Feast for Crows

I know, I know, I said that there wouldn't be any more posts until after Tuesday, but over the weekend I found myself too tired to do homework, but not tired enough to fall asleep. A couple of chapters slipped by. Only a couple chapters though, and then you really won't see anything on here for a few days. I'll say before I begin Feast that I'm slightly apprehensive about this novel. I know there are a lot of new characters and that a lot of characters are missing that I've gotten used to seeing. Still, I'm excited to get caught up with the other fans, and I'm intrigued by all the new angles that await me.

Before I begin, here's a closer look at a forgettable character:

Pate's Big Day

As Pate walked towards the Inn, he couldn't believe his luck. Finally! He thought, After three novels of waiting, I get to join the big boys. I wonder when I'll get my moment to shine!

But as Pate arrived at the Inn, he noticed a camera following close behind him. Well that's strange, the novel hasn't even started yet, why would the camera already...oh shit.

As Pate opened the door to the Inn, he saw his friends' expressions of greeting quickly turned grim as they saw the camera follow Pate through the door. A groan chorused from the throats of all but one in the room. Roone looked around, confused. 

"What's the big deal? This means we're finally getting some face time after three thousand pages of hanging around drinking and watching from the sidelines!" 

Pate cast him a withering glare. "Did you even read the first three novels? No one ever survives the prologue."

"That's silly," Roose replied. "Plenty of people survive the prologue." 

Alleras shook his head. "Not the viewpoint character. Getting your internal monologue mic'd for the prologue is Martin's kiss of death." 

Nervous nods bobbed through the room as eyes scanned the ceiling around where the camera loomed. Suddenly but silently, a mic boom knifed across the room like the reaper's scythe. All eyes fell on Pate as the boom glided to a halt directly above him. Relief rode freely on the faces of the Inn's inhabitants, and slowly they returned to their business, glad to finally have an eye in the sky on Oldtown and its quirky citizens. Pate hesitated for a moment as he saw the red light appear on the camera. Maybe if I just refuse to play along... but his hesitation was met with a prodding poke from the boom. Oh fine! I don't care anymore. And finally, with resigned defeat, the story begins...

Prologue: I really liked that we finally get to see a little bit of the Maesters still in training, and also more on how the process actually works. I think anyone can tell from the very beginning that, though much was made of the fact that Oldtown has been neutral for thousands of years, that record will be broken soon, along with Oldtown. 

The Prophet: Right off the bat the character scheme is different than in previous novels. Aeron Damphair is being labeled by his occupation/status symbol, rather than from his actual name. Interesting how they pseudonyms that replace their given last names, kind of like how it works in Tolkien's Middle Earth. I wonder what Damphair means though. Aeron is an interesting character. We see things from the point of view of yet another religious figure, and for that matter, we see yet another actual religion. Between the new and old gods, R'hollor, the Drowned God, and whatever the Free Cities have going on, the religious diversity of the world is pretty heavy. Many of these gods seem to have actual powers too, or at least, the coincidences are mounting in place of religious causes. Also, the cultural phenomenon of actually drowning men and bringing them back to life is fascinating. Some of them are merely doused with water like a baptism, but the more hardcore actually die and are resurrected from the water. It's an extremely realistic sounding detail that I draws me in as a reader to this culture, which suddenly feels a lot more real and alive to me, not to mention interesting. It'd be nice if we could see someone retake the north while the Iron Men are busy holding an Entmoot, but Stannis seems to be the only one available, and I can't imagine Martin would give that away when the Stannis viewpoint has to wait a book to be told. I wonder how far we'll really go into Iron Islands politics. At this point I'm really not too interested in it. We have enough intrigue, hell, we're even over our quota of prophets between Melisandre and Aeron. But, Aeron is interesting. I'd like to see him leave the Iron Islands and go and do something. 

Interesting start so far.