George R. R. Martin and "A Feast for Crows"

//Quick-fix Edit as of 1/03/06: Martin has officially lost his plot in a morass of sex and violence. Revised verdict: NOT recommended to anyone. There's better books out there. Read those. Yes, I'll back this up with a three-point persuasive essay if you want to call me out on it.//END EDIT

Ok. I've done some minor editing to this to make the content more understandable to the uninitiated. :-)

A Brief Intro
Here is George R. R. Martin's web site. He's currently writing a fantasy series entitled A Song of Ice and Fire.

Here is a spoiler-free Wikipedia page that introduces this series. I can't vouch for the spoiler-freeness of any pages connected to this one, but this particular page is nice and bland, and gives a good feel for his worldbuilding.

The Song of Ice and Fire books have phenomonal plotlining and characterization. Martin has subplots upon subplots that interweave and connect. He manages to make you side with whichever character currently has the PoV. (Except for Theon Greyjoy. I despise Theon, and hope he dies a terrible, horrible, grusome death. It would be poetic justice to the nth degree). It is very likely that Theon will meet said death, because Martin is not nice to his chracters. Bad guys die, good guys die, minor characters die, main characters die. Multi-faceted civil wars are tearing apart the kingdom(s) of Westeros, and worse things lurk around the corner.

I wish I could recommend these books to everyone I know; again, the plotting and characterization are incredible. But his stuff would also be rated R (or M, or whatever the rating is) for violence, language, and sex. Maybe higher. There's portions of these books that I skip.

Some thoughts on A Feast for Crows
Now that all the stuff up there is out of the way...

There's a Cersei chapter up! I'm probably the last to hear about this, but I'm going to shout about it anyway. First because it's Cersei. Martin's finally made her a PoV character...and darn it, I think he's almost pulled another Jaimie. Secondly, this is a much more recommendable chapter than the Theon one that was up the last time time I checked. Now, even though the chapter pretty much spoils the series so far, I won't have to worry so much about people I know hearing me mention "Martin" and running across one of his (IMO) worst chunks of writing.

Here's the link -- though if you haven't been reading A Song of Ice and Fire, be aware that it obviously contains really big spoilers for the first three books in the series.

I'm probably the last to hear about this announcement, too.

::sigh:: Seven books, now, is it? Weren't there only supposed to be four when he started this series? I've every confidence in Martin as a writer, but here's hoping that he doesn't go Robert Jordon on us. And I do find myself among the readers disappointed that they won't get their favorite characters in A Feast for Crows. With maybe one or two exceptions, every character I really like is now in the North or East.

The splitting up of the book like this also seems to throw the balance of the series out of whack. There's always been a tension to the books. On one hand, you have the murderous, backstabbing struggle for the Iron Throne that's plunged just about every house into war with one another. This is very bad, and very terrible, and lots of horribly cool things happen in the middle of all of it. But on the other hand, there's the northern and eastern chapters. They remind you that Westeros is in a race against the clock -- a race which most inhabitants don't even realize they're in. The end of an Age is approaching. Bigger, scarier threats are looming and building. Winter is Coming. An Empire arises. Magic awakens. Whoever gets the Iron Throne isn't going to last too long. You're thus kept from getting too wrapped up in the civil war; you're reminded you of the big picture, which is more ominous and more hopeful all at the same time.

But if anyone can pull this division off, it would be Martin.