Feasting

Before I get started, if you haven't seen the picture of what my friend Dan'l did with the three pounds of bacon I gave him for his birthday (original post), you really should. The lettuce was a nice touch.

But the feast I'm talking about is George R.R. Martin's "A Feast for Crows", book four in George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire Series. Let me begin by stating that I started the first book in this series by accident as I have long promised myself I will not start any series that is not done unless I'm already reading it, or have need of it as a cultural reference point (i.e. reading the Harry Potter series as I was dealing with grade schoolers in a reading program). Why? Well, Martin's series defines why because this is the first book in the series published in 5 years. Four books in the last ten years, and half the wait was for this one. That alone might not be a problem, I have a good memory, but the books aren't stand alone at all, and there are 63 pages (about 1/10th of the book) of a line-by-line listing of characters in the back of the book. No deep descriptions, no extended content within the story, just a line or two about who they are and to whom they're related. Several hundred characters to remember from five years ago.

As for parallels between the series and the War of the Roses? I'm glad Martin knows the word attainder, but it ends there for the most part. I don't think there were any dragons in pre-Tudor England, and I don't remember lengthy descriptions of which brother slept with his twin sister, although they might have spiced up my college courses a bit (but not necessary when you consider who was a gay roofing king, who was drowned in a barrel of wine, who killed his nephews, who did or did not have a hump, et al - there was plenty of real War of the Roses excitement w/o making anything up).