[Dagger]

Ah but remember what he did with his sister's lovely little note (I love you, I love you, I love you). Burn baby burn!

Daddy Lannister's death was very satisfactory. Especially when his son notes that the legend of his old man's ability to produce gold in a sitting position was greatly exaggerated.

[cerveza_fiesta]

I am purposely not reading what's above my post cause I don't want to be spoilered....

Just wanted to say I don't get everybody's complaints with this book. Everybody I've talked to about it is like "AFFC sucks...stop reading at book 3, blah blah"

I find this one just as entertaining as the others. Sure the lannister v. stark thing is over and the bad guys won (more or less) but I find the political wranglings and cercei's personal hole-digging very entertaining. The dornish perspective is new and fresh, Jaime's new outlook on life adds a lot of depth to his character, the peek at Braavos (aka venice) and Arya's stay at the temple is neat, Brienne is murdering shit with a badass sword, Littlefinger continues to amaze with his silver tongue and they shifted focus from the rather stereotypical hero of the north Jon Snow to fatass craven Sam Tarly.

AND the Ironmen are badass motherfuckers, through and through. Euron, Aeron and Victarion (for different reasons) are quickly climbing the favourite character lists. I'm super interested to see where that whole ironmen (aka nazi germany) plot goes as they try to take westeros (aka europe) with too few men to hold it and bank their final success on discovering dragons (aka the nuclear bomb).

Anyway, AFFC is just as good as the other books so far, at about 60% completion (according to my kindle progress meter). It just has a different focus than the previous books. I also think the writing has improved quite a bit from the start of the series. Less action-packed but the dialogue is way less stiff and the overall plot more interesting.

[cerveza_fiesta]

OK, Done now.

Criticisms of this book were IMO baseless. I've had so many people tell me it sucks that I almost winced turning the first page...but I enjoyed it thoroughly, cover to cover. My god do I ever love reading shit on a kindle too.

Both queens in the custody of the faith was an amazing twist. I kinda saw it coming when Cersei allowed militarization of the faith in exchange for a bailout package for the Crown. Maybe not their imprisonment as such, but definitely some sort of conflict between the Faith and the Crown. Allowing the church to raise its own army is a fucking terrible idea if you're trying to keep power over the realm away from them. I like their interrogation tactic too. Wake people up every hour to ask if they want to confess. Basically torture, just not physical torture. With lack of sleep you'll eventually go crazy and admit to whatever they want you to admit to so they get theirs in the end. It was just so entertaining to see Cersei wrap herself up in too many plots and counterplots, served up with a side order of visciousness (which doesn't win many friends) and then have it all blow up so thoroughly on her at the end.

I am genuinely excited to see what GRRM does with the North, Sansa, the Vale, etc...I think more than anything I want to see somebody rebuild Winterfell and restore it to its glory, even if it isn't done by one of the Starks in the end. I know it's hoping for a lot from GRRM, since he isn't in the habit of giving his readers happy endings (hurr hurr).

Also looking forward to reading what happens with the convergence on Daenerys. She's about to have an ironman, a maester and a dornishman all gunning for her very soon. Since her rise to power, I think she's probably wisened up a bit, and she's definitely way more ruthless than she was at the start.

Anyways, definitely taking a break before ADwD but I can see myself grabbing it before long. I think the TV series puts a good constraining timeline on GRRM too. He knows his show was a raving success and that he's going to need to release Winds of Winter in the next 2-3 years if they hope to get a script and filming done for season six of the show, and then the final book(s) will need to be ready not long after.

[QuickTidal]

CF, I actually am of the mind that it was the wait that killed us as problem one, so if you read it right after ASOS then you were one up on those of us who waited the 5 years...beyond that splitting the book VIA POV was a huge mistake, since having now read ADWD I truly feel that the book should have been split down the middle of the story since both AFFC and ADWD would have scored much higher for us if they'd included ALL POV's.

But yeah, the majority of complaints I really feel stem from the wait and expectations.

I didn't HATE AFFC, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I was disappointed by it.

A re-read might be in order (since I've not read it since it came out in hardcover) to see if my position on it changes.

Glad that you dug it though.