F is for 'A Feast of Crows': Book Four of 'A Song of Ice and Fire'

This post is part of the A to Z Challenge.

Apologies for the lack of an 'F' post on the right day for the A to Z Challenge. I had intended it to be a pseudo-review of A Feast for Crows, the fourth book of my latest fantasy series obsession - George R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Unfortunately, the book turned out to be so slow and dragging that I wasn't able to finish it in time. 

The third book was the best of the lot so far. I relished the readiness with which George R R Martin (GRRM) killed off half his major characters. Yet, A Feast for Crows is turning out to be a poor follow-up. 

I'm only halfway through the book, but it seems to me that GRRM has forgotten his story. Deliberately or otherwise, he takes a half-step away from the story narrative so far, and takes the reader to hitherto unexplored places such as Dorne on the southern coast, the city of Braavos across the Narrow Sea, and the Iron Islands off the western coast. 

Frankly, I really don't care about these places. Why should I care who the new king of the Iron Islands will be? Do I give one fig about the internal politics of Dorne? I want to know what's happening to my favourite characters - the ones still alive after all the bloodshed in the last book. Jon Snow, Bran Stark and Arya Stark are my favourites - where are they? Where, most of all, is Tyrion Lannister the Waddling Imp? 

I find myself wondering whether to continue reading. GRRM has already announced that the next book will take another three years. The final book in the series will be a few more years in the making. By then, I will have forgotten the plot and the characters anyway. Maybe I should  just read all the books together at the end? In the meantime, I do have the HBO series to watch.

Easy to think about, but hard to implement. The characters refuse to get out of my head! Right now, I'm persisting with the fourth book in the hope that something interesting will happen. Wish me luck.