I don't want to play the hater, because it might seem like I do too much of that, and I really do like these books, but I have to be honest: Book 4 was disappointing. Specifically, here are the things I didn't like [SOME SPOILERS]:
1. It has no real ending. It just sort of... stops. The natural endpoint, it seems to me, would have been Cersei's death (this isn't a spoiler, because she doesn't die) or trial, but we don't even get that far. And the fact that Martin dribbled crumbs about a giant unstoppable undead Gregor Clegane in the castle basement and then NEVER BROUGHT HIM OUT TO PLAY (which he easily could have in the context of serving as Cersei's champion) made me really upset. It reminded me the Poochie episode where Milhouse just wants them to get to the fireworks factory. I kept asking "When?", and then we never got there.
2. The Dorne stuff doesn't fit. I mean, it's not poorly written, and if it had been introduced in Book 1 or 2 I suppose I would care more, but there's already too much on the plate for me to give a hoot what's going on in Dorne. Not to mention, Westeros was introduced to us as an analogue for 14th century England, and somehow there's this vast desert kingdom in the south? The one character who was interesting enough to bring the Dorne stuff to life didn't make it out of Book 3, and then he was only around for 3 or 4 chapters.
3. Too many PoVs of people I don't really care about. One chapter of Arys Oakheart. Why? And, I like Aeron Damphair because he's a badass sea priest, but do we really need PoV chapters from Asha and Victarion in addition to Damphair to get a sense of what's going on with the ironborn?
4. We've been following Arya a long time now--does anyone have any idea how her story might fit back into the main narrative? If it will at all? In the earlier books it was interesting to see how she criss-crossed a bunch of other plot lines and gave us a different vantage point, but I suppose I'm beginning to lose confidence that Martin can make all that we've been through with Arya meaningful. (You could argue the same for Sansa, but her storyline still seems attached to the main political machinations of the kingdom.)
For a while towards the end I thought my misgivings about Book 4 would be put to rest--Book 4 was shaping up to be the story of Cersei and Jaime, and how Cersei had finally gotten to rule and things were falling apart and going to hell all over the place. The book gestured towards an ending but never gave us one. Martin's little apology letter in my paperback version (promising Book 5 within a year, i.e. 2006) is emblematic of all the problems in modern fantasy that I've already ranted against at length.
"A Feast for Crows" implies that Book 4 was basically the leftovers, or crumbs, of the main story... and that's pretty much what we got. Is it a one-off in that sense, or will the next few books be full of leftovers and crumbs as well?
