Game Of Thrones Book 4 And 5 Reading Order
Deandra Uleman
I'm still working my way through the third book, but as I understand it, books four and five (A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons) occur at the same time -- both picking up immediately after A Storm of Swords ends -- but taking place in different locations.
I've read that the original publication of a A Feast for Crows was met with some disappointment, with some fans being unhappy having to plough through a whole book before finding out what happened to their favorite characters after A Storm of Swords.
With this in mind, I was wondering if a different reading order might be permissible? For example, could someone chose to read A Dance with Dragons first? Or, even more audaciously, would it be possible to read both books simultaneously? I.e. A chapter from one book, followed by a chapter from the other?
You can certainly read the chapters chronologically, instead of first reading through all of A Feast For Crows. Sean Collins put together a very nice reading order over here: A proposed A Feast for Crows/A Dance with Dragons merged reading order, with explanation.
The Tower of the Hand is doing a re-read of the books right now using this proposed reading order. So far the order has not felt forced at all, and feels very natural. However, I could see it being a pain to sit down and do this yourself, as you have to put your book down at the end of each chapter, consult the list, find the next chapter, etc.
Reading book 4 first would be recommended. Book 5 does pass book 4 near the end. Most characters from the fourth book have at least one chapter near the end of the fifth that wouldn't make sense, and may even spoil the fourth book's final events.
As others have suggested, you certainly could read them in orders other than the order they were written in. Usually I would make the argument that the author wrote it the way he wrote it for a purpose and that you should read it as intended to gain the most from it. But according to this section of the Wikipedia article A Song of Ice and Fire, the motivations behind splitting the books geographically were almost purely for publishing purposes.
I read book four first, then five. The stories in each are hardly connected to the other. There is the occasional reference to events in Westeros in book five which make you go "Oh, I know why that is!". In my opinion, the benefits of reading both at the same time would be:
However, because the events in the books are mostly exclusive, I think there is value to reading them separately. If you read them separately, you will have a better sense of the momentum of events in each, and will be less distracted by the more fragmented approach of reading both books at the same time.
Either way, I am sure you will be happy. Enjoy!
In theory I think you could read book five before book four, up to a point. You may lose some of the experience of reading both books from doing so, though; I remember the fates of certain characters mentioned (briefly) in book four not being entirely clear, but then they're covered in much more detail in book five. That said, the opposite may also be true, and it was simply lost on me because I'd read book four first.
The majority of book 5 concerns events that occurred at the same time as those covered in book four, but the end of it covers events going past that point. As long as you stopped at the appropriate point (and I'm not sure when that would be without re-reading the books) it shouldn't be a problem.
Reading them simultaneously is an interesting idea, and may work better than reading all of book five up to the point that it passes the events of book four. You'd get the full story for all of the characters so it may be closer to the original intention of the author (before the book ended up being so incredibly long).
The books are basically split by region. A Feast for Crows covers events in South Westeros, while A Dance With Dragons covers events in North Westeros and beyond the Narrow Sea. Only towards the end of Dance does it cover events After the Feast (beginning with the chapter The Turncloak).
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NB: This post is intended for readers who have not read Feast or Dance yet. If you've read the entire series already, click here for the SPOILER-FILLED veterans' version of this reading order, which also includes a very thorough explanation of how I came up with it, plus an ongoing list of updates and tweaks made to the order.Are you reading A Song of Ice and Fire for the first time? Have you heard that volumes four and five, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, cover the same time period but split up the characters, so that most of the people who appear in Feast don't show up in Dance and vice versa? Do you think you'll be one of the people that finds this really frustrating? (I'm not, I was perfectly happy with the books as-is and recommend them as such, but I know y'all are out there.) Are you interested in recombining the two halves of the story in hopes that it'll make for a more satisfying reading experience? Here's how you do it!To combine A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons into one giant megabook, keeping almost everything in order both within the timeline of the story and in the chapter order that author George R.R. Martin intended, use the chapter list below.NOTE: Though you'll be switching back and forth from book to book at strategic points, you'll almost always be reading the chapters within each individual book in the order they appear. The only exceptions, which you have to rearrange in order to avoid having one storyline spoiled by the other, are ADWD Chapter 7: The Merchant's Man, which you'll be saving for much later in the story, and AFFC Chapter 41: The Princess in the Tower, which you'll skip ahead to much earlier before skipping right back. I've placed instructions regarding these chapters in bold below.
"Blood and Bone takes place chronologically at the same time as The Crippled God (literally, our heroes in B&B see and sense the world-changing events at the end of The Crippled God three-quarters of the way through the book) and extends beyond it, so should be read after The Crippled God."
I read the books up to finishing Dust of Dreams in that order (except I read Stonewielder after Reaper's Gale), very slowly sometimes with a year between books. I especially like how that order once Esslemont appears breaks up reading one author all the time. I haven't felt like reading The Crippled God since I finished Dust of Dreams back in I think March. You wrote about the characters in Blood and Bone seeing and sensing the world changing events of The Crippled God. How badly does it spoil it and could I get away with reading Blood and Bone first? Is it just a vague something's happening or an outright bwahaha it sucks that you didn't read the other book first? I've read other posts on reading orders that say Stonewielder spoils something in Toll the Hounds and Return of the Crimson Guard spoils something in Reaper's Gale yet I don't remember anything I felt spoiled about reading those.
Mostly it would give away the fact that the planet and everything on it isn't completely destroyed by the Big Bad in Crippled God. But then the fact there's more books to come probably already spoiled that, so it's not the end of the world. It's just a bit narratively more coherent to read Crippled God first.
Crippled God, btw, is a much stronger book than Dust of Dreams if that's what's holding you back.
Dont remember "Return of The Crimson Guard" spoiling anything in "Reapers Gale", nor "Stonewielder" spoiling anything in "Toll the Hounds". I read "Return of the Crimson Guard" right after "The Bonehunters", and that feels like the right order in hindsight as well. I allso think it would be a huge mistake to not read "Orb, Sceptre, Throne" right after "Toll The Hounds". It really does feel like the climax to "Toll the Hounds". Definetley think Adams list is the right way to go.
Certainly dont think one should read "Blood and Bone" untill after "TCG", since it spoils the ending of "TCG".
Adam, I'm sure you're familiar with the suggested reading order over at the Malazan Empire forum. Actually, your order (aside from the novellas) differs only in placement of three ICE novels.
I value your judgment a lot and I'm wondering what you think of Stonewielder supposedly spoiling Toll the Hounds?
I haven't read these books yet and don't want to read in the spoiler discussion but from what I've seen in the non-spoiler discussion there seem to be different opinions about the gravity of this spoiler.
From what I understand, your argumentation is that Orb Sceptre Throne works best as a coda to Toll the Hounds. Placing SW after TtH would either break this two-book set or reverse the order of SW and OST.
Do I get this right?
I'm looking forward to eventually dive into the Malazan reading adventure and I'd like to get the best experience on first read, avoiding unnecessary spoilers if possible.
So, I'm very grateful for these recommended reading order.
Thanks so much, Wert!