Lara Zarum:

The brilliant minds at Screen Junkies have made one of their signature “Honest Trailers” in anticipation of Game of Thrones’ fourth season, which premieres on HBO this Sunday, and this one doesn’t disappoint. “It’s the abusive show you keep watching, no matter how many times it hurts you,” …

The trailer covers the first three seasons and skewers everything from Westerosi nomenclature (“Travel to Westeros, a place where everything is the [thing] of [nouns]”) to, perhaps inevitably, its tendency to offer naked ladies as eye candy while old men with beards deliver monologues. It’s more or less safe for work, despite all this, but those who haven’t caught up with the show should beware: Spoilers abound.

Slate

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

___ Meanwhile, I’m about half way through reading – A Feast for Crows … meh

A Feast for Crows is the fourth of seven planned novels in the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire by American author George R. R. Martin. …

In comparison with the previous novels in the series, A Feast for Crows received more negative reviews. … many critics felt that this novel consisted of characters that people were less interested in.

Agreed.

I had very little interest in:

The Iron Islands:

• The Prophet, The Drowned Man: Aeron “Damphair” Greyjoy, and the rest.

• The Kraken’s Daughter: Princess Asha Greyjoy, daughter of Late King Balon of the Iron Islands

• The Iron Captain, The Reaver: Prince Victarion Greyjoy, Captain of the Iron fleet

In Dorne:

• The Captain of Guards: Areo Hotah, Captain of the Guards to Prince Doran Martell of Dorne

• The Soiled Knight: Ser Arys Oakheart of the Kingsguard

• The Queenmaker, The Princess in the Tower: Arianne Martell, daughter of Prince Doran and heir to Dorne

… there was also a sense in A Feast of Crows that Martin had lost his way. The characters whose stories he did tell wandered back and forth across a landscape devastated by war and
oncoming winter, but didn’t seem to be headed anywhere in particular. …

… “sprawling and incoherent” …

It sounds like A Dance With Dragons (book 5) is better.