Fire & Blood: 300 Years Before A Game of Thrones

Notes From Your Bookseller

For those A Song of Ice and Fire fans who pledged their allegiance to the Targaryens, delve deeper into the dragon family’s history and their conquering of Westeros in George Martin’s Fire and Blood. Learn about major events such as the Dance of the Dragons and gain more insight into memorable figures of the iconic Targaryen family.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? The history of the Targaryens comes to life in this masterly work, the inspiration for HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon

„The thrill of Fire & Blood is the thrill of all Martin’s fantasy work: familiar myths debunked, the whole trope table flipped.“–Entertainment Weekly

Centuries before the events of A Game of Thrones, House Targaryen–the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria–took up residence on Dragonstone. Fire & Blood begins their tale with the legendary Aegon the Conqueror, creator of the Iron Throne, and goes on to recount the generations of Targaryens who fought to hold that iconic seat, all the way up to the civil war that nearly tore their dynasty apart.

What really happened during the Dance of the Dragons? Why was it so deadly to visit Valyria after the Doom? What were Maegor the Cruel’s worst crimes? What was it like in Westeros when dragons ruled the skies? These are but a few of the questions answered in this essential chronicle, as related by a learned maester of the Citadel and featuring more than eighty black-and-white illustrations by artist Doug Wheatley. Readers have glimpsed small parts of this narrative in such volumes as The World of Ice & Fire, but now, for the first time, the full tapestry of Targaryen history is revealed.

With all the scope and grandeur of Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Fire & Blood is the first volume of the definitive two-part history of the Targaryens, giving readers a whole new appreciation for the dynamic, often bloody, and always fascinating history of Westeros.

Praise for Fire & Blood

„A masterpiece of popular historical fiction.“ –The Sunday Times

„The saga is a rich and dark one, full of both the title’s promised elements. . . . It’s hard not to thrill to the descriptions of dragons engaging in airborne combat, or the dilemma of whether defeated rulers should ‘bend the knee,’ ‘take the black’ and join the Night’s Watch, or simply meet an inventive and horrible end.“–The Guardian

Editorial Reviews

11/19/2018
Martin’s evocative storytelling style and gift for gripping narrative are mostly absent from this dry history of the blood-drenched Targaryens, one of the central dynasties of the land of Westeros (setting of the Song of Ice and Fire series and the HBO show Game of Thrones). Beginning with the Targaryens’ fortuitous escape from the destruction of Valyria and Aegon Targaryen’s subsequent conquest of Westeros, and concluding with the ascent of young King Aegon III to Westeros’s Iron Throne some 130 years later, Martin gives equal weight to each member of the Targaryen family. The deliberately inbreeding Targaryens share a number of characteristics through the generations–chiefly brutality, snobbishness, and the single-minded pursuit of power–and it can be hard to keep track of who’s who. Brief sections are dramatic („the golden dragon devoured the queen in six bites“) or salacious („it aroused the princess to watch the men disporting with one another“), and there are entertaining snatches of dialogue and detailed depictions of battles, but they only last a few pages before a return to brisk summary. The conceit of the history being written by one Archmaester Gyldayn („author“ of several other works of Westerosi scholarship, most recently The Sons of the Dragon) mostly gives rise to images of unhappy Westerosi schoolchildren being forced to study this weighty textbook. Fans hungry for the next Song of Ice and Fire novel will find this volume whets, but does not satisfy, their appetites. (Nov.)
– Publishers Weekly

*2019-01-21

Fantasy master Martin (The Ice Dragon, 2014, etc.) provides backstory for the world of Westeros, extending the story of the Targaryens centuries into the past.

Martin aficionados are used to eldritch epochal terms such as the Doom of Valyria and the Dance of the Dragons, here evoked as defining points in the emergence of his Targaryen dynasty of effective if often very unpleasant rulers. Over the span of 700-odd pages, he recounts the deeds of King Aegon and his two same-named successors, dragonmasters and occupiers of the Iron Throne, neither of them jobs to be taken lightly. As in his Song of Ice and Fire series, Martin’s characters are somewhat larger than life but with the foibles and misgivings of humans: Aegon the first, for instance, „was counted amongst the greatest warriors of his age, yet he took no pleasure in feats of arms, and never rode in tourney or melee“–and this despite wielding the „Valyrian steel blade Blackfyre“ and riding „Balerion the Black Dread.“ It doesn’t take more than a couple of dozen pages before Aegon is the lord of „all of Westeros south of the Wall“ save for the thorn-in-the-side lands of Dorne, leading to a series of Dornish Wars that ends on something of a whimper, more of a skirmish against „the minor son of a minor house with a few hundred followers who shared his taste for robbery and rape.“ Alas, those tastes are widely shared indeed, and there aren’t many role models in Martin’s pages–the third Aegon is pretty creepy on some scores, in fact, muttering that if the „smallfolk“ don’t love him for the food and peace he provides, then he’ll serve up other diversions: „Someone once told me that the commons love nothing half so much as dancing bears.“ Dancing bears aside, there are plenty of fierce dragons, impaled bodies, and betrayals to keep the storyline moving along briskly.

A splendid exercise in worldbuilding and a treat for Martin’s legions of fans.

– Kirkus Reviews

I love it so much. Fire & Blood is Martin Unbound . . . and I couldn’t put it down. . . . There’s an addictive quality to the prose that’s outright gossipy. . . . The obvious comparison here is J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. . . . Writing centuries after the events he’s describing, the Gyldayn voice complicates this game of thrones with a clash of perspectives and a storm of debatable facts. . . . Heavy stuff, but Fire & Blood flies.“–Entertainment Weekly

„A brilliant book . . . vivid, memorable and personal.“–The Times

„Lean and efficient and slyly seductive and instructive . . . The text is filled with such a wealth of incident and so many colorful characters.“–Locus

„The overall narrative of the book is wonderfully fluid. . . . Fire & Blood was a great surprise to me. I found myself becoming deeply emotionally invested in the Targaryens, thrilling when they achieved great victories and lamenting when they succumbed to their more idiotic desires. (And they have a lot of idiotic desires.) This book feels like A Song of Ice and Fire. And you know how I know? Because I want the next book right away.“ –Tordotcom

„An absolutely irresistible, dragon-filled delight.“–Bustle

„[There are] treasures hidden in this new Targaryen history.“–Vanity Fair

„The world of ice and fire only gets more fascinating the more we learn about it.“–Mashable

„Martin is still a powerfully gifted, inventive writer. . . . [Fire & Blood] has hundreds of fascinating anecdotes, ranging from the cruel fate of a jester named Tom Turnip to a dragon that, tellingly, refuses to venture beyond the Wall. . . . Fire & Blood is a lavish object, with charts, family trees, and stunning illustrations by comic book artist Doug Wheatley. . . . In this sense it fits into a venerable tradition, from J.R.R. Tolkien in his Silmarillion to Diana Gabaldon in her companion to the Outlander series.“–USA Today

„[Fire & Blood] explores the dragon-fueled secrets upon which the current saga is built.“–The Hollywood Reporter

„Martin has done it again. . . . [Fire & Blood is] a beautiful weaving of the wars, marriages, deaths, dragons, and politics that shape the world Martin has created, leaving the reader feeling like this is a true history rather than a piece of fantasy. This is a masterpiece of world-building. . . . Beyond Martin’s legions of fans, anyone with a taste for richly, even obsessively detailed historical fiction or fantasy about royalty will enjoy this extraordinary work.“–Booklist (starred review)
– From the Publisher