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Fire and Blood. Targaryen Dynasty. George R.R. Martin. Game of Thrones. A Song of Ice and Fire
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I'm enjoying "Fire & Blood" by George R.R. Martin, the prequel to his "A Song of Ice and Fire" series.
#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
