Book Review | Fire & Blood by George R R Martin

Unfortunately when it comes to George R R Martin’s most recent literary offering, more people are talking about what it isn’t rather than what it is. Neither the long-awaited sixth entry in A Song of Ice and Fire nor even a novel at all, Fire & Blood is actually the first of two in-world histories ostensibly penned by the Citadel’s Archmaester Gyldayn. Likened by many to J R R Tolkien’s Silmarillion, Fire & Blood is an historical account of the hundred and fifty years that followed Aegon the Conqueror’s conquest of Westeros, with especial focus on the dragon lords whose infamous credo lends the work its title.

Whilst I share the disillusionment of those frothing at the mouth in their desperation to read The Winds of Winter, it’s impossible to feel let down by Fire & Blood, which is - by far - Martin’s finest offering since his seminal, mammoth novel A Storm of Swords in 2000. The author has spoken openly about the difficulties that he is having dealing with the scope and complexity of Winds; it’s seems to be more of a weight around his neck than the labour of love that Fire & Blood clearly has been. The imaginative fervour often missing from A Feast for Crows and particularly A Dance with Dragons is back in earnest in this volume; Martin seems to have delighted in expanding, enriching and inventing the already vivid history behind his flagship saga.

Fire & Blood is illustrated in stunning fashion by Doug Wheatley

Already being familiar with Aegon Targaryen’s conquest of Westeros, the legendary Dance of the Dragons and other key events from Targaryen history thanks to Game of Thrones’ grand animated features (such as the feature-length Conquest & Rebellion and the Blu-rays’ fascinating Histories and Lore segments), not to mention The World of Ice & Fire, I worried that Fire & Blood might just retread old ground in fusty, maesterly prose. And inevitably, familiar subjects do eat up much of the page count. In fact, in some cases entire passages have seen print before, albeit in comparatively obscure anthologies, with the notable exception of the “The Targaryen Conquest”, which seems to be an almost direct lift from The World of Ice & Fire. 

Even when revisiting well-trodden ground, though, Fire & Blood often offers hitherto unparalleled levels of detail from various (and often conflicting) sources, all of whom our lofty scribe has thinly-veiled opinions about. Amongst the most memorable of these are Mushroom, an insightful and perverse king’s fool who, if Gyldayn is to be believed, is prone to hyperbole, if not outright fancifulness, and of course the well-respected and scholarly Archmaester Orwyle, from whose journals Grand Maester Munkun would later set down his much revered (by Gyldayn, at least) True Telling. On top of this, Gyldayn often reinterprets events in an attempt to rob them of their imprecise poetry, notably rechristening the Dance of the Dragons “The Dying of the Dragons” despite the prevalence of the name, and questioning the accuracy of every so-called Dornish war (scant few of which were actually sanctioned by those ruling the Sunset Kingdom, it seems).

Of more interest to me, though (and I dare say to Martin, too, given the pages allocated to their reigns), are little-known rulers the like of King Jaehaerys I, the Concilliator, and his Good Queen Alysanne, whose exploits as sketched out here could easily give rise to multiple seasons of a politically thrilling Game of Thrones-style TV show. Dornish wars, vulture kings, wayward daughters, vagabond dragons and even monstrous parasites from Volantis all punctuate what is regarded by Gyldayn as the most peaceful and prosperous period in Westerosi history. Gaps are plugged not only satisfactorily, but thrillingly, as Jaehaerys’s reign melts into Viserys’s and Gyldayn turns his attention to the laws of succession and the sexism underpinning them that unwittingly sparked the Dance - sorry, the Dying - of the Dragons. In many ways the prelude to the great internecine conflict is even more fascinating than the epic conflict itself (a problem that Game of Thrones has wrestled with as its addictive politicking has slowly segued into all-out war), as is its aftermath as Gyldayn’s focus shifts to the dragon-slaying Shepherd and the brief reigns of the three kings during the Moon of Madness.

Perhaps it’s in such detailed and dynamic digressions that Martin’s genius is most evident. Fire & Blood, in of itself, is an utterly transfixing read, but its lasting value may lie in its latent potential. The Winds of Winter could arrive tomorrow and it would be too late to exert any influence on Game of Thrones’ final season, which is in the can and currently being edited for its spring broadcast. Fire & Blood, on the other hand, offers HBO a blueprint for not just multiple seasons, but multiple series of lucrative, premium television. It may have been Jane Goldman’s series set during the Long Night that HBO picked up for a pilot, but in the wake of this masterwork I would be astonished if they didn’t put multiple Targaryen shows into immediate development.

Fire & Blood is available to download from iTunes’ iBooks Store and Amazon for £7.99. A hardback copy is also available, with today’s cheapest retailer being Amazon, who have it listed at £13.00. An audiobook read by Simon Vance is also available to download from iTunes’ iBooks Store for £17.99 and Audible for £26.99.

A CD version is harder to source in the UK - and about twice the price of the digital download. Despite the format, this version still includes Doug Wheatley’s accompanying illustrations as a separate download.