fantasy · Reads

Fire & Blood by George R. R. Martin

ByCaitlin

I knew that I had to read Fire & Blood by George R. R. Martin before the new Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, comes out in August! Am I happy I did? Eh…

ADD TO YOUR LIBRARY

IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOK, STOP READING! SPOILERS AHEAD

I need to warn you before we go any further that this reads like a history book. The entire thing is in passive voice, there is no dialogue, and it can be VERY dry at times. When it wasn’t dry, it was painful to read. Oops.

I struggled through this book solely to have a base of knowledge for House of the Dragon. If you’re a former Thrones fan who rightfully abandoned all affinity for the franchise after season eight, you may be inclined to do the same.

Pros of reading? I do feel like I know more about the history of the Targaryens, with a lot of added context for Thrones happenings, and that I will be able to better keep track the 30+ characters the show’s pilot throws at us.

There really was A TON of info packed into these pages. Martin weaves the “storyline” from different historical sources in Westeros, almost as someone in the Thrones “present day” was writing a historical account and trying to find the truth out of all the different rumors and reports. This was an interesting way of doing it, and at times, I found it comical, but at other times, I was super annoyed.

Just as real life historical events were seen in various parts of Game of Thrones (ex: War of the Roses, The Black Dinner), human history likewise served as inspiration for the “history” of the Targaryen dynasty. It was fun to have formerly forgotten memories from my AP World History class pop up when certain events occurred!

Cons of reading? How utterly BORING it can be. While reading, a friend of mine told me it picks up “a bit” around the Dance of Dragons, or the Targaryen Civil War, which I guess is true. I still was dozing off at bits of that, though. I felt like this book was a CHORE to read, not something I was looking forward to at the end of my workday as usually is the case.

Roses

  • knowledge for House of the Dragon
  • context for stuff that was alluded to in Thrones and now I am like “AHA”
  • there really is a ton of info packed in there

Thorns

  • everything else
  • I am not kidding
  • I kind of suggest that people who plan on watching the show read it, but at their own risk

1/5 :///////

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