Back in 2018, George R.R. Martin published Fire & Blood, the first of a proposed two-part series tracing the history of House Targaryen in Westeros. No, it’s not The Winds of Winter, but the book is definitely a good read, and will form the basis for HBO’s new series House of the Dragon, which is due out next year.
And that means it’s the perfect time to read the original text. And for anyone who missed it these past few years, we have good news for you: according to George R.R. Martin’s own Not a Blog, it’s now out in mass market paperback, so you can enjoy it for a much-reduced price.
Read the book behind HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel
Fire & Blood begins some 300 years before the start of Game of Thrones, kicking off with the story of how Aegon Targaryen and his sisters conquered the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and brought them under one rule. Martin then takes us a tour through (fake) history as he traces the kings and queens to follow, with the biggest chunk of the book given over to the Dance of the Dragons, a brutal Targaryen civil war that tore the realm apart around 180 years before Game of Thrones.
The Dance is the topic of HBO’s new show House of the Dragon, which is now in the works. The rest of the book will provide background, but don’t expect to see Aegon and his sisters on TV…yet.
You can get a paperback copy of Fire & Blood wherever books are sold. If you really wanna go all in, Martin is offering signed copies at his bookstore Beastly Books, although those are marked as “Coming Soon” as of this writing.
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