Reviews with content warning for Miscarriage - Feuer und Blut - Erstes Buch: Aufstieg und Fall des Hauses Targaryen von Westeros

All my reviews live at https://deedireads.com/.

I picked this up (finally) because I was loving HBO’s House of the Dragon — and the House of R podcast’s accompanying deep dives. I had too much FOMO about having to turn the podcast off when Mal and Jo discussed book spoilers at the end of each episode. Besides, it’s very unlike me to watch an adaptation of a book without having read the book first. So it was time to fix that!

Fire & Blood is not a novel; it’s fiction, but it’s written as a history text, wherein a maester is compiling various sources to provide an account of the Targaryen dynasty from Aegon’s Conquest through the end of Regency. (There is a second book, which will be called Blood & Fire [yes really], which will cover from the end of Regency through Robert’s Rebellion.) The Dance of the Dragons, which is the civil war being covered by House of the Dragon on HBO, starts about halfway through this book.

Reading a fake history book sounds kind of boring, but this is really not boring at all. I had a surprisingly awesome time reading it. Bonus of this format: I actually started at the beginning of the Dance rather than starting at the beginning of the book because I wanted to read that part before HotD season 2 ended, which worked perfectly fine! I read from there to the end, and then I went back to the beginning and read the first half. That said, I did have the audiobook as well (thank you, PRH audio!), but found it harder to concentrate on in that format. So print it was.

If you’re on the fence about picking this up, please allow me to encourage you to do so before HotD season 3. I don’t think you’ll regret it!

Content Warnings

clairebartholomew549's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark funny reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I’ve wanted to read this ever since I started watching House of the Dragon, and I’m so glad I finally sat down and did it. Although this is written more as a history book, I found the deep dive into the Targaryen dynasty endlessly fascinating. So many characters are interesting in this book, and the three separate history accounts interwoven provide a nice perspective about how history is never neutral. The world of Westeros remains as sordid and strange as ever, and the dragons add so much. I love everything I can get my hands on about this world.

Content Warnings

amachonis's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark informative mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

Content Warnings

rml14's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

marina_claveria's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Content Warnings

isabellamarg's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Set 300 years before A Game of Thrones, Fire & Blood is history of the Targaryen family beginning with the rule of Aegon the Conquerer.

This book is a narrative non-fiction history and so as George R.R. Martin said, it is not actually written by him, but by Archmaester Gyldayn of the Citadel in Westeros. With this in mind, we are given multiple sources that show how history is warped and construed depending on what you choose to believe. The Archmaester refers to three main primary sources: Grand Maester Orwyle’s official court records, the religious Septon of King’s Landing and the Red Keep, and Mushroom a scandalous court jester whose histories were always the filthiest. The varying accounts of what truly happened added nuance to this 700 page long historical tome.

As a newbie to A Game of Thrones history as well as Martin’s writing I actually thoroughly enjoyed this book! It took me longer than a usual novel to read, given the length, but I never felt bored or unhappy with what I was reading. More-so I felt excited and curious as to what was next to befell the Targaryen family.

The rich world building from Martin truly enraptured me and I loved learning about the different families and houses in Westeros and beyond. It was also interesting having read Fire & Blood after having watched the first and part of the second season of House of the Dragon (it did not make me excited for the third and fourth seasons as they will be devastating for my beloved Rhaenyra). I feel the same way I felt watching the Dune movies prior to reading the books in that it enhanced my experience by allowing me to have some prior visual knowledge of what certain settings looked like as well as a more relatable bond with some of the characters. There are also 85+ beautiful illustrations from Doug Wheatley that help you visualize the story, characters, and realm of Westeros and beyond. The drawings added a little extra oomph!

Note: the Dance of the Dragons which is what House of the Dragon is based off of only takes up 226 pages of Fire & Blood. While I did enjoy this portion of the book especially because of my prior watching of House of the Dragon my favorite histories within this novel were that of Aegon the Conquerer, Queen Visenya Targaryen, and Queen Rhaenys Targaryen in addition to Jaehaerys the Conciliator and Queen Alysanne Targaryen.

Overall, as someone who does not read too much fantasy I loved this book! Some of the content is definitely a bit heavy (subject wise as well as dense in material) but like I said I never felt bored or like storylines dragged on for longer than was needed. It felt really cool to be almost reading a historical text that could be real (or maybe is in our multiverse who knows). Fire & Blood was one of those books for me that I finished reading and immediately wanted to read more, hence why I ordered the first Game of Thrones book as well as Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, whoops! Definitely expect to hear more from me about Martin and A Game of Thrones in the future! Now I need to go find a dragon and become a dragon rider.

Content Warnings

More...