Fire & Blood

300 Years Before A Game of Thrones, this tells the Targaryen history from Aegon the Conquerer to Aegon III. It is both the rise of the dragons in Westeros, as well as the beginning of decline.

Honestly I picked this up simply to stop having stuff spoiled for me online after each episode of season two of House of the Dragon. If I can see it online, or google the answer myself, I might as well just read the story.

The writing in this is just simply so superb that it blows my mind. It is so well done, so meticulous, so real. Each page is like a section of a textbook, each sentence like a piece of history. And with that, it has its climactic moments, as well as its tiring ones. The conquering of Westeros, while interesting, was one of the drier parts. I’m not sure if he was just getting started, or if that just wasn’t his focus. I’m not sure how that’ll become its own show, as the burning of Harrenhal, a part that seems so extreme, actually happened in a single night. I did like that he addressed the clash of religion with the Targaryen’s incestuous nature though.

At about 50% into the story, you finally get to the crowning of Viserys and to his children. Aka the start of HotD. At about 25%+ of the book itself, this is the largest story it has to offer. The dance of dragons is long, bloody, and absolutely spilling with betrayal. Truly the amount of times Rhaenyra gets betrayed is mind blowing. And while the show seems to want to drag out every single line of dialogue possible, the book has an awful lot of dragons flying into action and fighting. I won’t say more for spoilers-sake but the fact that the show writers keep changing things for no reason doesn’t make any sense to me. Same with their desire to connect so heavily into GoT itself. The two are not really related whatsoever.

While I really enjoyed this, and I get that he’s going for a ‘time-period based’ fantasy, I just wish he spent more time on the story than on caring so much about girls’ virginities.