Fire & Blood: 300 Years Before a Game of Thrones (The Targaryen Dynasty: The House of the Dragon)

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But as much as I love the Conqueror, my true alliances (and my heart) lie with King Jaehaerys I and his wife, the Good Queen Alysanne. Prior to reading Fire and Blood, I paid both of them no mind, but now I'll never forget them. They are one of my all-time favorite characters. Jaehaerys ascended the throne in 48 AC at the age of fourteen to rule the Seven Kingdoms for the next fifty-five years until his death of natural causes in 103 AC. What a mood! Archmaester Umbert famously declared that Aegon the Dragon and his sisters conquered the Seven Kingdoms, but it was Jaehaerys the Conciliator who truly made them one. The gods and the Free Cities had other plans, however. Even as the king’s ships were beating their way north, envoys from Pentos and Tyrosh called upon His Grace in the Red Keep. The two cities had been at war for three years and were now desirous of making peace, but could not agree on where they might meet to discuss terms. The conflict had caused serious disruption to trade upon the narrow sea, to the extent that King Jaehaerys had offered both cities his help in ending their hostilities. After long discussion, the Archon of Tyrosh and the Prince of Pentos had agreed to meet in King’s Landing to settle their differences, provided that Jaehaerys would act as an intermediary between them, and guarantee the terms of any resulting treaty. Took me a minute to get in my head some of the characters I know weren't going to pop up. I still loved it - BECAUSE DRAGONS - and stuff. The last part of the book is about the Regency during the minority of Aegon III after the Dance, telling the story of the rule of Cregan Stark until the last regent of the Council of Regents and Aegon III becoming of age to rule alone. This part is the most tedious, uninteresting and mostly self-indulgent. Not new, either. So there’s a rather eclectic bunch of characters chronicled here. And I can’t fault it whatsoever. For the three days I spent reading this I forgot the outside world existed as I learnt more about my favourite house. I loved hearing about Maegor the cruel, how he got his name and how absolutely ruthless he was towards his own family. Buffs of Westeros lore will know how he met his end; it is referenced a few times in A Game of Thrones so I’ve not bothered with a spoiler warning. But as ever with Martin’s world nothing is quite simple. His death appears straight forward, he was found with his wrists slit having died from exsanguination after cutting himself on the throne. Though this seems exceedingly suspicious; the man was a renowned warrior and tactician, he would not have gone down so easily and stupidly. Someone murdered him, no doubt, because of his tyrannical ways. His history, and that of Aegon’s original conquest, were the most interesting sections for me.

George Raymond Richard "R.R." Martin was born September 20, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey. His father was Raymond Collins Martin, a longshoreman, and his mother was Margaret Brady Martin. He has two sisters, Darleen Martin Lapinski and Janet Martin Patten. Segundo, es una saga que me gustaría tener en mi estantería pero está descatalogada, que hay cosas que por la serie ya sé, pero sé que muchas cosas no aparecen o personajes. Pero hace años que la vi. Ahora que empecé a leer en digital se me encendió la lamparita en la cabeza, y estoy leyendo "Canción de Hielo y Fuego". In my opinion, Fire and Blood is an unnecessary read but overall a better book compared to A Dance with Dragons; that should say what I think of book five of the main series on my first read. I won’t deny Martin’s importance as a role model for modern fantasy, it would be idiotic for me to deny that; a myriad of incredible epic fantasy books appeared because of his influences. However, if you’ve read anything he produced after A Storm of Swords, it should be very clear that he's struggling with his series. Martin is often praised for the first three books of the main series; not book four and five. With this book finished, I’ve read all the books in A Song of Ice and Fire; main series and spin-offs included. I can say with confidence that Martin, at least on my first-time reading, isn't included in my "top 10 favorite authors of all time list" yet. Maybe his next book can change that notion, but what's next, and when will that happen? Maybe even a reread through the main series can change that, but that sounds like something I'll do only when Winds of Winter is truly near its publication date. I assume that most people who read Fire and Blood are fans of A Song of Ice and Fire, which makes it strange that there are so few connecting threads between the two works. With some exceptions that I will not spoil (since A Song of Ice and Fire is ground-zero of the Spoiler Wars), Fire and Blood does nothing to enrich A Song of Ice and Fire and refuses to be enriched in turn. Alrighty, I am going out some real heavy hitters at the end of the year. I really need to go ZEN with this one. Dragons and Cultures!!!Yes, channelizing my streams of consciousness towards these words.Fire and Blood is an amazing piece of work that does for the World of Ice and Fire what The Silmarillion did for Tolkien's Arda. It is an incredibly rich and detailed account of the lore of the world, the wars that were fought and the kings that ascended the throne, whether they were worthy of it, cruel or mad. Fire and Blood details, as the title suggests, the history of the Targaryen Kings; this first volume spans the time from the reign of Aegon the Conqueror to his sixth successor Aegon III, who sat the Iron Throne 130 years after Aegon the Dragon and his sisters first set foot on Westerosi soil. Centuries before the events of A Game of Thrones, House Targaryen—the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria—took up residence on Dragonstone. Fire & Blood begins their tale with the legendary Aegon the Conqueror, creator of the Iron Throne, and goes on to recount the generations of Targaryens who fought to hold that iconic seat, all the way up to the civil war that nearly tore their dynasty apart.

We have two choices: We can claw after the next GoT book, complaining that the author hasn’t yet met our demands. Or we can allow the author a chance to fill out his universe. For my part, this stuff is more exciting than the series proper. We get to see the bigger picture that all of the Song of Ice and Fire is a part of. If you don't want this sort of thing, simply move on rather than ruining the experience for others. With all the fire and fury fans have come to expect from internationally bestselling author George R. R. Martin, this is the first volume of the definitive two-part history of the Targaryens in Westeros. Another Martin strength is in his ability to carve incredibly complex and multifaceted characters. Think, for example, of the arc traveled (so far) by Jaime Lannister, from pariah and sister lover to something resembling an honorable knight. Fire and Blood does not care about characters. It only cares about names (and unfortunately, many of the names are recycled over and over again). Anyway, I decided to approach his works from a different angle. I chose to read the history he prepared, then I will move on to Game of Thrones. So happy reading! Read what you can! Who cares what people think! Life is shorter than we think! Have fun peeps!The Targaryens are kind of a big deal. Martin fills us in on their history from when the WINTERY Aegon the Conqueror first took charge of WINDY Westeros with his two sisters. You know I have two sisters. I’m not saying we were like those WINTERY and WINDY siblings, but let’s just say my girls enjoyed the gun show every chance they got. Indonesian/Malay Dragon (Naga or Nogo)-Derived from the Indian Nāga, belief in the Indo-Malay dragon spread throughout Maritime Southeast Asia with Hinduism. The word Naga is still the common Malay/Indonesian term for a dragon. Like its Indian counterpart, the Naga is considered divine in nature, benevolent, and often associated with sacred mountains, forests, or certain parts of the sea. Endless lists of kings, queens, lords, minor lords, septons and many more, not trilling at all characters that are of no interest to nobody, even to their creator.

Set 300 years before the events in A Song of Ice and Fire, Fire and Blood is the definitive history of the Targaryens in Westeros as told by Archmaester Gyldayn, and chronicles the conquest that united the Seven Kingdoms under Targaryen rule through the Dance of the Dragons: the Targaryen civil war that nearly ended their dynasty forever. With all the scope and grandeur of Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Fire & Blood is the first volume of the definitive two-part history of the Targaryens, giving readers a whole new appreciation for the dynamic, often bloody, and always fascinating history of Westeros. Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School. He began writing very young, selling monster stories to other neighborhood children for pennies, dramatic readings included. Later he became a comic book fan and collector in high school, and began to write fiction for comic fanzines (amateur fan magazines). Martin's first professional sale was made in 1970 at age 21: The Hero, sold to Galaxy, published in February, 1971 issue. Other sales followed. Muchos siglos antes de que tuvieran lugar los acontecimientos que se relatan en Canción de Hielo y Fuego, la Casa Targaryen, fue la única dinastía de señores dragón que sobrevivió a la Maldición de Valyria, asentándose en la isla de Rocadragón. ADVENTURE: Yes, there is plenty of adventure, even if it is not as layered through as creative writing would be in an epic story of conquest. To better show the adventure and character building that does exist in “Fire & Blood,” please refer to the below excerpt.I mention all this so you can skip my review if you are already a Martin fan, because what little light I might shed on the topic probably will be of little use or interest to you. Why now, though? Why not wait until he's finished telling the main story? For my part, I'd rather follow the passion of a writer than get mediocre work demanded by fans. Martin created this universe for us; let him follow his vision for how it should proceed. He was caught up in the glorious history of his universe as he was telling his story, and he wants us to have it in all of its rich complexity. I can only wish that Tolkien had had the same opportunity in his lifetime. We only see fragments of what that might have been. But Martin is giving us his own great mythology, in his own lifetime, whole and complete; and I am a boy again with wonder. Lean and efficient and slyly seductive and instructive . . . The text is filled with such a wealth of incident and so many colorful characters.” — Locus The overall narrative of the book is wonderfully fluid. . . . Fire & Blood was a great surprise to me. I found myself becoming deeply emotionally invested in the Targaryens, thrilling when they achieved great victories and lamenting when they succumbed to their more idiotic desires. (And they have a lot of idiotic desires.) This book feels like A Song of Ice and Fire. And you know how I know? Because I want the next book right away.” — Tordotcom La mayor parte fue un lectura muy fluida. Leí capítulos enteros estando realmente inmerso mientras leía. Básicamente, esto es lo que sería un libro de historia si un historiador resulta es un escritor soberbio. Convincente y todo muy, muy, muy Targaryen.

J. R. R. Tolkien labored at his mythology for a majority of his adult life, from the trenches of World War I until his death. He mostly thought it unpublishable. He was interested in the great histories, in the sweeping sagas, in the stories that were written not as modern novels, but as texts that might have jumped straight out of the world he created. Some of Tolkien's mythological material made it into 'The Lord of the Rings.' Much of it did not. He wanted to publish the histories--the Silmarillion saga--alongside the books we all know today, but the publishers turned him down repeatedly. He died without seeing any of that work published, and when his son Christopher tried to make one cohesive text from the massive amounts of material, much of it was bastardized. Only later did Christopher edit and release over a dozen volumes of original texts, showing us a bit more of the scope of the history Tolkien had imagined. Moving on to Hollywood, Martin signed on as a story editor for Twilight Zone at CBS Television in 1986. In 1987 Martin became an Executive Story Consultant for Beauty and the Beast at CBS. In 1988 he became a Producer for Beauty and the Beast, then in 1989 moved up to Co-Supervising Producer. He was Executive Producer for Doorways, a pilot which he wrote for Columbia Pictures Television, which was filmed during 1992-93. First, Martin did not start as a prolific world-builder ala J.R.R. Tolkien. To the contrary, to quote Laura Miller’s 2011 New Yorker profile, “[he] sometimes fleshes out only as much of his imaginary world as he needs to make a workable setting for the story.” Indeed, he even copped to the fact that he only “invented seven words of High Valyrian.” (It is the HBO show, not the books, that created the languages you’ll find uttered in line at a comic con). The takeaway is that something in Martin changed since 2011, and the laser-focus on tight story lines and evolving characters has morphed into a self-indulgent wallow in minutiae. I assume this is related to the unrelentingly high expectations created by the global phenomenon of Game of Thrones, which is slowly crushing poor George in a golden vise. Having slain the leader of their would-be captors (by underhand treachery, I should probably add), the Argonauts were able to continue their journey relatively unmolested, until, coming towards the spring of the Ljubljanica river, the waters grew too shallow for the hull of such a mighty vessel. Jason decided that his crew had no choice but to dismantle the ship and carry the boat in pieces, across the land to the Adriatic sea (which was nearby), where they could reassemble their vessel and sail for home. But as it was winter already, he also decreed that they would have to spend several months where they were, until the weather was favorable for their journey. So they did just that, building a village on stilts in the marshes surrounding the river. Unwittingly though, they had stumbled into the hunting ground of the dragon. En cierto modo, me ha recordado porqué me gustó tanto la serie TV. Y porque ansío leer los libros. Actualmente estoy en ello .Como razones para no haberlo hecho hasta hoy está ese libro que no da salido. Después de Rothfuss y lo que me jodió, me dije que no, no debería.. JA.. no pude resistirme..

Martin's popularity is granting him a chance that Tolkien unfortunately never had in his lifetime: To create his myth IN FULL. To give us the grand sweep of things in the greater world, beyond just the characters we know and love in 'A Song of Ice and Fire.' Voy a romper una lanza en favor de este autor y decir que este libro me parece espectacular. La enorme riqueza y grandeza de este mundo de fantasía y cómo lo exprime. Cuando salió lo criticaron por escribirlo en vez de sacar el que todos esperan. Y lo entiendo muy bien. As a conscientious objector, Martin did alternative service 1972-1974 with VISTA, attached to Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation. He also directed chess tournaments for the Continental Chess Association from 1973-1976, and was a Journalism instructor at Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa, from 1976-1978. He wrote part-time throughout the 1970s while working as a VISTA Volunteer, chess director, and teacher. Martin has always been a writer that walks up to the line of good taste, drops his trousers, and poops on the line. It is part of what makes A Song of Ice and Fire so memorable, this willingness to provide a fully un-PC, X-rated take on classic fantasy tropes. Unfortunately, in Fire and Blood, he doubles down on the grosser aspects of his previous novels, to the extent that they feel less like plot-points and more like pathologies. If you read only Fire and Blood and were asked to describe Martin, you would be forced to say he is a man that is obsessed with incest, “lustily” nursing infants, underage sex (try not to throw up when a “beautiful” six year-old is presented for marriage), and underage sex between brother and sister, resulting in a nursing infant.