Community Reviews
Books like Fire & Blood can be quite confusing for my inner world, to say the least. I appreciated many aspects of the book: the narrative, the writing style, the storytelling, and the author’s ability to maintain curiosity. The characters were expertly developed and memorable—overall, it was a well-crafted work. However, I can’t say I enjoyed the stories of House Targaryen or many of the lords and ladies. Almost all of the named characters were unlikable and deceitful. The lords and ladies seemed to reflect the idea that titles are often bestowed upon the most corrupt, cruel, or both. Most knights weren’t righteous or noble; they came across as pathetic lackeys to powerful oppressors. It didn’t surprise me that George R.R. Martin created these characters and stories inspired by real-life history—most people chasing after power and money more often than not tend to lack morality and integrity, regardless of the time period. In most books, you can usually find a few characters to root for, those who deserve happiness or peace. In this narrative, however, I found it difficult to support almost any of the named characters. So, while I thought the book was an excellent example of writing, the contents were depressingly unenjoyable.
Diving into this book, I thought it would be wordy and a little drawn out. I'm pleased to say that I was wrong to assume that.
Fire and Blood read much like a history book. (For me that is far from boring.) Pulled into the history of the Targaryen's was fascinating and consumed me until the last page. This is only the first part of the Targaryen reign over Westeros. From Aegon the Conqueror to Aegon the 3rd you get a great deal of detail of the history behind each of the rulers within that time. I look forward to volume two.
Fire and Blood read much like a history book. (For me that is far from boring.) Pulled into the history of the Targaryen's was fascinating and consumed me until the last page. This is only the first part of the Targaryen reign over Westeros. From Aegon the Conqueror to Aegon the 3rd you get a great deal of detail of the history behind each of the rulers within that time. I look forward to volume two.
This was a good, read it like a history book, book. I listened to the audio and it was about 26 hours, I think. So it took a bit to get through. For the most part, I'm pretty happy learning the history of the Targaryen family, even if it did meander some. But after watching the last season of the HBO series, I'm ok with meandering instead of weird character turns that were ran through way too quickly.
Yes, I did like the show so don't complain there.
As for the book, it was really cool to hear the back story and to know there was a time when dragons flew over the kingdom like birds.
Yes, I did like the show so don't complain there.
As for the book, it was really cool to hear the back story and to know there was a time when dragons flew over the kingdom like birds.
Let it be said that I did want to give this less stars because some parts were so boring BUT what self respecting book of history isn’t boring at times? The fact that GRRM can write a history book about a fictional world is actually really impressive.
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