But Martin has been busy this last decade, writings and editing all sorts of things that aren't The Winds of Winter. One of these, his 2018 book Fire & Blood, seemed almost like a challenge to anyone who might count themselves a George R.R. Martin "fan." It was a book set in Westeros -- just not the one everyone was waiting for. It recounted the history of past Targaryen kings, assembled in part from previously existing novellas, and (in its last half) forming the basis for the spin-off TV series House of the Dragon. But also... it was a project that Martin himself jokingly dubbed his "GRRMarillion," in reference to The Silmarillion -- J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth book that's so dry that it wasn't even published in his lifetime, and hasn't been read cover-to-cover by most of his fans. Was Martin implying his book was equally dense?
Well, the coming of House of the Dragon season two later this year inspired me to actually give it a shot; I recently finished Fire & Blood. And mostly, I was entertained. Thankfully, while the book is very much a history, it's not dry at all. It essentially reads like engaging non-fiction, like an author gathering up 150 years of a country's history and trying to lay it all out for you in the most compelling way possible.
There's an extra twist in Martin's approach here, as he writes not as himself, but as a "maester" within the world of Westeros who is himself setting down this history. Part of the conceit here is that the author openly sifts through conflicting accounts written at the time they happened, editorializing on which is more likely true. This allows Martin to lean into one of his greatest strengths as a writer: writing from the entrenched perspective of a specific character. The Ice and Fire series itself famously trades character viewpoints from chapter to chapter; here, Martin takes on one character's viewpoint for an entire book, as the character himself in turn comments on other characters. It may sound like an unnecessary contrivance, but I believe it's a key part of what keeps Fire & Blood from being too dull for all but the most devoted fans.
And it's not like the gimmick gets in the way. The maester character doesn't assert his presence on every page, or anything so overt. Mostly, the narrative just flows naturally. It is more compressed than Martin's more traditional novels, but there are many scenes that feel just as engaging, just as easily conjured in the mind's eye, as anything from the Ice and Fire series proper.
That said, the book purports to be examining the entire Targaryen dynasty from the first King Aegon I all the way to the end of the lineage. There are two problems with that. One is simply that some material is simply not compelling enough that it would have been included absent the narrative conceit. There's a reason why most people have heard of Henry V or VIII, or Victoria, or other monarchs whose tales have been told over and over. But unless you're a student of English monarchs, I'm guessing you've never heard of Cnut? Or Eadwig? My point is, not all of the content in Fire & Blood is as exciting as the chunk seized upon to create House of the Dragon.
And the second issue is that at the conclusion of this 700-page doorstop of a novel, Martin has still not told the complete Targaryen history. In terms of number of years, he's actually a bit less than halfway; so if indeed he ever means to complete this story, he has at least one more volume to write, and maybe two. So yes, you've got that right: George R.R. Martin set aside his epic unfinished series to take up another project and not finish it. If you choose not to reward this behavior by buying the book, I can't say I blame you.
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