Book Review: The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones

This book was released in late October 2014 and now, four months later, it has over 700 favourable reviews on Amazon. However the most helpful and critical reviews have been the mixed ones.

The World of Ice & Fire can be said to be the history book of the Seven Kingdoms, the world created by George R.R. Martin. The history starts right at the beginning before everything happens, and then moves on to just before where the novels and TV series start.

The book has lots of information and the accounts of events are written in such detail that fans of the novels will find irresistible. Martin has team up with Elio M. Garcia Jr and Kinda Antonsson, the founders of the fan site Westeros.org to expand on the universe.

This huge 328-page hardcover is beautiful designed with a embossed dragon on the front. The covers are padded with some sort of cushion. Inside, the pages are laid out with a good amount of text on old parchment-like background design with over 170 beautifully illustrated artworks throughout.

The quality of the text is a bit questionable. While Martin does provide the context, it seems that much was left to the other writers to fill in the blank so you have to take into account the liberty the other authors use. Many of the hard core fans commented on the believability and the usefulness of such a history book.

Ultimately, the highlight of the book turned out to be the stunningly beautiful artworks. There's a piece of art with the turn of each page. The artworks here are way better than those from The Art of George R.R. Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire Volume 1 & 2. You can tell professional artists were commissioned.

If you want to get the book to build on your knowledge of Westeros, I would say check out more reviews on Amazon first.

The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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