The World of Ice & Fire

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The World of Ice and Fire
World of ice and fire.JPG
Author Elio Garcia
Linda Antonsson
George R. R. Martin
Country United States
United Kingdom
Language English
Publisher Random House Publishing Group[1]
Harper Voyager[2]
Released October 28th, 2014[1][2]
Cover Artist Ted Nasmith
Media Type Print (Hardback)
audiobook & e-book
Pages 336
ISBN 9780553805444[1]
9780007580910[2]
Purchase The World of Ice and Fire
For the in-universe work of Maester Yandel, see The World of Ice and Fire (Yandel).
Not to be confused with A World of Ice and Fire, a mobile companion guide

The World of Ice and Fire is a companion volume to the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, provisionally known as a 'world book'. The full title is The World of Ice and Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones.

The book was written by Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson in consultation with George R. R. Martin. In the United States the book was published by Bantam, in the United Kingdom by Harper Voyager.

The World of Ice and Fire was released on October 28th, 2014.[1][2]

History

Garcia and Antonsson run Westeros, the largest A Song of Ice and Fire community and online concordance of information on the series on the internet. Martin has already confirmed that he sometimes uses the existing online concordance to rapidly double-check information if he is away from his notes. He has joked that his co-authors know more about the continent of Westeros than he does.

Contents

The World of Ice and Fire is divided in several parts:[3]

  • Ancient History, starting with the Dawn Age, and ending with the Doom of Valyria
  • The Reign of the Dragons, telling about the war of Conquest
  • The Targaryen Kings, about the reigns of all Targaryen Kings, beginning with King Aegon I Targaryen and ending with the reign of King Aerys II Targaryen
  • The Fall of the Dragons, about the year of the false spring, Robert's Rebellion itself and its aftermath.
  • The Glorious Reign
  • The Seven Kingdoms, histories about the North, the Wall and Beyond, the Riverlands, the Vale, the Iron Islands, the Westerlands, the Reach, the Stormlands and Dorne.
  • Beyond the Sunset Kingdoms, about the Free Cities, and the lands east from there.
  • Appendix, consisting out of a family tree for House Targaryen, a family tree for House Stark, a family tree for House Lannister, and an overview of the reigns of the Kings.

Further, the book contains artwork by twenty-seven different artists.[3] Both the art in the book, and the family trees displayed as an appendix, are completely out-of-universe.[4]

Samples

A few sample chapters were released in the months prior to the release of the book:

Further, Harper Voyager released a Fact of Ice and Fire in the days leading up to the release of the book, through their twitter account.[6]

Cover

The english versions of The World of Ice and fire are available in two different versions: the red cover, displayed on the top of this page, and a black cover. The former version of the book is published by Bantam, the latter by Harper Voyager.

Notes

There were a few typos or mistakes in the first edition. Among these is that Alys Blackwood was the aunt of Benjicott Blackwood, not his sister, as well as a few mistakes in the genealogy trees. Garcia has stated these will be corrected in future editions.

The conceit of the novel is that it is an in-universe history text written by Maester Yandel, originally for Robert Baratheon. However as the Afterward explains, Yandel is still alive as of the current novels, and has lived through the deaths of both Robert and Joffrey. The edition published in 2014 is the version produced by Yandel at the time of the fourth and fifth novels, for Tommen Baratheon.

As a result, Garcia explained, for fear of angering the Lannisters, Yandel cut out from his original draft all but the bare minimum of material on Ned Stark, Stannis Baratheon, and several other figures:

"In particular, Yandel starts to get quite careful when he writes about events in which various important, influential, powerful, and (most of all) still living people had a role. He has an interest in keeping his head on his neck. Ned and Stannis practically disappear from the account of the rebellion because Yandel has cut out his original account of the rebellion after Robert's death, Eddard's execution for treason, and Stannis and Renly proclaiming for the throne, and hastily did a revised and more politically acceptable one."[7]

References and Notes