The World of Ice & Fire

A maester of the Citadel has set down the history of the known world, and this book presents that record. It begins in the Dawn Age with the arrival of the First Men, then follows the Seven Kingdoms through the Targaryen conquest and the reign of the dragonlords. The account stops on the eve of Robert's Rebellion.

The narrator writes the way a real chronicler would, drawing on sources that sometimes contradict each other. The past comes through rumour, partisan chronicles and gaps no one can fill, so some events stay uncertain.

The scope reaches beyond Westeros to the Free Cities, Dorne, the Dothraki and other regions of Essos. Some of this material appears nowhere in the novels. Elio M. García Jr. and Linda Antonsson, who founded the Westeros.org fan site, wrote it with George R. R. Martin as the official companion to A Song of Ice and Fire.

Maps, family trees and artwork by more than two dozen illustrators accompany the text, which reads as history rather than a plot-driven story. Readers who know the novels or the HBO adaptation will find the backstory of the houses and wars they have followed.