The Rise of the Dragon: An Illustrated History of the Targaryen Dynasty, Volume One (The Targaryen Dynasty: The House of the Dragon) Hardcover – October 25, 2022

If you’re a huge fan of Game Of Thrones I suggest you buy this book. Tells you everything you need to know about the history of the Targaryens

I had the audiobook but I had to get this for the pictures!

It's pretty

I purchased this as a gift for my son, who is a huge fan of The Game of Thrones.

It’s amazing I love it

I absolutely love delving into the lore and history of fictional worlds, so I've read Fire & Blood at least twice (I often re-read my favorite parts), and I often read a passage of World of Ice and Fire before going to bed. I was initially psyched for this book, but I was quickly disappointed. It is essentially just Fire & Blood, but with about two-thirds removed, which makes it too long to be a quick reference book (like World of Ice and Fire), but too short to be a real history (like Fire & Blood). I've read parts of it, but I can't imagine reading this from start-to-end, since it is way better just to re-read Fire & Blood.One of my favorite tales from Fire & Blood was the scandal of Saera Targaryen, one of the later children of King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne. Rise of the Dragon turns it from an engaging eleven-and-a-half pages (not including the great buildup and backstory of Saera before the scandal) to the equivalent of about 2-3 pages, which is too long to be a quick reference, but too short to get the real juicy details of the original (and yes, I literally flipped through the two books to count the number of pages, that's how crazy I am). The return of Aerea Targaryen, one of the biggest magical-lore reveals of Fire & Blood, is shortened to a single paragraph.The main thing that bumps this up from 2-or-3 stars to 4 stars is the artwork. Since this is mainly just about the first half of the rule of the Targaryens, it is not as varied as World of Ice and Fire (which had some amazing pictures of not just the Iron Throne, but Casterly Rock, Braavos, Valyria, maps of the regions in Westeros, and more), so the images are mainly of Targaryen battles and their lives, but what they do have is gorgeous, and they really bring the story to life (there is one picture near the end of the Dance of the Dragons that is particularly horrific, at least to me, since it drives home how young these soldiers could be).There are also some good quick notes between some of the paragraphs. When I was reading Fire & Blood, I thought it might be good to have a quick reference list of all of Jaehaerys's Seven Speakers who preached about Exceptionalism (so Targaryens could continue to marry their sibling, which ew, but it's good that there's an explanation on why they could keep doing it), and there is a great list on page 127. The small council that put Aegon II into power (recently shown in episode 9 of House of the Dragon) has a great list on page 202, naming each member and their titles). The book would probably be better if it was more of this stuff.I've half-considered returning my copy, since there doesn't seem to be any new lore, and I can always read World of Ice and Fire for a quick reference, and Fire & Blood for details (as detailed as you can get in a purposefully-biased history). This is really only good as an art book (the art really is gorgeous), but for the written content, there are better places you can get it.

It came in without any indents or damage. To my surprise it was also a first edition copy.

The book came in great condition and is a very interesting read.