The World Of Ice and Fire is a companion to George R.R. Martin's legendary series A Song Of Ice and Fire (to be reviewed at a future date). This review will be most useful to those who are already acquainted with those books.
Written as an in-world history text by a maester at the Citadel, The World of Ice and Fire (henceforth abbreviated as WOIAF) chronicles the history and culture of the known reaches of Planetos. It includes the sections:
Ancient History (recounting the Dawn Age, the Fist Men, the Age of Heroes, the Long Night, Valyria, the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the Doom)
The Reign of the Dragons, the Targaryen Kings, the Fall of the Dragons (The reigns of each of the Targaryen Kings, from Aegon's Conquest to Robert's Rebellion)
The Seven Kingdoms (A survey of the culture, geography, and history of each of the Seven Kingdoms, as well as the Iron Islands and Beyond the Wall - maps of each region included)
Beyond the Sunset Kingdom (An exploration of lands beyond Westeros, including the Free Cities, the Summer Isles, Naath, the Basilisk Isles, Sothoryos, the Dothraki Sea and the Grasslands, the Shivering Sea and Ib, Yi Ti, the plains of the Jogos Nhai, Leng, and Asshai-by-the-Shadow)
An Appendix including full two-page spreads displaying Targaryen, Stark and Lannister family trees (of which, far and away the most complicated is the Targaryen one, crisscrossed as it is by regular, often intergenerational incest) as well as a timeline of the reigns of the Targaryen and Baratheon kings and a map of the crownlands.
What struck me about WOIAF was the extraordinary level of detail put into each and every one of those sections and their subsections. The reign of each Targaryen king, the lore of each of the Seven Kingdoms, the histories of each of the Free Cities, the knowledge of each of the obscure peoples of the east - all are exhaustively described and developed, almost to the point of being overwhelming. I thought Martin's worldbuilding in the main series (A Song of Ice and Fire, henceforth ASOIAF) was itself enormous and breathtaking - but this is something else. It borders on obsessive. And I love it.
The most helpful section for me was the one covering the reigns of the Targaryens, because it helped me better understand a lot of the historical references in the main series, especially the Blackfyre Rebellions and the War of the Ninepenny Kings. My favorite section, though, was Beyond the Sunset Kingdom - the countless mysteries of Essos alone fascinate me (not to mention Sothoryos and Ulthos), and the stories of the people in the farthest reaches of the continent (many of whom are not even mentioned in ASOIAF) are intriguing.
Some fans of ASOIAF have criticized the book as being too much of a reference text, and not in the narrative style of ASOIAF that they enjoyed so much. I can understand that perspective; after all, the book is written as if by an in-world scholar producing a historical reference text. But I think that criticism misses the difference in purpose between ASOIAF and WOIAF - the book series is a story, meant to be captivating as a narrative. WOIAF, on the other hand, exists for the purpose of further developing the world, not the plot, of ASOIAF. As a history nerd, I relish this stuff - but for that matter, I think Martin's prose is sufficiently beautiful and captivating, and the subject matter sufficiently fascinating, that even less historically enthused readers can enjoy going through this tome.
The argument can be made that you don't need to read or buy WOIAF because all of its information is already cataloged in the searchable online ASOIAF wiki, A Wiki Of Ice and Fire. And that is true. But what I love about WOIAF is that I am able to get to everything all at once, in a coherent order and with ample context, rather than picking things up piecemeal from individual wiki searches. Then again, I'm a very thorough, meticulous person. For someone who prefers learning on the go and picking things up as they become necessary, A Wiki Of Ice and Fire may suffice.
Even for those people, though, there are advantages to WOIAF that go beyond its content or its function. It is itself a beautiful piece of art that I think any devoted ASOIAF fan would be proud to own. The front and back covers are made of thick, soft material, and the Targaryen sigil and title lettering on the front are textured. The text is printed on high-quality paper tinted yellow and with added stains and textures to make it appear like a true medieval text, and the maps and illustrations are beautiful. Reading from it makes you feel like a true ASOIAF historian, and while looking up a reference from the index and flipping through the pages may not be as fast or convenient as doing a digital search on A Wiki Of Ice and Fire, it's a hell of a lot more fun.
For all these reasons, I highly recommend The World of Ice And Fire to any ASOIAF fan.
Important note: I also HIGHLY, HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend The Lands of Ice and Fire, a collection of twelve large, high-quality maps of Planetos, including:
The Known World
The West
Central Essos
The East
Westeros
Beyond the Wall
The Free Cities
Slaver's Bay
The Dothraki Sea
King's Landing
Braavos
Journeys (a map tracking the movements of ASOIAF characters throughout the series)
While the included maps in WOIAF are helpful, they're also limited in detail and somewhat crude. The maps of The Lands of Ice and Fire are large, precise, and very detailed, not to mention beautiful and satisfying to look at, and are excellent to have for reference when reading up on different places in WOIAF.
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