The Rise of the Dragon: An Illustrated History of the Targaryen Dynasty, Volume One

The book is a MASTER PIECE with all the art work and the binding of the book itself. The quality of the hardcover is a 10/10, pages also have that sturdy but smooth feel and the impression is really good.The story is a condensation of Fire and Blood where you can learn the history of the Targaryens in a superficial way, so take in mind there's a lot of details and dialogues missing from the other books. If you only care about the story i dont think this would be the best purchase for you, but if you like to collect things (and enjoy having pretty things like me) this is a most to.

Perfect for all those in love with Targaryens, dragons and of course, more dragons... Illustrations are brilliant.

Beautiful book - the illustrations are really nice and it's huge!! Glad to beginning my collection of George R.R Martin.

Here in the Citadel, it is always a pleasure to come across some dusty old tome tucked away in a forgotten corner of the great library. “The Rise of the Dragon” is one such. Of course in the forging of my chain I have long been a scholar of Maester Gyldayn’s thoroughly charming “Fire and Blood.” Seeing that this new volume purported to be a history of the Targaryen Dynasty, I suspected it was but a forgery of Gyldayn’s essential work. In fact, to my surprise, the text appears to be mostly if not wholly unique. A more rigorous comparison of the two works is in order, but for the time I can say that while this history details the same stories we have all come to know and love, those stories are told with a new voice and accompanied by lavish illustrations from many a Westerosi artist.(As for its authorship, I suspect none other than Maester Yandel, famed for once uncovering the earliest manuscripts of Gyldayn among the papers of Archmaester Gerold during the reign of King Robert Baratheon, First of His Name.)It is a joy to see that Yandel’s lesser-known epic is now being copied and sold across Westeros.If you are a poor acolyte and have the good fortune to have access to any of Maester Gyldayn’s original writings on the Targaryen dynasty, you can save your gold dragons knowing that nothing new will be unveiled in these pages. However, if you intend to add the copper link of history to your own chain, and must needs collect as many rare historical tomes as possible, then do not skip this. Derivative it may be—but I for one am grateful to revisit the trials and tribulations of the Targaryen reign, and this is no unworthy history of our realm.

The book is great and I totally recommend it! Just like Fire & Blood except it's more broken down & summarized, beautiful artwork & slightly taller than an Algebra textbook.If You're a Collector: What I don't recommend is buying it from Amazon. It was important to me to get my hands on a first edition. A $60 tome of beautiful pictures & outstanding writing that one day will be worth much more. However, Amazon facilities don't respect the importance of how to deliver an item like this. When it arrived it wasn't wrapped, the edges weren't protected and it was just thrown in a box. As if I just bought a mass market paperback. The corners of my book were worn to the white underneath cover & there's scuffs on both covers where you can see scuffs. The box was too too big,leaving the book to freely slide all around. There were no air packs, bubble wrap or anything else to protect it. They aren't noticeable unless I point them out but that's beside my point. The options with Amazon are refund or exchange but I don't want either because I wanted mine to be among the earliest printed and build my own collection with the future volumes. I'm going to keep it. If you're buying the first edition as a collector, I do suggest purchasing it in an actual bookstore. That's what I'll be doing in the future. I look forward to the future volumes.

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.