Fire & Blood Vol. 1 | Aegon’s Conquest (Chapter 1)

Fire & Blood is a fantasy book by American writer George R. R. Martin and illustrated by Doug Wheatley. Audiobook read by Simon Vance. It tells the history of House Targaryen, the dynasty that ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros in the backstory of his series A Song of Ice and Fire.

Although originally planned for publication after the completion of the series, Martin has revealed his intent to publish the history in two volumes as the material had grown too large. The second half of this first volume (an expanded version of The Princess and the Queen) has been adapted into the HBO series House of the Dragon, a prequel to Game of Thrones. Much material published in Fire & Blood originates from the writing of Martin's 2014 book The World of Ice & Fire. The World of Ice & Fire, written from the perspective of Maester Yandel, contains sections from the perspective of Archmaester Gyldayn. These sections were written by Martin on his own; however, he wrote much more than at first intended, and in the end delivered 180,000 words on Targaryen history. The great majority of this covered Aegon's Conquest up to the end of the Regency of Aegon III. Furthermore, Fire & Blood contains an overview of the entire Targaryen succession, and a family tree depicting the Targaryen family until 136 AC.

Rather than a novel, Fire & Blood takes the form of a scholarly treatise about the Targaryen dynasty written by a historian within the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, Archmaester Gyldayn. Gyldayn cites a variety of fictional primary sources for the historical events he describes, whose accounts sometimes conflict with each other, reflecting medieval methods of historiography and thus making Gyldayn an unreliable narrator from the reader's perspective. George R. R. Martin has cited Thomas B. Costain's non-fiction books on the Plantagenet dynasty as an influence for Fire and Blood.

The first volume of Fire & Blood contains the following texts:
- "The Targaryen Conquest": Aegon I Targaryen's conquest of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. Published in more or less same version in The World of Ice & Fire.
- "The Peace of the Dragon": Aegon I's reign after his Conquest. While Aegon I's reign is briefly glossed over in The World of Ice & Fire, no parts of the text have been published before.
- "The Sons of the Dragon": Focuses on the lives of Aegon I's sons, King Aenys I Targaryen and King Maegor I Targaryen, ending with Maegor's death and the ascension of Aenys's son Jaehaerys I Targaryen to the throne.
- "Heirs of the Dragon": It focuses on the reign of Jaehaerys I Targaryen and the succession crisis following the deaths of his sons.
. "The Dying of the Dragons": it focuses on the great civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons, the Targaryen civil war between Rhaenyra Targaryen and her half-brother Aegon II for the throne.
- "Aftermath — The Boy King and His Regents": Covering the first few years of the reign of Rhaenyra's young son Aegon III, when the realm was ruled by Aegon's regents.