In 2014, more than 200,000 words were removed from the manuscript of Martin's companion book
The World of Ice & Fire and were incorporated into
Fire & Blood.
[4]
In February 2017,
Elio M. García Jr., Martin's co-author for
The World of Ice & Fire, reported that he had spoken with Martin at
WorldCon 75, held in 2017 in
Helsinki, about the first volume of
Fire & Blood. According to García, in addition to the never-published material developed for
The World of Ice & Fire, Martin also created entirely new material for the book, having "worked some on just fleshing out a bit" the long reign of King
Jaehaerys I Targaryen, which was previously only mentioned in "Heirs of the Dragon", an unpublished text that Martin abridged in the novelette
The Rogue Prince.
[5]
On July 22, 2017, Martin revealed on his blog that the material for
Fire & Blood had grown so large that the decision had been made to publish the histories of the Targaryen kings in two volumes. The first volume, simply called
Fire & Blood, is set to cover the history of Westeros from Aegon's Conquest up to and through the regency of the boy king, Aegon III Targaryen. While the first volume of
Fire & Blood has been published, the second volume was largely unwritten as of July 2017.
[6]
In April 2018, when announcing the publication date, Martin revealed the manuscript to be 989 pages long.
[1] An excerpt was revealed in October 2018