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George RR Martin has described Fire And Blood as his equivalent of JRR Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. It is a backstory, telling the events that happened in Westeros 300 years before the events in A Song Of Ice And Fire. But there are significant differences. Tolkien’s work was written before The Lord Of The Rings, submitted for publication, rejected and published posthumously. In addition, it dealt with god-like entities and creation myths. The rejection of The Silmarillion (“too Celtic” according to the publisher; actually ersatz Norse) spurred him into telling a different story in the world he had built. Martin’s work is an extension to the stories already told in various spin-off books – The World Of Ice And Fire, the various short stories in Rogues and Dangerous Women. It is as if, having built his sandpit and played with his toys for a time, he now has set himself to engrave, elaborately, the railway-sleepers of the framework. Most fans will pounce on the book; more would rather they have The Winds Of Winter. But with the television series having outstripped the novels, and with HBO announcing a prequel series, at least they will have a good deal of material with which to work.