Tales of Dunk and Egg

Now I've officially run out of A Song of Ice and Fire reading - George R. R. Martin's Tales of Dunk and Egg is a series of three novellas set in the same world as A Game of Thrones, 90 years earlier (three novellas counts as a novel, right?).

It's the Tale of Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk), a Hedge Knight who grew up as a street urchin in the city of Kings Landing; and Aegon Targaryen (Egg), 5th or so in line to the throne of Westeros, who decides to become Dunk's squire. It's a nice little series of tales, much less dark and gritty than than A Game of Thrones and the other novels in the main series.

These novellas shows the depth of Martin's world building - many lords, knights, commoners, and other folk are mentioned, and many are related to people in ASoIaF. But it's not done in a shonky Star Wars style "everyone from the original trilogy who might have been alive 20 years earlier has an important part to play"; it's just that people have ancestors, and if you're a noble, chances are 90 years earlier that your family were nobles. These stories flesh out the history, and show another side to the Targaryens and many other families who appear in the novels.

I'm glad to read that Martin is planning to write more of these novellas - the series will either be six or twelve novellas, apparently.