[2] Although originally planned for publication after the completion of the series,[3] Martin 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.

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 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a bit" the long reign of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, which was previously only mentioned in "Heirs of the Dragon", an unpublished text that Martin abridged to form the novelette The Rogue Prince.

[6] 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.

"[10] Roisin O'Connor of The Independent faulted the book for its dry tone and stated that reading it feels like "you've been assigned a mildly interesting, but often tedious, piece of homework".