Review: The Ice Dragon by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
“The ice dragon breathed cold…Warmth fled. Fires guttered and went out, shriven by the chill…Animals turned blue and whimpered and died, their eyes bulging and their skin covered over with frost. The ice dragon breathed death into the world; death and quiet and cold.”
Ah, yes, what a lovely book for children! Full of animals’ eyes bulging out of their heads, and throngs of men returning from war with no legs or arms, or blinded by evil fire dragons. The perfect bedtime story!
This short story, originally written by Martin in 1980, was sold on three main points: the first being that the creator of the infamous, deadly, gut-wrenching Red Wedding, and man responsible for all your favorite characters’ deaths, has written a children’s book! How intriguing! Well, I would like to know who the hell the parents are that are reading this to little Sally and Bobby while tucking them in at night. Because it’s a pretty fucked up, gruesome story. Just because the story is short, has a young girl as the protagonist, and has illustrations, does not make this a children’s book.
The second selling point was that this story takes place in the same world as A Song of Ice and Fire, although perhaps hundreds of years before even the Doom of Valyria. It doesn’t. Martin has said it himself. End of argument and theories. This short story was written years before Westeros and the rest of that world even existed in his mind. Nice try, though, publishers.
The last, and only redeeming point, of re-publishing this story was that there are all new illustrations, done mostly in blue ink, by Luis Royo. These paintings were the best part of this book.
“The winter is in her, you know. Whenever I touch her I feel the chill…I loved her best of all, my little winter child. But she has never loved back. There is nothing in her for me, or you, any of us. She is such a cold little girl.”
There are regular fire-breathing dragons that can be trained by humans (and therefore used in battles), and there are mysterious ice dragons that only come during winter. Or they are the ones that bring winter. This is never clear. The enemy’s dragon-force is such superior to the unnamed kingdom where Adara and her family reside, and eventually, it is up to Adara and her ice dragon friend to save her family.
I suppose “children’s books” aren’t meant to be full of plot twists. But coming from the greatest fantasy writer of our time, I expected so much more. It bored me, not to mention pissed me off. This fucking brat Adara abandons her family for a dragon. People die because she wouldn’t listen to her father and uncle. I’m not really sure if this is meant to be a lesson to children, or if Martin is just trying to be shocking.
Martin wrote this story almost 40 years ago. So why revive it? My guess is either he (or his agent) was trying to appease his hungry fans while we continue our seemingly endless wait for The Winds of Winter. Well, I am not appeased, and I am certainly not impressed.
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