George R. R. Martin, The Ice Dragon (Tor, 2006)
I read every word of George R. R. Martin's The Ice Dragon in an afternoon . . . with a break for High Tea and a visit to the Green Man pub to hear a visiting hardanger fiddler from Sweden (who was sitting in this week with the Neverending Session) play 'Lonesome Fiddle Blues'. An amazing feat given that Martin's works generally run well over seven hundred pages long! Yes, it's set in The Song of Ice and Fire universe so you would rightfully suspect that it should be a rather long, convoluted novel that'd keep me busy for many a summer's afternoon. Well, you'd be wrong in the case, as it is but a chapbook in length at a mere one hundred and twelve, about half of which is illustrations. And it's his first children's book! Confused? You should be, so let me explain.
First, let's see what the very well-crafted press release from Tor has to say:
The ice dragon was a creature of legend and fear, for no man had ever tamed one. When it flew overhead, it left in its wake desolate cold and frozen land. But Adara was not afraid. For Adara was a winter child, born during the worst freeze that anyone, even the Old Ones, could remember. Adara could not remember the first time she had seen the ice dragon. It seemed that it had always been in her life, glimpsed from afar as she played in the frigid snow long after the other children had fled the cold. In her fourth year she touched it, and in her fifth year she rode upon its broad, chilled back for the first time. Then, in her seventh year, on a calm summer day, fiery dragons from the North swooped down upon the peaceful farm that was Adara’s home. And only a winter child -- and the ice dragon who loved her -- could save her world from utter destruction.
That same press release has the delightful artwork by Yvonne Gilbert for this tale. I was unable to locate any artwork from The Ice Dragon on her website, but I did get a response to my email to her. She sent me several lovely images by her that will grace The Ice Dragon! This is the cover art of Adara, the winter child, riding her ice dragon. Now you must know that this tale is set in the years long, long before the main tale told in his sprawling series, A Song of Ice and Fire. To quote Elizabeth Vail's GMR review of the first novels:
Since the creation of the first three novels of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, inevitable comparisons have been made, a great deal between him and another revered author and pioneer of the fantasy epic: J. R. R. Tolkien. The two men do have some things in common -- both have two middle names that start with R, for instance. However, one might suggest that a fairer comparison might be made between A Song of Ice and Fire and Tennyson's Idylls, the deliciously soapy medieval human drama that have made these books such a compelling and addictive read. While The Lord of the Rings had its own narrative element, its focus was primarily on plot, on that desperate goal to destroy the One Ring. A Song of Ice and Fire, with its first three enormous, and highly detailed novels, quickly establishes that its complex narrative is built on the back of its characters.
So what Gilbert and Martin are doing here is a fresh approach to this world. Her Ice Dragon cover shows a softer, less harsh view to a world not known for being particularly kind and gentle to children, nor is it really all that welcoming here. But dragons are long extinct before the first passages of Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series starts. So do pay attention to her look at the dragon here -- see this repeating chapter heading illustration of several dragons as they and their riders fight -- as you'll read but tales of them as long-gone legends, both for good and for evil, in A Song of Ice and Fire. And the illustration here of dragons doing battle is truly chilling. (There's a pun there, but you'll have to read The Ice Dragon to get it.)
But what about this tale? Surely Martin doesn't need illustrations to tell a tale? I'm an adult, you say, and I read books, not children's books. Philistine. This is a children's story of which the very, very best are always illustrated. And this is, though hardly a typical tale being closer to the Grimms than it is to Anderson in tone, among the best I've read. Martin's world is a dark, brooding place exemplified by the slogan of Stark Family ('Winter is coming') and The Ice Dragon is no exception. This is, at its heart, what a brave child and a dragon do when the North invades the South during the worse winter in centuries. And we mean real winter. Though GRRM has not explained it anywhere, this world which sort of could be another Earth has very erratic seasons -- long summers lasting years are followed by even longer winters. Winter and its warriors are not coming, but rather are here at her door now.
Now I don't plan on saying anything more about the plot of this slender volume, so I won't. It is very much worth reading if you're a dedicated fan of Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series; I'm not at all sure that it will mean anything at all to any reader who hasn't read that series. Is it a children's tale? Yes, in the manner of tales told by Norse mothers to their children on a long winters night when the fire is burning low and their children want another tale to stoke their imaginations. In that vein it reminds me of Beowulf more than anything else!
A postscript a few days after the review went up -- Andrew Wheeler on his SFBC blog pointed out that I missed an important fact about this novella: 'that this is Martin's story from the 1980 Orson Scott Card anthology Dragons of Light and has also been available in the Martin collection Portraits of His Children).' Thanks Andrew!
