You are waiting, I am waiting, we are all waiting --- for the next book in A Song of Ice and Fire (coming out who knows when; most of us would like to lock George R.R. Martin in a room with a computer and not let him out until he's done) and for the new season of “Game of Thrones”(Spring 2015, says the HBO site). It's hard for an I&F/GoT addict (abbreviated for convenience hereafter) to find things to do in the meantime.

You can dip into graphic novels (THE HEDGE KNIGHT, THE SWORN SWORD); peruse the volume of maps, THE LANDS OF ICE AND FIRE, that came out two years ago; or explore Martin's earlier works (I read DYING OF THE LIGHT, which I loved). There's even a cookbook! You can play video, card or board games. You can purchase fan artifacts from a crazy array of choices: replicas of the Iron Throne ranging from a few inches to life size ($30,000 plus $2,500 shipping, at the HBO store); an audio course in the Dothraki language; a Hodor mug; a fleece blanket bearing the sigils of Westeros's noble houses (the Stark direwolf is my fave); and much, much more.

But what we really want is a book, and this one is a doozie: 9x12, an inch and a quarter thick, fully illustrated, and weighing a ton. You may ask: Why is George R.R. sharing the byline with Elio M. García, Jr. and Linda Antonsson? Because they are the founders of the elaborate fan site Westeros.org, and I wager that when it comes to I&F/GoT lore, they are second only to Martin himself.

Full disclosure: I came late to the books, after the first season of the TV show. Yet Westeros is one of those created worlds --- like Narnia, or Middle Earth, or Oz --- that draws us in so completely that we are hungry for more factoids, more characters, more background, more insight, just…more. THE WORLD OF ICE & FIRE is a nourishing feast for the curious. 

What it is not is a prequel.

If you're looking for a story qua story, you'll be disappointed. Purportedly written by one Maester Yandel (the pages look like old vellum, brown and crisp around the edges), drawing on the scholarly archives of the Citadel, The World of Ice & Fire  is a combined history, anthropology and geography of Westeros and the lands around it. Yandel's tone is mostly skeptical and earnest, attempting to distinguish fact from legend, but he is also, like so many medieval scribes, lavish in his praise for the ruling house. (That's probably where the Citadel's funding comes from.)

Yandel divides his book into two major sections. In the first, he recounts the history of Westeros, ending just about where I&F/GoT begins, during the late days of the reign of Robert Baratheon (remember him? Cersei's husband, Joffrey and Tommen's putative father? Friend of Eddard Stark, who becomes his Hand?). Our narrator is optimistic that a new golden age has begun.

"Put THE WORLD OF ICE & FIRE on your shelf alongside the books, DVDs, dragon-egg paperweight and Tyrion Lannister action figure. Its dramas and details can only enhance your pleasure in the twists and turns that future incarnations of I&F/GoT have in store for us."

But Yandel has changed his tune by the conclusion of the second part, which is a comprehensive account of the Seven Kingdoms and the lands around them. He writes in an Afterword that "a madness of pride and violence" has struck the realm: Robert and Joffrey ("fair son and heir") have died or been murdered, young Tommen is on the throne, and there are rumors of "dragons reborn" in the East (on the facing page is a picture of Daenerys and her three-winged, fire-breathing babies). Here is a case where fans of the series know more than the author about what happens next!  

Unless you are a true Westeros fanatic, however, this is a book for skimming, not reading word for word. It’s exhaustive and, sometimes, a bit exhausting. It's pretty, with loads of old-timey illustrations by 27 artists (in the broodingly romantic style of a fantasy calendar, where the people's faces all look kind of similar, varying mainly in their clothing, coloring and hairdos). There are also gorgeous maps and family trees. But here's where it's useful: I&F/GoT is such a complex story that sometimes a person can get confused about the earlier history and basic geography of the world. And, after all, the past --- wars, loves, betrayals, enmities --- drives much of the action in both the books and the HBO series.

To give but one example, the Targaryen dynasty (Daenerys being its last living descendant) ruled Westeros for 300 years, yet it is gone by the time I&F/GoT begins. Here you get the whole backstory: who the Targaryens were; why their dragons died out; how incest became a family tradition (the kings frequently married their sisters; Jaime and Cersei's affair seems less creepy in historical context). Tywin Lannister, it turns out, was the Hand of the last Targaryen king (Aerys II, the Mad King), thus explaining why his family is such a potent force in Westeros.

To be sure, I was most immediately grabbed by anything bearing on I&F/GoT, but this book goes back much, much further than that --- to the dawn of history on Westeros. If you've ever wondered where the weirwoods come from, or whether Giants really walked the earth, or why swords of Valyrian steel have such "unnatural strength," the answers are here. The book ranges from the icy heights of The Wall and the White Waste beyond to the forbidding Iron Islands, from the Lannister stronghold Casterly Rock to rebellious Dorne, from the so-called Free Cities (including Braavos, where Arya Stark later goes, and Pentos, whence came Varys, the spymaster of King's Landing) to the steppes where the Dothraki horsemasters roam. You finish the book with a heightened, vivid sense of each area's landscape, inhabitants and culture.

Put THE WORLD OF ICE & FIRE on your shelf alongside the books, DVDs, dragon-egg paperweight and Tyrion Lannister action figure. Its dramas and details can only enhance your pleasure in the twists and turns that future incarnations of I&F/GoT have in store for us.

Hey, George: We're waiting.