This volume is the three Dunk and Egg novellas, together as one and beautifully illustrated. I'd read two of the stories before, but the fine pen drawings and general physical quality of this book make it a pleasure to own. As for the textual contents, Martin goes small, focusing on Westeros 100 years before the events of A Game of Thones as seen through the eyes of a hedge knight, a large lad raised up from the slums of King's Landing to really believe in honor, protecting the weak, and the brotherhood of men. In the first novella he picks up as his squire a Targaryen prince, and then go around having adventurers and mostly trying not to get killed.

Even though this is an age of peace, there's still plenty of misery. Plagues and famines rack the land, along with the aftermath of the Blackfyre rebellion, which killed thousands of knights and split the nobility into two uneasy camps. The first story is the best, with its focus on a single honorable tourney, and Dunk's survival in a trial by combat. The second focuses on a feud between an elderly knight and a young widow lady, and the way the ancient enmity and the smallest of insults can escalate to a sharp, pointless war. The final story brings it together with a scheme to restart the rebellion and bath Westeros in blood again.

The tighter focus, with a single POV and shorter length stories, constrains some of Martin's tendencies to wander away from the necessary climatic action, as anyone who's sat through Books 4 and 5 knows too well. However, with three stories together some other bad habits become evident; a tendency to lay on a few phrases very heavily, and a plot structure focused around trial by combat and Dunk's decency saving the day, that is almost too pat. This isn't GRRM on his worst day, but it isn't him on his best day either. Still, a fun read.