A Song of Ice and Fire

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This article is about the series of novels. For the television adaptation, see Game of Thrones (TV series).
A Song of Ice and Fire
A Game of Thrones Novel Covers.png
North American covers for the first five books
Author George R. R. Martin
Country United States
Language English
Genre High fantasy, dark fantasy, medieval fantasy
Publisher Bantam Books (USA, Canada)
Voyager Books (UK, Australia)
AST (Russia)
Published August 6, 1996–present
Media type print (hardcover and paperback)
audiobook

A Song of Ice and Fire is an ongoing series of epic fantasy novels by American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. Martin began writing the series in 1991 and the first volume was published in 1996. Originally planned as a trilogy, the series now consists of five published volumes; a further two are planned. In addition there are three prequel novellas currently available, with several more being planned, and a series of novella-length excerpts from the main Ice and Fire novels.

The story of A Song of Ice and Fire takes place in a fictional world, primarily on a continent called Westeros but also on a large landmass to the east, known as Essos. Most of the characters are human but as the series progresses others are introduced, such as the assumed-to-be-extinct cold supernatural Others from the far North and fire-breathing dragons from the East. The series is told in the third-person through the eyes of a number of point of view characters, 31 by the end of the fifth book.

There are three story lines that become increasingly interwoven: the chronicling of a dynastic civil war for control of Westeros among several competing families; the rising threat of the Others, who dwell beyond an immense wall of ice that forms Westeros' northern border; and the ambition of Daenerys Targaryen, the exiled daughter of a king who was murdered 15 years earlier in another civil war, to return to Westeros and claim her rightful throne.

The "Ice and Fire" series has been translated into more than 20 languages. The fourth and fifth volumes reached the top of The New York Times Best Seller lists in 2005 and 2011.[1] Overall, the series has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide.[2] One of the excerpt novellas won science fiction's Hugo Award. The series is the basis of a great number of derived works, including the HBO TV series Game of Thrones, a comic book adaptation, a card game, a board game, a role-playing game and two video games.

Contents

[edit] Plot synopsis

Further information: Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire and World of A Song of Ice and Fire
The Iron Throne (here, a prop from the TV series) symbolizes the rule of Westeros for which the noble houses contend.

A Song of Ice and Fire follows three principal storylines that are divided by geography and participants. All events are told from the perspective of viewpoint characters. Set in the Seven Kingdoms on the fictional continent called Westeros, the principal storyline chronicles a many-sided power struggle for the Iron Throne after the king's death in the first book. The second storyline takes place on the extreme northern border of Westeros, where a huge wall of ice and gravel is to guard the kingdom against mythical creatures living beyond the wall. The third storyline is set on a huge eastern continent named Essos and follows the adventures of a king's daughter from a previous dynasty, laying claim to the Iron Throne.

A Game of Thrones begins with Robert of House Baratheon ruling as King of Westeros. After his death midway through the first book, his son Joffrey claims the Iron Throne with the support of his mother's powerful family, House Lannister. When Lord Eddard Stark, King Robert's "Hand" (chief advisor), finds out Joffrey and his siblings were in fact not sired by Robert, Robert's younger brothers Stannis and Renly individually lay claim on the throne. Meanwhile, several regions of Westeros seek to return to self-rule: Eddard Stark's eldest son Robb is proclaimed King in the North and Balon Greyjoy (re-)claims the ancient throne of his own region, the Iron Islands. This so-called War of the Five Kings is in full progress by the middle of the second book, A Clash of Kings, with more people gradually joining the struggle for power.

Meanwhile, winter befalls Westeros from the north. A huge wall of ice and gravel, constructed on the extreme northern border of Westeros many thousands of years ago, is to defend Westeros from the northern threat of the Others, a race of mythical creatures not seen in over 8,000 years. The Sworn Brotherhood of the Night's Watch, who maintain the Wall, spend most of their time dealing with the human wildlings living beyond the Wall when the first Others appear at the beginning of A Game of Thrones. The Night's Watch storyline is told primarily through the eyes of Jon Snow, bastard son of Eddard Stark, as he rises through the ranks of the Watch and learns the true nature of the threat from the north. By the end of the third volume, A Storm of Swords, this storyline becomes entangled with the civil war to the south when Stannis, the sole survivor of the original five self-proclaimed kings, has moved to the Wall to protect the realm from the threat of invasion and simultaneously win the favor of the northern strongholds. In the fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, Joffrey's younger brother Tommen holds the Iron Throne, with his mother and later his uncle serving as his regents as the first snowflakes reach the king's capital.

The story of Daenerys Targaryen, the last scion of House Targaryen and another claimant to the Iron Throne, is pretty much separated until more POV characters join her in A Dance with Dragons. Living in exile on the continent of Essos, Daenerys's adventures showcase her growing ability as she rises from a pauper sold into a dynastic marriage to a barbarian warlord to a powerful and canny ruler in her own right. Her rise is aided by the birth of three dragons, creatures thought long extinct, from fossilized eggs given to her as wedding gifts. Because her family standard is the dragon, these creatures are of symbolic value before they have grown big enough to be of tactical use for her stated goal to reclaim the Iron Throne.

[edit] Publishing history

[edit] Overview

See also: Translations of A Song of Ice and Fire

All page totals given below are for the US paperback edition and hardcover editions. The Ice and Fire series has also been translated into more than 20 languages.[3]

# Title Pages Chapters Audio US release
1. A Game of Thrones 807 (704 hardcover) 77 33h 53m August 1996[4]
2. A Clash of Kings 969 (784 hardcover) 70 37h 17m February 1999[5]
3. A Storm of Swords 1128 (992 hardcover) 82 47h 37m November 2000[6]
4. A Feast for Crows 976 (784 hardcover) 46 31h 10m November 2005[7]
5. A Dance with Dragons 1136[8] (959 hardcover) 73 48h 56m July 2011[9]
6. The Winds of Winter[10] (Forthcoming)
7. A Dream of Spring[11] (Forthcoming)

Three novellas based on chapter sets from the books were released between 1996 and 2003:

  • Blood of the Dragon (July 1996),[12] taken from the Daenerys chapters in A Game of Thrones.
  • Path of the Dragon (December 2000),[13] based on the Daenerys chapters in A Storm of Swords.
  • Arms of the Kraken (March 2003),[14] based on the Iron Islands chapters from A Feast for Crows.

[edit] First three novels (1991–2000)

George R. R. Martin at the 2011 Time 100 gala.

George R. R. Martin was already a successful fantasy and sci-fi author and TV writer before writing his A Song of Ice and Fire book series.[15] Martin published his first short story in 1971 and his first novel in 1977.[16] By the mid-1990s, he had won three Hugo Awards, two Nebulas and other awards for his short fiction.[17] Although his early books were well received within the fantasy fiction community, his readership remained relatively small and Martin took on jobs as a writer in Hollywood in the mid-1980s.[17] He principally worked on the revival of The Twilight Zone throughout 1986 and on Beauty and the Beast from 1987 through 1990, but also developed his own TV pilots and wrote feature film scripts. Growing frustrated that none of his pilots and screenplays were getting made,[17] he was also getting tired of TV-related production limitations like budgets and episode lengths that often forced him to cut characters and trim battle scenes.[18] This pushed Martin back towards writing books, his first love, where he did not have to worry about compromising the magnitude of his imagination.[17] Admiring the works of J. R. R. Tolkien in his childhood, he wanted to write an epic fantasy but did not have any specific ideas.[19]

When Martin was between Hollywood projects in the summer of 1991, he started writing a new science fiction novel called Avalon. After three chapters, he had a vivid idea of a boy seeing a man's beheading and finding direwolves in the snow, which would eventually become the first non-prologue chapter of A Game of Thrones.[20] Putting Avalon aside, Martin finished this chapter in a few days and grew certain that it was part of a longer story.[21] After a few more chapters, Martin perceived his new book as a fantasy story[21] and started making maps and genealogies.[15] However, the writing of this book was interrupted for a few years when Martin returned to Hollywood to produce his TV series Doorways that ABC had ordered but eventually never aired.[18]

Martin resumed work on A Game of Thrones in 1994, selling the novel as part of a trilogy to his agent,[18] with the novels A Dance with Dragons and The Winds of Winter following.[22] Shortly afterwards, while still writing the novel, he felt the series needed to be four and eventually six books,[18] imagined as two linked trilogies of one long story.[23] Martin, who likes ambiguous fiction titles because he feels they enrich the writing, chose A Song of Ice And Fire as the overall series title: Martin saw the struggle of the cold Others and the fiery dragons as one possible meaning for "Ice and Fire", whereas the word "song" had previously appeared in Martin's book titles A Song for Lya and Songs of the Dead Men Sing, stemming from his obsessions with songs.[24]

The finished manuscript for A Game of Thrones was 1088 pages long (without the appendices),[25] with the publication following in August 1996.[4] Wheel of Time author Robert Jordan had written a short endorsement for the cover that was influential in ensuring the book's and hence series' early success with fantasy readers.[26] Released for pre-release publicity, a sample novella called Blood of the Dragon went on to win the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella.[27]

The second book called A Clash of Kings was released in February 1999 in the United States,[5] with a manuscript length (without appendices) of 1184 pages.[25] A Clash of Kings was the first book of the Ice and Fire series to make the best-seller lists,[18] reaching 13 on the The New York Times Best Seller list in 1999.[28] After the success of The Lord of the Rings, Martin received his first inquiries to the rights of the Ice and Fire series from various producers and filmmakers.[18]

Martin was several months late turning in the third book, A Storm of Swords.[17] The last chapter he had written was about the "Red Wedding", a scene notable for its violence two-thirds through the book (see Themes: Violence and death).[29] A Storm of Swords was 1521 pages in manuscript (without appendices),[25] causing problems for many of Martin's publishers around the world. Bantam Books published A Storm of Swords in a single volume in the United States in November 2000,[6] whereas some other-language editions were divided into two, three, or even four volumes.[25] A Storm of Swords debuted at number 12 in the New York Times bestseller list.[27][30]

[edit] Bridging the timeline gap (2000–2011)

After A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords, Martin originally intended to write three more books.[17] The fourth book, tentatively titled A Dance with Dragons, was to focus on Daenerys Targaryen's return to Westeros and the conflicts that creates.[23] Martin wanted to set this story five years after A Storm of Swords so that the younger characters could grow older and the dragons grow larger.[31] Agreeing with his publishers early on that the new book should be shorter than A Storm of Swords, Martin set out to write the novel closer in length to A Clash of Kings.[25] A long prologue was to establish what had happened in the meantime, initially just as one chapter of Aeron Damphair on the Iron Islands at the Kingsmoot. Since the events in Dorne and the Iron Islands were to have an impact on the book, Martin eventually expanded the Kingsmoot events to be told from three new viewpoints since the existing POV characters were not present in Dorne and the Iron Islands.[32]

In 2001, Martin was still optimistic that the fourth installment might be released in the last quarter of 2002.[24] However, the five-year gap did not work for all characters during writing. On one hand, Martin was unsatisfied with covering the events during the gap solely through flashbacks and internal retrospection. On the other hand, it was implausible to have nothing happening for five years.[31] After working on the book for about a year, Martin realized he needed an additional interim book, which he called A Feast for Crows.[31] The book would pick up the story immediately after the third book, and Martin scrapped the idea of a five-year gap.[24] The material of the 250-page prologue for the beginning of A Feast for Crows was mixed in as new viewpoint characters from Dorne and the Iron Islands.[32] As these expanded storylines affected the others, the plot became much more complicated for Martin.[33]

The manuscript length of A Feast For Crows eventually surpassed A Storm of Swords.[31] Martin was reluctant to make the necessary deep cuts to get the book down to publishable length, as that would have compromised the story he had in mind. Printing the book in "microtype on onion skin paper and giving each reader a magnifying glass" was also not an option for him.[25] On the other hand, Martin rejected the publishers' idea of splitting the narrative chronologically into A Feast for Crows, Parts One and Two.[1] Being already late with the book, Martin had not even started writing all characters' stories[34] and also objected ending the first book without any resolution for its many viewpoint characters and their respective stories as in previous books.[31]

Since the characters were spread out across the world,[22] a friend of Martin suggested to divide the story geographically into two volumes, of which A Feast for Crows would be the first.[1] Splitting the story this way would give Martin the room to complete his commenced story arcs as he had originally intended,[25] which he still felt was the best approach years later.[22] Martin moved the unfinished characters' stories set in the east (Essos) and north (Winterfell and the Wall) into the next book, A Dance with Dragons,[35] and left A Feast for Crows to cover the events on Westeros, King's Landing, the riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands.[25] Both books begin immediately after the end of A Storm of Swords,[22] running in parallel instead of sequentially and involving different casts of characters with only little overlap.[25] Martin split Arya's chapters into both books after having already moved the three other most popular characters (Jon Snow, Tyrion and Daenerys) into A Dance with Dragons.[35]

Upon its release in October 2005 in the UK[36] and November 2005 in the US,[7] A Feast for Crows went straight to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.[37] Among the positive reviewers was Lev Grossman of Time, who dubbed Martin "the American Tolkien".[38] However, fans and critics alike were disappointed with the story split that left the fates of several popular characters unresolved after the previous book's cliffhanger ending.[39][40] With A Dance with Dragons said to be half-finished,[39] Martin mentioned in the epilogue in A Feast for Crows that the next volume would be released by the next year.[2] However, planned release dates were repeatedly pushed back. Meanwhile, HBO acquired the rights to turn Ice and Fire into a dramatic series in 2007[41] and aired the first of ten episodes covering A Game of Thrones in April 2011.[42]

With around 1600 pages in manuscript length,[43] A Dance with Dragons was eventually published in July 2011 after six years of writing,[18] longer in page count and writing time than any of the preceding four novels.[15][39] The story of A Dance with Dragons catches up on A Feast of Crows around two thirds into the book, going further than Feast,[34] but covered less story than Martin intended, omitting at least one planned large battle sequence and leaving several character threads ending in cliff-hangers.[15] Martin attributed the delay mainly to his untangling "the Meereenese knot", which the interviewer understood as "making the chronology and characters mesh up as various threads converged on [Daenerys]".[40] Martin also acknowledged spending too much time on rewriting and perfecting the story, but soundly rejected the theories of his more extravagant critics that he had lost interest in the series or would bide his time to make more money (see section #Fandom).[39]

[edit] Planned novels and future

The sixth book is going to be called The Winds of Winter,[10] taking the title of the originally planned fifth book.[23] In June 2010, Martin had already finished four chapters of The Winds of Winter from the viewpoints of Sansa Stark, Arya Stark and Arianne Martell.[10] In the middle of 2011, he also moved a finished Aeron Damphair POV chapter from the then unpublished A Dance with Dragons to the next book.[44] By the publication of A Dance with Dragons, around 100 pages of The Winds of Winter were completed.[45] After a book tour and several conventions, he intended to continue his work on the long-overdue The World of Ice and Fire about the history and genealogy of Westeros, which he wanted to have finished by the end of 2011. He also intended to work on a new Tales of Dunk and Egg novella that will appear in an anthology called Dangerous Women.[46][45] He announced he would return to writing in January 2012.[15] Releasing a Theon Greyjoy POV sample chapter on his website in December 2011, Martin promised to release a second chapter in the back of the A Dance with Dragons paper-back edition,[47] released in March 2012.[8]

Martin hopes to finish The Winds of Winter much faster than the fifth book.[39] Having gotten in trouble from fans for repeatedly estimating his publication dates too optimistically, Martin refrains from making absolute estimates for book six.[15] A realistic estimation for finishing The Winds of Winter might be three years for him at a good pace,[43] but ultimately the book "will be done when it's done".[22] Martin does not intend to separate the characters geographically again but acknowledged that "Three years from [2011] when I'm sitting on 1,800 pages of manuscript with no end in sight, who the hell knows".[19]

Displeased with the provisional title A Time For Wolves for the final volume,[23] Martin ultimately announced A Dream of Spring as the title for the seventh book in 2006.[11] Martin is firm about ending the series with the seventh novel "until I decide not to be firm",[15] leaving open the possibility of an eighth book to finish the series.[22] With his goal to tell the story from beginning to end, he will not truncate the story to fit into an arbitrary number of volumes.[48] Martin is confident to have published the remaining books before the TV series overtakes him,[19] although he told major plot points to the two main Game of Thrones producers in case he should die.[19] (Aged 62 in 2011, Martin is by all accounts in robust health.)[49] However, Martin indicated he would not permit another writer to finish the series.[39] He knows the ending in broad strokes as well as the future of the main characters,[19] which will have bittersweet elements where not everyone will live happily ever after.[27] Martin hopes to write an ending similar to The Lord of the Rings that he felt gave the story a satisfying depth and resonance. On the other hand, Martin noted the challenge to avoid a situation like the finale of Lost, which left fans disappointed by deviating from their own theories and desires.[22]

Martin does not rule out additional stories set in Westeros after the last book, although he is unlikely to continue in that vein immediately.[50] He is fairly definite about only returning to the World of Westeros in context of stand-alone novels.[32] Having created a huge world in such detail, Martin sees the possibility of more stories to tell there. But instead of a direct continuation of A Song of Ice and Fire, he would write stories about characters from other periods of history.[51] He also wants to finish the Dunk and Egg project.[32] He will see if his audience follows him after publishing his next project. He would love to return to writing short stories, novellas, novelettes and stand-alone novels from diverse genres such as science fiction, horror, fantasy, or even a murder mystery.[21][26] Regarding A Song of Ice and Fire as his magnum opus, Martin is certain to never write anything on the scale of this series again.[32]

[edit] Inspiration and writing

[edit] Genre

Further information: Themes in A Song of Ice and Fire

Growing up in a federal housing project in Bayonne, New Jersey, George R. R. Martin's "hunger for a bigger world and for travel and experience turned in imaginative directions because there was no reality there".[45] He believes the most profound influences to be the ones experienced in childhood,[52] reading H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert A. Heinlein, Eric Frank Russell, Andre Norton,[21] Isaac Asimov,[24] Fritz Leiber, and Mervyn Peake[53] in his youth. Martin likes all kinds of imaginative literature and never drew any sharp distinctions between science fiction and fantasy or horror,[53] writing from all these genres easily nowadays.[52] Martin classified A Song of Ice and Fire as "epic fantasy"[43] and specifically named Tolkien and Tad Williams as very influential for the writing of the series.[24][53] As an avid reader, he recommends the work of younger fantasy authors such as Daniel Abraham, Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch.[48] His favorite contemporary author is Jack Vance,[24] although Martin considered the series not particularly Vancean.[23]

"[Martin's Ice and Fire series] was groundbreaking (at least for me) in all kinds of ways. Above all, the books were extremely unpredictable, especially in a genre where readers have come to expect the intensely predictable. [...] A Game of Thrones was profoundly shocking when I first read it, and fundamentally changed my notions about what could be done with epic fantasy."

—Fantasy writer Joe Abercrombie in 2008[54]

The medieval setting has been the traditional background for epic fantasy even before Tolkien,[23] whose writing still dominates the genre.[39] However, before starting with the Ice and Fire series, Martin felt that many Tolkien imitators were writing "Disneyland Middle Ages" fantasy without grasping the true brutality of those times.[55] Historical fiction appeared much grittier and more realistic to him,[55] fascinating him with the dramatic possibilities of the medieval contrasts such as chivalry co-existing with the brutality of war and great castles looming over miserable hovels.[23] However, where historic fiction leaves versed readers with knowing the historic outcome,[53] original characters may increase suspense and empathy for the readers.[52] Thus, Martin wanted to combine the realism of historical fiction with the magic appeal of the best fantasies,[55] subduing magic in favor of battles and political intrigue.[17]

Martin is widely credited with taking fantasy fiction into a more adult direction.[39] For The Washington Post, the series felt grounded in the brutal reality of medieval times despite the overtly fantastic elements like dragons and sorcerers.[56] Some reviewers have compared Martin's work to Tolkien's or William Shakespeare's, but the Los Angeles Times found strong horror elements and a gritty and often bawdy physicality of the world in the Ice and Fire novels, with an implied criticism of Tolkien's moral simplicity.[57] The Atlantic assessed the novels as hard fantasy with vulnerable characters to which readers become emotionally attached.[58] CNN found in 2000 that Martin's mature descriptions are "far more frank than those found in the works of other fantasy authors",[50] although Martin found in 2011 that the fantasy genre was becoming rougher-edged, with some writers' work going beyond the mature themes of his novels.[48]

[edit] World building

A Map of Ice and Fire

Setting out to write something on an epic scale,[50] Martin projected to write three books of 800 manuscript pages in the very early stages of the series.[53] His original contract had one-year deadlines based on his previous literary works in his Hollywood days,[31] but Martin failed to take the new book lengths into account.[31] In 2000, Martin planned to take 18 months to two years for each volume and projected the last of the planned six books to be released five or six years later.[27] However, with the Ice and Fire series evolving into the biggest and most ambitious story he has ever attempted writing,[35] he still has two more books to write as of 2012. He can only immerse himself in the fictional world and write from his own office in Santa Fe, New Mexico.[17] Beginning each day at 10 am with coffee, he first looks at the previous day's work, rewriting and polishing it.[52] Excised material and previous old versions are kept to be possibly re-inserted at a later time.[35] Martin spends all day writing on good days, but may struggle writing anything on bad days.[17] Saying to "enjoy having written", Martin fully embraces finishing a chapter or a book.[33]

Martin has a supernatural or mythic rather than a scientific core to the story,[21] and draws the story rather from emotion than the rationalist side of things.[21] A lot of his writing takes place on a subconscious level, imagining scenes, pieces of dialogue or plot twists in an almost daydreaming process.[59] The story is set in an alternate world of Earth or a "secondary world", which Tolkien pioneered with Middle Earth.[19] Contrary to Tolkien, who created entire languages, mythologies, and histories for Middle-earth long before writing The Lord of the Rings, Martin usually starts out with a rough idea that he improvises along the way. He sometimes fleshes out his imaginary world only to make a workable setting for the story.[39] The Ice and Fire story can be considered to be set in a post-magic world where people do not believe in dragons and the Others anymore. Coming from an impoverished family background of former wealth, Martin always felt attracted to stories of fallen civilizations and lost empires; Tolkien's Middle Earth was also in decline with the abandoned Mines of Moria and the elves' leaving. The lost empire of Valyria in Ice and Fire was once a high civilization similar to Rome before the Dark Ages. These elements may give the story a poignant sadness.[60]

The Wall in the Ice and Fire series was inspired by Hadrian's Wall in the North of England.

Martin keeps maps[17] and a cast list that topped 50 pages in the fourth volume, but keeps most of it in his mind.[43] His imagined backstory is subject to change until published, and only the novels count as canon.[35] Unlike Tolkien, Martin does not intend to publish his notes and appendices after the series is finished.[17] Martin was intentionally vague with the size of the Ice and Fire world, omitting a scale on the maps to discourage prediction of travel lengths based on measured distances.[35] The continent of Westeros may be considered of the size of South America though.[39] Complete world maps are deliberately not made available so that readers may better identify with people of the real Middle Ages who were unillumined about distant places.[61] As each new book has added one or two maps, readers may be able to piece together a world map by the end of the series.[61]

Martin drew a lot of inspiration from actual history for the series,[52] having several bookcases filled with medieval history for research.[62] Martin immersed himself in many diverse medieval topics such as clothing, food, feasting and tournaments, to know specific points before needed in writing.[27] The series was in particular influenced by the Hundred Years' War, the Crusades, the Albigensian Crusade and the Wars of the Roses,[52][62] although Martin refrained from making any direct adaptations.[52] For an American who speaks only English, the history of England proved the easiest source of medieval history for Martin, giving the series a British rather than a German or Spanish historic flavor.[61] Martin never stops doing research, visiting historic European landmarks to get a feel for a place.[33] The Wall, which Martin believes to be unique in fantasy,[62] was inspired by Martin's visit to Hadrian's Wall in the North of England close to the border with Scotland. Looking out over the hills, Martin wondered what a Roman centurion from the Mediterranean would feel, not knowing what threats might come from the north. The size, length and magical powers of the wall were adjusted for genre demands.[53]

Martin knows the ultimate destination with the principal landmarks, but leaves the smaller things to discover in the writing process, some of the details turning out to be very important.[63] Some of his initial plans have changed along the way, and Martin prefers it that way.[62] However, Martin finds it increasingly difficult to keep track of the plot and subplots, and he is keeping more notes than ever before.[24] Nevertheless, Martin's world has become so detailed and sprawling that the story became unwieldy,[15] and he sometimes makes mistakes which his fans are quick to let him know, like his accidentally changing the sex of a horse or an eye color.[39]

[edit] Narrative structure

The books are divided into chapters, each one narrated in the third-person through the eyes of a point of view character.[39] Each POV character may act from different locations. Beginning with nine viewpoint characters in A Game of Thrones, the number of POV characters grows to a total of 31 in A Dance with Dragons (see table); the short-lived one-time POV characters are mostly restricted to the prologue and epilogue.[27] The New York Times noted the particular importance of the noble Stark family, the Targaryens, the conniving Lannisters, the mostly conniving Greyjoys, the mixed-bag Baratheons, and the Martells of unclear nature, all of who try to advance their ambitions and ruin their enemies.[64] However, as the reader experiences the struggle for Westeros from all sides at once, every character can be seen as a hero and villain, and every fight a triumph or tragedy.[65] The story weaves through differing points of views "in a skillful mix of observation, narration and well-crafted dialogue that illuminates both character and plot with fascinating style."[50] Each POV character is with its own rhythm, written in its own voice, and each playing off all the others.[65]

Modelled after The Lord of the Rings, the Ice and Fire story begins with a tight focus on a small group (with everyone in Winterfell, except Daenerys). After fanning out and splitting into separate stories, the story is to curve and converge again. Finding the turning point has been one of the issues Martin has wrestled with,[19] slowing down his writing with the long and complex series.[22] Martin believes to have reached the turning point at A Dance with Dragons,[22] but said in another interview the point of turning around and start delta-ing in has not quite been reached in the books.[66] The series' structure of multiple POVs and interwoven storylines was inspired by Wild Cards, a shared universe book series edited by Martin since 1985. Whereas Wild Cards is written by many authors, Martin writes all POV parts as the sole author.[67] With each new book, Martin begins with an outline of the chapter order, but he does not necessarily write the individual chapters in the order of appearance in the books. Before publication, he usually rearranges the chapters two dozen times to optimize character intercutting, chronology and suspense.[27] All POV characters are written to be interesting so that readers will not skip those chapters not holding his interest.[53]

Influenced by his television and film scripting background, Martin tries to keep readers engrossed by ending each Ice and Fire chapter with a moment of tension or revelation, a twist or a cliff hanger, similar to a TV act break.[68] Dividing the continuous Ice and Fire story into books is much harder for Martin. Each book shall represent a phase of the journey that ends with some closure for most characters. A smaller portion of characters is left with clear-cut cliffhangers to make sure readers come back for the next installment, although A Dance with Dragons had more cliffhangers than Martin ideally would have liked.[19][27] Both one-time and regular POV characters are designed to have full character arcs ending in tragedy or triumph.[27] Main characters are killed off so that the reader won't rely on the hero to come through unscathed and instead feel the character's fear with each page turn.[26]

With the larger narrative arc remaining unresolved, readers are encouraged to speculate about what might ultimately happen.[39] Much of the key to Ice and Fire's story future lies sixteen years in the fictional past, with each volume revealing a little more of the back story.[17] Martin forshadows events planned from the beginning, but he does not want the developments to appear predictable.[66] The POV characters may clarify or provide different perspectives on past events,[69] but Martin employs unreliable narrators within his point of view structure.[22] Two different characters may therefore remember an event in two different ways,[22] and what the readers believe to be true may not necessarily be true.[17]

[edit] Character development

Martin planned the epic Ice and Fire fantasy to have a large cast of characters and many different settings from the beginning.[22] A Feast for Crows has a 63-page list of characters,[1] with many of the thousands of characters mentioned only in passing[39] or disappearing from view for long stretches.[56] Martin drew inspiration from history but does not do one-for-one kind of translations.[17] He based the characters largely on his own experiences, but he made observations of friends, people he met or personalities in the news.[24] Each character should have his or her own internal voices[27] although all Ice and Fire characters are written with moral ambiguity (see Themes: Moral ambiguity).[27] The LA Times remarked that "Martin's devotion to fully inhabiting his characters, for better or worse, creates the unstoppable momentum in his novels and contains an implied criticism of Tolkien's moral simplicity."[57]

The huge number of genealogies in the appendices grow with each book. When making a new family genealogy, Martin begins with listing the children of a particular lord and lady. Martin has some secret in mind about their personality or fate, but their backstory remains subject to change until written.[35] The style varies to fit each character and their setting; Daenerys's exotic realm may appear more colorful and fanciful than Westeros, which is more based on the familiar medieval history of Europe.[27] Martin deliberately ignored the writing rules never to give two characters in a story a name starting with the same letter. Instead, he assigned the same names within families similar to European histories, where even the secondary families used the same names repeatedly and particular names were associated with particular houses. Martin was confident that readers would pay attention and used similar techniques for Ice and Fire as modern times do to keep the Davids, Stevens, and Brians straight.[35]

The Atlantic pondered whether Martin ultimately intended the readers to sympathize with characters on both sides of the Lannister-Stark feud long before plot developments force them to make their emotional choices.[70] In place of the cardboard-cutout, can't-lose protagonists common to the most conventional epic fantasies, Martin and other writers in this tradition embrace the fact that readers become more emotionally involved with characters who are actually vulnerable. The effect of this is that nobody in these stories, as in life, is safe. The reader cannot be sure that good shall triumph, which makes those instances where it does—even partially—all the more exulting.[58] Martin gets emotionally involved in the characters' lives during writing, which makes the chapters with dreadful events sometimes very difficult to write.[27] Seeing the world through their eyes requires a certain amount of empathy, even with the villains.[52] Martin found some of the characters to have minds of their own during writing that sometimes took him off in different directions. Martin returns to the intended path if it does not work out, but sometimes these detours prove to be the more rewarding path for him.[35]

Arya Stark, Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen generate the most character feedback.[71] Tyrion is Martin's personal favorite as the greyest of the grey characters, with his cunning and wit making him the most fun to write.[53] Bran Stark is the hardest character to write. As the character most deeply involved in magic, Bran's story needs to be handled carefully within the supernatural aspects of the books. Bran is also the youngest viewpoint character[27] and has to deal with the series' adult themes like grief, loneliness and anger.[68] Martin set out to have the young characters grow up faster between chapters, but as it was implausible for a character to take two months to respond, a finished book represents very little time passed. Martin hoped the planned five-year break would ease the situation and age the children to almost adults in terms of the Seven Kingdoms, but he later dropped the five-year gap (see section #Bridging the timeline gap).[19][27] Finally, Martin sees the characters as the heart of the story,[72] loving even the villains as if they were his children.[53][72]

[edit] Themes

Main article: Themes in A Song of Ice and Fire
Although involving dragons and sorcery, the Ice and Fire series de-emphasizes magic compared to many other epic fantasy works (emblem of J. Allen St. John's 1905 fantasy work The Face in the Pool).

The A Song of Ice and Fire books are generally praised for their realism.[64] George R. R. Martin believes in judicious use of magic in the epic fantasy genre,[18] giving the story a little more historical fiction feel than a fantastic feel like previous authors' books, with less emphasis on magic and sorcery and more emphasis on swordplay and battles and political intrigue.[17] The amount of magic gradually increases from the start, but the series is to end with less overt magic than many other fantasies have.[27] The characters understand only the natural aspects of their world, but the magical elements like the Others are not within their understanding.[64] Martin believes that literary effective magic needs to represent strange and dangerous forces beyond human's comprehension,[46] not advanced alien technologies or formulaic spells.[73]

Since Martin drew on historical sources to build the Ice and Fire world, The Guardian saw a strong resemblance between Westeros and England in the period of the Wars of the Roses.[74] The Atlantic regarded A Song of Ice and Fire as "more a story of politics than one of heroism, a story about humanity wrestling with its baser obsessions than fulfilling its glorious potential" where the emergent power struggle stems from the feudal system's repression and not from the fight between good and evil.[70] Martin not only wanted to reflect the frictions of the medieval class structures in the novels, but also explore the possible consequences of the leaders' decisions, as general goodness does not automatically make competent leaders and vice versa.[55]

A common theme in the fantasy genre is the battle between good and evil,[55] although Martin deliberately defied the conventions and assumptions of neo-Tolkienian Fantasy.[23] Attracted to gray characters instead of orcs and angels,[75] Martin endorses Nobel Prize laureate William Faulkner's view that only the human heart in conflict with itself was worth writing about.[55] Just like people's capacity for good and for evil in real life, Martin explores the questions of redemption and character change in the Ice and Fire series.[76] Characters are explored from many sides through the multiple viewpoint structure so that, unlike in a lot of other fantasy, also the supposed villains can provide their viewpoint.[50] The actions and politics in the novels leave it to the reader to decide about who is good and evil.[32]

Although fantasy comes from an imaginative realm, Martin sees an honest necessity to reflect the real world where people die sometimes ugly deaths, even beloved people.[27] Main characters are killed off so that the reader will not expect the supposed hero to come through unscathed and instead feel the character's fear with each page turn.[26] The novels are also to reflect the substantial death rates in war.[53] The deaths of supernumerary extras or orcs have no major effect on readers, whereas a friend's death has much more emotional impact.[66] Martin prefers a hero's sacrifice to say something profound about human nature.[19]

The fantasy genre rarely focuses on sex and sexuality as much as the Ice and Fire books do,[27] often treating sexuality in a juvenile way or neglecting it completely in Martin's eyes.[52] Martin, however, considers sexuality an important driving force in human life that should not be excluded from the narrative.[76] Providing sensory detail for an immersive experience is more important than plot advancement for Martin,[22] who aims to let the readers experience the novels' sex scenes, "whether it's a great transcendent, exciting, mind blowing sex, or whether it's disturbing, twisted, dark sex, or disappointing perfunctory sex".[76] Martin was fascinated by medieval contrasts where knights venerated their ladies with poems and wore their favors in tournaments while their armies mindlessly raped women in wartime.[27] The inexistent concept of adolescence in the Middle Ages served as a model for Daenerys's sexual activity at the age of 13 in the books.[68] The novels also allude to the incestuous practices in the Ptolemaic dynasty of Ancient Egypt and the European monarchies to keep their bloodlines pure.[77]

Martin provides a variety of female characters to explore some of the ramifications of the novels being set in a patriarchal society.[66] Writing all characters as human beings with the same basic needs, dreams and influences,[16] his female characters are to cover the same wide spectrum of human traits like the males.[66] Martin can identify with all point-of-view characters in the writing process despite significant differences to him, be it gender or age.[16] He does not presume to make feminist statements in either way,[66] although the HBO television adaptation sparked a heated critical response about the series' alleged mysogony, the portrayal of women, and the gender distribution of the readership and viewership.[78][79]

[edit] Reception

[edit] Critical response

[icon] This section requires expansion.

Science Fiction Weekly said in 2000 that "few would dispute that Martin's most monumental achievement to date has been the groundbreaking A Song of Ice and Fire historical fantasy series".[27] A Song of Ice and Fire, which Weird Tales called a "superb fantasy saga" in 2007,[21] has raised Martin to a whole new level of success. Critics and fans alike agree it is one of the best fantasy series ever written.[21] The reviews for the series have been "orders of magnitude better" than Martin's previous works, and many readers have told Martin that his tale is the greatest fantasy story of all time.[39] After the fourth volume came out, Time anointed Martin "the American Tolkien",[38] a term picked up by the New Yorker[39] and The Globe and Mail.[2] The New York Times even said Martin was "much better than that".[80]

The series has turned Martin into a darling of literary critics as well as mainstream readers, which Daily News called "rare for a fantasy genre that's often dismissed as garbage not fit to line the bottom of a dragon's cage".[47] The complex epic had already made Martin a star within the confines of a genre often dismissed by literary critics. But the immediate success of HBO's Game of Thrones is pushing him toward J.K. Rowling territory.[29] The Washington Post was sure in 2011 that "no work of fantasy has generated such anticipation since Harry Potter's final duel with Voldemort".[56]

Time said in 2011 that "A Dance with Dragons renewed his loyal readers' faith in its continuing powers. The artistry and savagery of Martin's storytelling are at their finest: he has seized hold of epic fantasy and is radically refashioning it for our complex and jaded era, and the results are magnificent."[81] He landed a spot on Time magazine's coveted 2011 100 List.[29]

[edit] Sales

Sales performance of the Ice and Fire series in the New York Times combined print and e-book fiction bestseller list in 2011 between the airing of the Game of Thrones pilot episode and the publication of A Dance with Dragons.[82]

Reports for the overall sales figures of the A Song of Ice and Fire series vary. The New Yorker reported in April 2011 (before the pulication of A Dance with Dragons) that more than 15 million Ice and Fire books had been sold worldwide,[39] a figure repeated by The Globe and Mail in July 2011.[2] USA Today reported 8.5 million copies in print and digital overall in July 2011,[83] and over 12 million sold copies in print in December 2011.[84] The series has been translated into more than 20 languages;[3] the fifth book was said to be translated into over 40 languages.[75]

Martin's publishers initially expected A Game of Thrones to be a best-seller,[15] but the first installment did not even reach any lower positions in bestseller list.[45] This left Martin unsurprised, as it is "a fool's game to think anything is going to be successful or to count on it".[72] However, the book slowly won the passionate advocacy of independent booksellers and the book's popularity grew by word-of-mouth.[39] The series' popularity skyrocketed in subsequent volumes,[15] with the second and third volume making the The New York Times Best Seller lists in 1999[28] and 2000,[30] respectively. The series gained Martin's old writings new attention, and Martin's American publisher Bantam Spectra was to reprint his out-of-print solo novels.[27]

The fourth installment, A Feast for Crows, went straight to No. 1 on the best-seller list upon its 2005 release,[15] which for a fantasy novel suggested that Martin's books were attracting mainstream readers.[43] The paperback edition of A Game of Thrones reached its 34th printing in 2010, surpassing the one million mark.[85] HBO's Game of Thrones boosted sales of the book series before the TV series even premiered, with Ice and Fire approaching triple-digit growth in year-on-year sales. Bantam was looking forward to seeing the tie-ins boost sales further,[42] and Martin's British publisher Harper Voyager expected readers to rediscover their other epic fantasy literature.[86] With a reported 4.5 million copies of the first four volumes in print in early 2011,[42] the four volumes re-appeared on the paperback fiction bestseller lists in the second quarter of 2011.[82][87]

At its point of publication in July 2011, A Dance with Dragons was in its a sixth print with more than 650,000 hardbacks in print.[88] It also had the highest single and first-day sales of any new fiction title published in 2011 at that point, with 170,000 hardcovers, 110,000 e-books, and 18,000 audio books reportedly sold on the first day.[83] A Dance with Dragons reached the top of The New York Times bestseller list.[1] As of May 2011, A Dance with Dragons has sold more than six million copies in North America.[89] Unlike most other big titles, the fifth volume sold more physical than digital copies early on,[49] but nevertheless, Martin became the 10th author to sell 1 million Amazon Kindle e-books.[90]

[edit] Fandom

 It has been suggested that this section be split into a new article titled A Song of Ice and Fire fandom. (Discuss) Proposed since February 2012.

Starting out as a fan himself, Martin visited his first convention in 1971 after selling his first story.[91] During his years in television, Martin's novels slowly earned him a reputation in science fiction circles,[92] although he said to only receive a few fans letters a year in the pre-internet days.[52] The publication of A Game of Thrones caused Martin's following to grow, with fan sites springing up and a Trekkie-like society of followers evolving that meet regularly.[92] By 2005, Martin received tons of fans e-mails and was about 2000 letters behind that may go unanswered for years.[52] Fan mail occasionally includes photos of children and pets named after his characters,[92] which Martin displays on his website.[1] Since there are different types of conventions nowadays, he tends to go to three or four science-fiction conventions a year simply to go back to his roots and meet friends.[91] He attends the gatherings of the Brotherhood Without Banners on his travels, an unofficial fan club operating globally whose founders and other longtime members Martin counts among his good friends.[39] Martin is committed to nurturing his audience, no matter how vast it gets. He administers a lively blog with the assistance of Ty Franck.[39] He does not read message boards anymore though, so as not influence his writing by fan foreseeing twists and interpreting characters differently than Martin intended.[91]

A Swedish-based fan of Cuban-American decent, Elio M. García, Jr., runs one of the main Ice and Fire fansites named Westeros.org, which he had established with his girlfriend in 1999. The site had about seventeen thousand registered members in 2011. Although García's participation in Westeros.org is voluntary, his involvement with Martin's work has become semi-professional. García is a paid consultant to licensors creating tie-in merchandise and to write text for a video game based on the series, but he also maintains an official presence for Martin on Facebook and Twitter. García's knowledge of the Ice and Fire world is so vast that Martin referred HBO researchers seeking information regarding the production of Game of Thrones to García. Martin himself sometimes checks with García when he is not sure about a fictional detail. García and Martin are collaborating on a comprehensive guide to the books, The World of Ice and Fire.[39]

"After all, as some of you like to point out in your emails, I am sixty years old and fat, and you don't want me to 'pull a Robert Jordan' on you and deny you your book. Okay, I've got the message. You don't want me doing anything except A Song of Ice and Fire. Ever. (Well, maybe it's okay if I take a leak once in a while?)

—George R. R. Martin on his blog in 2009[93]

Martin called the majority of his fans "great" and said he has more interaction with fans than any author he knows. He is largely nice to them.[19] However, some of Martin's fans turned against him angered by his taking his time with releasing A Dance with Dragons.[39] A renegade movement of disaffected fans called GRRuMblers formed in 2009, harassing Martin with sites such as Finish the Book, George or Is Winter Coming?.[2][39] It is not uncommon for Martin to be mobbed at book signings either.[92] The New Yorker called this "an astonishing amount of effort to devote to denouncing the author of books one professes to love. Few contemporary authors can claim to have inspired such passion."[39]

When fans' vocal impatience for A Dance with Dragons peaked in 2009, Martin issued an angry statement called "To My Detractors"[93] on his blog to stem a rising tide of anger.[94] Author Neil Gaiman backed Martin on his own blog, replying to a fan's inquiry about Martin's tardiness that "George R. R. Martin is not your bitch."[39][95] Martin sees it a right to withdraw anytime and enjoy his leisure times as he chooses.[19] Martin believes of himself as being bound by an informal contract with his readers; he feels that he owes them his best work. He does not, however, believe that this gives them the right to dictate the particulars of his creative process or to complain about how he manages his time. As far as the detractors are concerned, Martin's contract with them was for a story, their engagement with it offered on the understanding that he would provide them with a satisfying conclusion.[39]

[edit] Awards and nominations

[edit] Derived works

[edit] Tales of Dunk and Egg

Main article: Tales of Dunk and Egg

Martin wrote three separate novellas set ninety years before the events of the novels. These novellas are known as the Tales of Dunk and Egg after the main protagonists, Ser Duncan the Tall and Aegon V "Egg" Targaryen. The stories have no direct connection to the plot of A Song of Ice and Fire, although both characters are mentioned in A Storm of Swords and A Feast For Crows, respectively. The first two installments, titled The Hedge Knight and The Sworn Sword, were published in the 1998 Legends and 2003 Legends II anthologies.[32] They are also available as graphic novels.[100] The third novella, titled The Mystery Knight, was first published in the 2010 anthology Warriors.[101] A fourth novella is to appear in the anthology Dangerous Women after the publication of A Dance with Dragons.[46] Up to eight further Dunk and Egg installments are planned.[48]

[edit] TV series

Main article: Game of Thrones (TV series)

The growing popularity of the series led to its being optioned by HBO for development of a television adaptation, Game of Thrones, after the first novel.[41] A pilot episode was produced in 2009 and a series commitment for nine further episodes was made in March 2010. The series premiered in April 2011 to great acclaim and ratings, and two days later the network picked the show up for a second season.[102] Shortly after the conclusion of the first season, the show received 13 Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Drama and Outstanding Supporting Actor.

[edit] Other works

Main article: Works based on A Song of Ice and Fire

There are board games[103] and tabletop role-playing games[104] based on the available novels, as well as two collections of artwork based on and inspired by the Ice and Fire series. The French video game company Cyanide is creating a video game adaption of the books, entitled A Game of Thrones: Genesis.[105] There are licensed full-sized sword and war hammer reproductions available; paintable white metal character miniatures; larger resin cast character busts; Westeros coinage reproductions; a forthcoming series of graphic novel adaptations of the "Ice and Fire" series; and a large number of gift and collectible items from HBO based on their cable television series. In 2011, A Game of Thrones was adapted as a monthly comic. A companion guide entitled The World of Ice and Fire is in development by George R. R. Martin, Elio M. García, Jr. and Linda Antonsson.[39]

[edit] References

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  44. ^ a b Martin, George R. R. (July 31, 2010). "Dancing". grrm.livejournal.com. http://grrm.livejournal.com/169899.html. Retrieved 2012-02-04. 
  45. ^ a b c d Farley, Christopher John (July 8, 2011). "Game of Thrones Author George R.R. Martin Spills the Secrets of A Dance with Dragons". wsj.com. http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/07/08/game-of-thrones-author-george-r-r-martin-spills-the-secrets-of-a-dance-with-dragons/. Retrieved 2012-02-15. 
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  54. ^ Abercrombie, Joe (February 16, 2008). "Influences, Ideas, and A Game of Thrones". joeabercrombie.com. http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2008/02/16/influences-ideas-and-a-game-of-thrones/. Retrieved 2012-01-21. 
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  69. ^ Rosenberg, Alyssa (August 31, 2011). "Fantasy on TV: How Game of Thrones Succeeds Where True Blood Fails". theatlantic.com. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/fantasy-on-tv-how-game-of-thrones-succeeds-where-true-blood-fails/244365/. Retrieved 2012-02-02. 
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  71. ^ "A Song of Ice And Fire And Much More: George Martin on Fantasy Writing, Movies, Comics...". Your Complete Guide To Comic-Con International Update (comic-con.org) 2: 34–35. 2006. http://www.comic-con.org/common/assets/upd2006_2.pdf. Retrieved 2012-02-01. 
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  75. ^ a b Donahue, Deirdre (July 11, 2011). "Fifth book in Game of Thrones series released". usatoday.com. http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2011-07-11-dance-with-dragons_n.htm. Retrieved 2012-02-15. 
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  79. ^ Meslow, Scott (April 25, 2011). "Game of Thrones: Making Sense of All the Sex". theatlantic.com. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/04/game-of-thrones-making-sense-of-all-the-sex/237759/. Retrieved 2012-02-02. 
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  83. ^ a b Memmott, Carol (July 14, 2011). "Record sales for George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons". usatoday.com. http://books.usatoday.com/bookbuzz/post/2011/07/record-sales-for-george-rr-martins-a-dance-with-dragons/176909/1. Retrieved 2012-02-15. 
  84. ^ Donahue, Deirdre (December 28, 2011). "George R.R. Martin is our Author of the Year". usatoday.com. http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/story/2011-12-29/george-r-r-martin-is-author-of-the-year-2011/52256412/1. Retrieved 2012-02-15. 
  85. ^ Martin, George R. R. (October 6, 2010). "Odds and Ends and More Odds". grrm.livejournal.com. http://grrm.livejournal.com/179778.html. Retrieved 2012-01-21. 
  86. ^ Picker, Lenny (April 11, 2011). "Throne of Gains". Publishers Weekly (publishersweekly.com) 256 (15). http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20110411/46806-throne-of-gains.html. Retrieved 2012-02-13. 
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[edit] External links

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin
Novels
A Game of Thrones (1996) · A Clash of Kings (1998) · A Storm of Swords (2000) · A Feast for Crows (2005) · A Dance with Dragons (2011) · The Winds of Winter (forthcoming)  · A Dream of Spring (forthcoming)
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The Hedge Knight · The Sworn Sword · The Mystery Knight · Blood of the Dragon · Path of the Dragon · Arms of the Kraken
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