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A Game of Thrones

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For other uses, see A Game of Thrones (disambiguation).
A Game of Thrones
US Hardcover (2002 Bantam Reissue)
AuthorGeorge R. R. Martin
Cover artistSteve Youll
LanguageEnglish
SeriesA Song of Ice and Fire
GenreFantasy
PublisherBantam Spectra (US) & Voyager Books (UK)
Publication date
6 August 1996
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages694 pp (US Hardback), 672 pp (UK Hardcover), 835 pp (US Paperback)
ISBNISBN 0-553-10354-7 (US Hardback), ISBN 0-00-224584-1 (UK Hardback), ISBN 0-553-57340-3 (US Paperback) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character
OCLC33360758
813/.54 20
LC ClassPS3563.A7239 G36 1996
Followed byA Clash of Kings 

A Game of Thrones is the first book in A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of epic fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin, . It was first published on 6 August 1996. The novel won the 1997 Locus Award,[1] and was nominated for both the 1998 Nebula Award[2] and the 1997[1] World Fantasy Award. The novella Blood of the Dragon, comprising the Daenerys Targaryen chapters from the novel, won the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella.

The novel lends its name to several spin-off items based on the novels, including a trading card game, board game, and roleplaying game. In November 2009 HBO completed filming of a pilot episode for the television adaptation.[3]

Plot summary

A Game of Thrones follows three principal storylines simultaneously.

In the Seven Kingdoms

At Winterfell, northern seat of Lord Eddard Stark, his bastard son Jon finds a dead direwolf with six pups. As the direwolf is the symbol of House Stark, Eddard allows each of his children to keep one as pet, including the bastard son.

King Robert Baratheon arrives in Winterfell with his entourage to ask Eddard to become Hand of the King, as the previous hand, Lord Jon Arryn, has died recently. Eddard reluctantly agrees and travels south with his daughters Sansa and Arya

During the visit, Eddard's wife, Catelyn Stark, receives a letter from her sister Lysa Arryn, stating that Jon Arryn was murdered by House Lannister; Eddard's middle son Bran Stark accidentally sees Cersei and her twin brother Jaime having sex, and Jaime throws him out of a tower window. Bran survives, yet is crippled from the waist down; Jon Snow leaves Winterfell to join the Night's Watch in the far North.

An assassination attempt with an unusual dagger is made on Bran while he is bed-ridden from his fall, so Catelyn travels to the capital King's Landing to tell her husband of the attack. Her friend Petyr Baelish, also known as Littlefinger, identifies the dagger as belonging to Tyrion Lannister. On her way home she meets Tyrion on the road and orders him taken captive to the Eyrie, where her sister Lysa places him on trial. Tyrion demands trial by combat and regains his freedom when his champion wins the fight.

At King's Landing, Eddard investigates Jon Arryn's death and learns that Jon and King Robert's brother Lord Stannis Baratheon had discovered that Robert's and Queen Cersei's three children were actually fathered by her twin brother Jaime. Eddard mercifully offers Cersei the chance to flee, but she refuses. King Robert dies while hunting, (under suspicious conditions) and Cersei's eldest son Joffrey is crowned King, although Stannis is Robert's true heir, as he is his elder brother. Eddard is betrayed by Littlefinger and the Lannisters and captured. Eddard reluctantly agrees to a false confession of treason in return for his daughters' lives, and the chance to go into exile on the Wall. But Joffrey has Eddard brutally executed in public. While Sansa is retained in custody, Arya escapes from the royal castle and witnesses her father's execution while living in Flea Bottom. A civil war, later dubbed the War of the Five Kings, erupts. On the pretext of seeking retribution for the capture of his son Tyrion, Lord Tywin Lannister attacks Riverrun, the Tully stronghold. Robb Stark leads an army of northmen into the Riverlands to support Lord Hoster Tully, seek revenge for the death of his father and secure the North as an independent realm. Jaime Lannister leads the siege, while Lord Tywin holds a large army south of the River Trident to prevent Robb's advance. Robb and Catelyn win House Frey's support by agreeing to a dynastic marriage, among numerous other concessions. Robb detaches his cavalry and crosses the Green Fork while his infantry carries on to the Trident under Lord Roose Bolton, one of Robb's bannermen. Tywin, joined by the liberated Tyrion (who has won the support of the mountain clans of the Vale), defeats the Stark footmen before learning that Robb has outmaneuvered him. Shortly afterwards Robb's forces surprise and capture Jaime at the Battle of Whispering Wood and destroy the rest of the Lannister army besieging Riverrun. Tywin falls back to Harrenhal and orders Tyrion, whose cunning and intelligence he has come to reluctantly respect, to go to King's Landing to serve as Hand of the King in Tywin's absence.

Lord Renly Baratheon declares himself King of Westeros, becoming the second of the war's five kings. Robb Stark becomes the third when all Stark and Tully bannermen proclaim him the King in the North and the Riverlands.

On the Wall

Men of the Night's Watch range on a mission beyond the Wall. They come across a camp of wildings seemingly frozen to death. They encounter the fabled 'Others' of legend, and are killed except for one man who flees south, where Eddard executes him as a deserter.

Jon Snow, seeing little future for himself as the bastard son of Eddard, chooses to join the Night's Watch. He travels north with his uncle Benjen Stark, the First Ranger of the Watch. At the Wall Jon finds that the Watch is beset with problems. A new King-beyond-the-Wall, Mance Rayder, has arisen in the northern lands. The Watch is grievously under strength, and its manpower is now made up of criminals who chose the Wall over execution or imprisonment.

Jon befriends the other new recruits and Samwell Tarly, a timid but intelligent boy, and Maester Aemon. Aemon is a Targaryen, great uncle to the deposed Mad King Aerys II.

Jon earns the status of full brother of the Night's Watch. To his dismay, he is assigned as a steward to Jeor Mormont, the Lord Commander of the Watch, instead of, as he hoped, being called upon the Ranger duties, the military arm of the brotherhood. Sam points out that Mormont is in fact grooming Jon for command. The Watch bring two corpses back from beyond the Wall, but they re-animate as wights that night. One attacks the Commander's Tower, including Mormont, while the second confronts the men of the Night's Watch. Jon destroys the one attacking Mormont with fire, destroying Mormont's quarters as well, while the other slays two men and then is hacked into to pieces by a dozen Night's Watch soldiers. Mormont gives Jon his Valyrian-steel bastard sword, Longclaw, as thanks for saving him from the walking corpse.

Upon learning of his father's death, Jon tries to escape the Night's Watch in order to join with his half-brother Rob in his war against the Lannisters. However, he is brought back by some of his brothers after Sam tells them of Jon's plan. Later Mormont tells Jon that they knew he tried to escape and ultimately convinces Jon that the war for the throne does not compare to the evil that winter is about bring upon them. Jon finally decides to abandon his past and stay with the Night's Watch.

In the East

Across the sea in the Free City of Pentos, the exiled Prince Viserys Targaryen conspires to sell his thirteen-year-old sister Daenerys to Khal Drogo of the Dothraki. Viserys plans to use Drogo's army to reclaim the kingship of Westeros. Among the wedding gifts are three petrified dragon eggs. Unexpectedly, Daenerys finds trust and love with Drogo, and she conceives a child. Ser Jorah Mormont, a knight exiled from Westeros for dealing in slaves, joins Viserys as an advisor.

Khal Drogo sees his marriage to Daenerys as advantageous, but has little interest in conquering Westeros. Viserys, humiliated and angry, begins to provoke his hosts. They endure it for a while; eventually Drogo kills him for threatening Daenerys. She takes up her brother's quest to reclaim the Iron Throne. When a Westerosi assassin tries to kill her and their unborn child, Drogo agrees to invade Westeros. However, an unrelated skirmish soon after leads to his death of infection, and Daenerys loses her unborn son to the machinations of a shamaness. Unwilling to travel back to the city of Vaes Dothrak to be seated among the Dosh Khaleen, a group of old crones and former wives of deceased Khals, and after being abandoned by most of Drogo's riders, Danaerys orders the tied to Khal Drogo's funerals pyre and then walks into the flames with the three dragon eggs. Miraculously, she is unscathed by the raging flames and the dragon eggs hatch in the heat. Thereafter, three of Khal Drogo's bloodriders, in lieu of escorting her back to Vaes Dothrak to take her place among the Dosh Khaleen, swear their allegiance to her and Daenerys becomes the first known female Khal, determined to build an army to reclaim the throne of Westeros.

Viewpoint characters

Each chapter concentrates on one character in a third person limited point of view. Each chapter bears the name of the current POV character (ex. "Bran," "Catelyn," "Daenerys") with the story flipping back and forth between the main characters.

The tale of A Game of Thrones is told through the eyes of 8 POV characters and a one-off prologue POV.

Editions

In June 2000 Meisha Merlin released a limited edition of the book, fully illustrated by Jeffrey Jones.

Foreign language editions

  • Bulgarian: "Игра на тронове"
  • Catalan: Devir Contenidos (2006): "La mà del rei"
  • Chinese: 重庆出版社(2005): "权力的游戏".
  • Croatian: "Igra prijestolja"
  • Czech: "Hra o trůny"
  • Dutch: Luitingh-Sijthoff (1997): "Het spel der tronen"
  • Estonian: Two volumes, Varrak (2006): "Troonide mäng"
  • Finnish: "Valtaistuinpeli" (2003)
  • French: Two volumes (hardcover: Pygmalion (1998, 1999); paperback: J'ai Lu (2001)) "Le trône de fer", "Le donjon rouge".
  • German: Single volume, Fantasy Productions (2004): "Eisenthron". Two volumes, Goldmann (1997, 1998): "Die Herren von Winterfell", "Das Erbe von Winterfell"
  • Greek: Two volumes, Anubis (2004): "[Παιχνίδι του στέμματος] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: gr (help)"
  • Hebrew: משחקי הכס
  • Hungarian: Single volume, Alexandra: "Trónok harca"
  • Italian: Two volumes, Mondadori (hardcover: 1999, 2000; paperback: 2001): "Il trono di spade", "Il grande inverno"; as a single volume titled "Il gioco del trono" in the collection Urania Fantasy - Le grandi saghe (July 2007)
  • Japanese: "七王国の玉座" (The Seven Kingdom's Throne) Hayakawa Publishing Corporation 2002 Hardcover, 2 volumes; 2006 Softcover, 5 volumes.
  • Korean: "왕좌의 게임"
  • Polish: Zysk (1998): "Gra o tron"
  • Portuguese: Two volumes: Saída de Emergência (2007): "A Guerra dos Tronos", "A Muralha de Gelo". Partial and pirate edition: Entre Letras Editora (2002): "A Muralha" (1st part only)
  • Romanian: : Two volumes: "Urzeala tronurilor" (2007)
  • Russian: Single volume, AST (2001, 2004, 2007): "Игра престолов". Two volumes, AST (1999): "Игра престолов. Книга 1", "Игра престолов. Книга 2".
  • Serbian: Laguna (2003): "Igra Prestola"
  • Slovene: "Igra prestolov" (2007)
  • Spanish: Gigamesh (2002): "Juego de tronos"
  • Swedish: Two volumes, Forum: "I vargens tid", "Kampen om järntronen". Single volume, Forum (2005): "Kampen om järntronen"
  • Turkish: Buz ve Ateşin Şarkısı Serisi: "Taht Oyunları" (2005)

TV Show

Game of Thrones (TV series) will be made into an HBO series premiering in 2011.

Literary significance and criticism

Awards and nominations

References

  1. ^ a b "1997 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
  2. ^ "1998 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
  3. ^ Eveld, Edward M. (December 4, 2009). "City of Thieves author tells how the novel came to be". The Kansas City Star. KansasCity.com. Retrieved January 28, 2010. [dead link]
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