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===Melancholia===
===Melancholia===


A common theme in other works by George R.R. Martin, melancholia also runs through the narrative and lives of characters. Many characters in the story are often unhappy with their lot in life.
A common theme in other works by George R.R. Martin, melancholia also runs through the narrative and lives of characters. Many characters, most prominently Sansa Stark, are unhappy with their lot in life and look for ways to change their situation.


===Food===
===Food===

Revision as of 22:47, 12 February 2012

This article is about the series of novels. For the television adaptation, see Game of Thrones (TV series).
A Song of Ice and Fire
File:A Game of Thrones Novel Covers.png
North American covers for the first five books
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords
A Feast for Crows
A Dance with Dragons
The Winds of Winter
A Dream of Spring
AuthorGeorge R. R. Martin
LandVereinigte Staaten
SpracheEnglisch
GenreHigh fantasy, dark fantasy, medieval fantasy
PublisherBantam Books (USA, Canada)
Voyager Books (UK, Australia)
AST (Russia)
PublishedAugust 6, 1996–present
Media typeprint (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, 25 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 in another civil war fifteen years before, 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 seven million copies in the USA[2] and more than 15 million copies worldwide.[3] 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.

Plot synopsis

Further information: Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire and World of A Song of Ice and Fire
File:Game Of Thrones WonderCon 2011 Iron Chair Crop.jpg
The Iron Throne prop in the Game of Thrones TV series.

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.

Publishing history

Übersicht

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.[4]

# Titel Pages Chapters Audio Earliest Release
1. A Game of Thrones 807 (704 hardcover) 77 33h 53m August 1996
2. A Clash of Kings 969 (784 hardcover) 70 37h 17m November 1998
3. A Storm of Swords 1128 (992 hardcover) 82 47h 37m August 2000
4. A Feast for Crows 976 (784 hardcover) 46 31h 10m October 2005
5. A Dance with Dragons 1136[5] (959 hardcover) 73 48h 56m July 2011
6. The Winds of Winter[6] (Forthcoming)
7. A Dream of Spring[7] (Forthcoming)

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 the A Song of Ice and Fire book series.[8] Martin published his first story in 1971[9] and had won three Hugo Awards, two Nebulas and other awards for his short fiction by the mid-1990s.[10] 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.[10] 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,[10] 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.[11] This pushed Martin back towards writing books, his first love, where he did not have to worry about compromising the magnitude of his imagination.[10] 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.[12]

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.[13] Putting Avalon aside, Martin finished this chapter in a few days and grew certain that it was part of a longer story.[9] After a few more chapters, Martin perceived his new book as a fantasy story[9] and started making maps and genealogies.[8] 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.[11]

Martin resumed work on A Game of Thrones in 1994, selling the novel as part of a trilogy to his agent,[11] with the novels A Dance with Dragons and The Winds of Winter following.[14] Shortly afterwards, while still writing the novel, he felt the series needed to be four and eventually six books,[11] imagined as two linked trilogies of one long story.[15] 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.[16]

The finished manuscript for A Game of Thrones was 1088 pages long (without the appendices),[17] with the publication following in August 1996.[citation needed] 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.[18] Released for pre-release publicity, a sample novella called Blood of the Dragon went on to win the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella.[19]

The second book called A Clash of Kings was released in November 1998,[citation needed] with a manuscript length (without appendices) of 1184 pages.[17] Martin had pulled out the last quarter of A Game of Thrones and made it the opening section of A Clash of Kings.[citation needed] A Clash of Kings was the first book of the Ice and Fire series to make the best-seller lists,[11] reaching 13 on the The New York Times Best Seller list in 1999.[20] 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.[11]

Martin was several months late turning in the third book, A Storm of Swords.[10] The last chapter he had written was a scene named "Red Wedding", which comes two-thirds of the way through the book.[21] This chapter was the hardest Martin had ever written[21] because it was "most violent and difficult [...] It was painful to write, it should be painful to read, it should be a scene that rips your heart out, and fills you with terror and grief."[18] A Storm of Swords was 1521 pages in manuscript (without appendices),[17] causing problems for many of Martin's publishers around the world. Bantam published A Storm of Swords in a single volume in the United States in August[citation needed] 2000, but not without difficulty,[17] whereas some other-language editions were divided into two, three, or even four volumes.[17] A Storm of Swords debuted at number 12 in the New York Times bestseller list.[19][22]

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.[10] The fourth book, tentatively titled A Dance With Dragons, was to focus on Daenerys Targaryen's return to Westeros and the conflicts that creates.[15] 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.[23] 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 much internal retrospection. On the other hand, it was implausible to have nothing happening for five years.[23] After working on the book for about a year, Martin realized he needed an additional interim book, which he called A Feast for Crows.[23] The book would pick up the story immediately after the third book, and Martin scrapped the idea of a five-year gap.[16]

Martin agreed with his publishers early on that the new book should be shorter than A Storm of Swords, and he set out to write the novel closer in length to A Clash of Kings.[17] In 2001, Martin was still optimistic that A Feast for Crows might be released in the last quarter of 2002.[16] However, the story kept getting more complicated[17] and the manuscript length eventually surpassed A Storm of Swords.[23] 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.[17] 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 even not started writing all characters' stories[24] and also objected ending the first book without any resolution for its many viewpoint characters and their respective stories as in previous books.[23]

Since the characters were spread out across the world,[14] 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,[17] which he still felt was the best approach years later.[14] 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,[25] and left A Feast for Crows to cover the events on Westeros, King's Landing, the riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands.[17] Both books begin immediately after the end of A Storm of Swords[14] and in parallel instead of sequentially,[24] involving different casts of characters with only little overlap.[17] 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.[25]

Upon its release in October 2005 in the UK[26] and November 2005 in the US,[27] A Feast for Crows went straight to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.[28] Among the positive reviewers was Lev Grossman of Time, who dubbed Martin "the American Tolkien".[29] 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.[30][31] Publishers Weekly noted in its review that the book "sorely misses its other half" and that "the slim pickings here are tasty, but in no way satisfying."[1]

With A Dance With Dragons said to be half-finished,[30] Martin mentioned in the epilogue in A Feast for Crows that the next volume would be released by the next year.[3] However, planned release dates were repeatedly pushed back. Meanwhile, HBO acquired the rights to turn Ice and Fire into a dramatic series in 2007[32] and aired the first of ten episodes covering A Game of Thrones in April 2011.[33] With around 1600 pages in manuscript length,[34] A Dance with Dragons was eventually published in July 2011 after six years of writing,[11] longer in page count and writing time than any of the preceding four novels.[8][30] The story of A Dance with Dragons catches up on A Feast of Crows around two thirds into the book, going further than Feast,[24] but covered less story than Martin intended, omitting at least one planned large battle sequence and leaving several character threads ending in cliff-hangers.[8] 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]".[31] 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).[30]

Planned novels and future

The sixth book is going to be called The Winds of Winter,[6] taking the title of the originally planned fifth book.[15] 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.[6] 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[35] and announced he would return to writing in January 2012.[8] 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,[36] released in March 2012.[5]

Martin hopes to finish The Winds of Winter much faster than the fifth book.[30] Having gotten in trouble from fans for repeatedly estimating his publication dates too optimistically, Martin refrains from making absolute estimates for book six.[8] A realistic estimation for finishing The Winds of Winter might be three years for him at a good pace,[34] but ultimately the book "will be done when it's done".[14] 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".[12]

Displeased with the provisional title A Time For Wolves for the final volume,[15] Martin ultimately announced A Dream of Spring as the title for the seventh book in 2006.[7] Martin is firm about ending the series with the seventh novel "until I decide not to be firm",[8] leaving open the possibility of an eight book to finish the series.[14] Martin is confident to have published the remaining books before the TV series overtakes him,[12] although he told major plot points to the two main Game of Thrones producers in case he should die.[12] (Aged 62 in 2011, Martin is by all accounts in robust health.)[37] However, Martin indicated he would not permit another writer to finish the series.[30] He knows the ending in broad strokes as well as the future of the main characters,[12] which will have bittersweet elements where not everyone will live happily ever after.[19] 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.[14]

Martin does not rule out additional stories set in Westeros after the last book, although he is unlikely to continue in that vein immediately.[38] 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.[9][18] At last, Martin is certain to never write anything on the scale of Ice and Fire again.[18]

Inspiration and writing

Genre

George R. R. Martin said the most profound influences are the ones experienced in childhood.[39] He grew up reading H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert A. Heinlein, Eric Frank Russell, Andre Norton,[9] Isaac Asimov,[16] Fritz Leiber, and Mervyn Peake.[40] Martin likes all kinds of imaginative literature and never drew any sharp distinctions between science fiction and fantasy or horror,[40] writing from all these genres easily nowadays.[39] Martin classified A Song of Ice and Fire as "epic fantasy"[34] and specifically named Tolkien and Tad Williams as very influential for the writing of the series.[16][40] Martin's favorite contemporary author is Jack Vance,[16] although Martin believes the series is not particularly Vancean.[15]

"[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."

—Author Joe Abercrombie[41]

The medieval setting has been the traditional background for epic fantasy even before Tolkien,[15] whose writing still dominates the genre.[30] However, before starting with the Ice and Fire series, Martin felt that many Tolkien imitators wrote "Disneyland Middle Ages" fantasy without grasping the true brutality of those times.[42] Historical fiction appeared much grittier and more realistic to Martin,[42] 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.[15] However, whereas historic fiction leaves versed readers with knowing the historic outcome,[40] original characters may create more suspense and increase empathies for the readers.[39] Thus, Martin wanted to combine the realism of historical fiction with the magic appeal of the best fantasies,[42] putting less emphasis on magic in favor of battles, political intrigue and characters in particular.[10]

Martin drew a lot of inspiration from actual history for the series,[39] having several bookcases filled with medieval history for research.[43] Martin immersed himself in many diverse medieval topics such as clothing, food, feasting and tournaments, to know specific points in advance when needed.[19] The series was in particular influenced by the Hundred Years' War, the Crusades, the Albigensian Crusade and the Wars of the Roses,[39][43] although Martin refrained from making any direct adaptations.[39]

Martin is widely credited with taking fantasy fiction into a more adult direction.[30] Martin's books are part of a cresting wave of "hard fantasy" writing that seeks to ground itself in unflinching portrayals of feudalism and medieval warfare. Martin and other writers in this tradition embrace the fact that readers become more emotionally involved with characters who are actually vulnerable. The reader cannot be sure that good shall triumph.[44] For a Washington Post reviewer, the series feels grounded in the brutal reality of medieval times despite the overtly fantastic elements like dragons and sorcerers.[45] The New York Times said "The series is like a sprawling and panoramic 19th-century novel turned out in fantasy motley, more Balzac and Dickens than Tolkien. Martin writes fantasy for grown-ups."[46] The Guardian said "A Song of Ice and Fire is no magic-and-maidens Tolkien rip-off. Dark and gritty, steeped in sex (some incestuous), it features minimal magic, maximum machiavellian machinations and [...] lashings of violence."[34] Some reviewers have compared Martin's work to that of J.R.R. Tolkien or even William Shakespeare, but LA Times said the truth was a little more complex: "The Song of Ice and Fire novels work so well because the epic fantasy is grounded in a strong horror element and because Martin skillfully conveys the gritty (often bawdy) physicality of the world while moving, with equal effectiveness, between various levels of society. Martin also owes a debt to the dark yet humane cynicism of writers like Jack Vance, even though he cares much more about the inner life of his characters than Vance. [Martin's novels contain] an implied criticism of Tolkien's moral simplicity."[47] CNN found that "A Song of Ice and Fire is thoroughly grounded in the brutality of the age, and the author's descriptions are far more frank than those found in the works of other fantasy authors. Still, mature as the themes sometimes are, they remain true to the story."[38]

World building

Setting out to write something on an epic scale,[38] Martin projected three books of 800 manuscript pages in the very early stages of the series.[40] His original contract had one-year deadlines based on his previous work on novels in his Hollywood days,[23] but Martin failed to take the new book lengths into account.[23] 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.[19] However, with the Ice and Fire series being the biggest and most ambitious story he has ever attempted writing,[25] 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.[10] Beginning each day at 10 am with coffee, he first looks at the previous day's work, changing and polishing it. Rewriting helps him with short writer blocks.[39] He may spend all day writing on good days, but on bad days he struggles writing anything.[10]

Martin has a supernatural or mythic rather than a scientific core to the story,[9] and draws the story rather from emotion than the rationalist side of things.[9] The story is set in an alternate world of Earth or what Tolkien called a "secondary world", which he pioneered with Middle Earth.[12] Contrary to Tolkien, who created entire languages, mythologies, and histories for Middle-earth long before writing his novels, Martin usually starts 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.[30] The most conspicuous aspect of the world of Westeros is the long and random nature of the seasons.[9] Fans have developed lengthy scientific theories for the seasons, but Martin insists there is a supernatural fantasy explanation instead of a scientific one.[9] Martin rather enjoyed the symbolism of the seasons, with summer as a time of growth and plenty and joy and winter is a dark time where you have to struggle for survival.[10] Martin keeps maps[10] and a cast list that topped 50 pages in the fourth volume, but most of it he keeps in his mind.[34] His imagined backstory is subject to change until published, and only the novels count as canon.[25] Martin keeps exercised material and previous old versions to be able to re-insert it at a later time.[25] Unlike Tolkien, Martin does not intend to publish his notes and appendices after the series.[10]

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

Martin was intentionally vague with the size of his world, omitting a scale on the maps to hinder readers from measuring distances to predict travel lengths.[25] The continent of Westeros may be considered of the size of South America though.[30] No complete world map is available as of 2012. Martin partly rejected publishing full maps deliberately for the feel of the real Middle Ages, where people were unillumined about distant places.[48] 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.[48] The Wall, which Martin believes to be unique in fantasy,[43] 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.[40]

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.[19] 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.[49] Some of his initial plans have changed along the way, and Martin prefers it that way.[43] However, Martin finds it increasingly difficult to keep track of the plot and subplots, and he is keeping more notes than ever before.[16] Nevertheless, Martin's world has become so detailed and sprawling that the story became unwieldy,[8] 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.[30]

Narrative structure

The books are divided into chapters, each one narrated in the third-person through the eyes of a point of view character.[30] Beginning with nine viewpoint characters in A Game of Thrones, the number of POV characters grows to a total of 31 (with nine having only one POV chapter) in A Dance with Dragons, acting from different locations; the short-lived one-time POV characters are mostly restricted to the prologue and epilogue.[19] 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.[50] However, as the reader experiences the struggle for Westeros from all sides at once, every fight might be seen as a triumph or tragedy, and everybody is both hero and villain at the same time, depending on the POV.[51]

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,[12] slowing down his writing because of the complexity and size of the series.[14] Martin believes to have reached the turning point at A Dance with Dragons.[14] The series' structure of multiple POVs and interwoven storylines however 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.[52] Martin paid attention to make all POV characters interesting, trying to avoid the pitfall where the reader skips those chapters not holding his interest.[40]

Influenced by his television and film scripting background, Martin tries to keep readers engrossed by ending each Ice and Fire chapter similar to a TV act break with a moment of tension or revelation, a twist or a cliff hanger.[53] Among the plot twists are the death of apparently crucial characters and the reappearances of believed-to-be dead characters.[54] Dividing the Ice and Fire story into books is much harder for Martin, as the series is one long story. Each book shall represent a phase of the journey that Martin tries to end with some closure for most characters. To make sure the reader comes back for the next book, a smaller portion of characters is left with clear-cut cliffhangers, although A Dance with Dragons had more cliffhangers than Martin ideally would have liked.[12][19] Both one-time and regular POV characters are designed to have a full character arc that may end in death and tragedy or in triumph and happiness.[19] 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.[18] However, this penchant for unpredictability may make the reader grow increasingly skeptical of cliff-hangers, especially deaths (see section #Violence and death).[14]

The serial nature of A Song of Ice and Fire is key to the readers' involvement. Although story lines conclude in each of the novels, the larger narrative arc remains unresolved, encouraging readers to speculate about what might ultimately happen.[30] 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.[10] The POV characters may clarify or provide different perspectives on past events,[55] but Martin employs unreliable narrators within his point of view structure.[14] Two different characters may therefore remember an event in two different ways,[14] and what the readers believe to be true may not necessarily be true.[10] Martin tries to be subtle with unreliable narrators,[18] although unintentional slight mistakes may happen in the process.[14]

Character development

Martin's plans for the Ice and Fire epic fantasy included a large cast of characters and many different settings from the beginning.[14] A Feast for Crows has a 63-page list of characters,[1] with many of the thousands of characters mentioned only in passing[30] or disappearing from view for long stretches.[45] Martin drew inspiration from history but does not do one-for-one kind of translations.[10] He based the characters largely on himself, but he made observations of friends, people he met or personalities in the news.[16] 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.[19]

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 them, their personality or their fate, but their backstory remains subject to change until written.[25] During research, Martin noticed the same names to recur in European histories; even the secondary families were using the same names repeatedly, with particular names associated with particular houses. Likewise, Martin ignored the writing rules never to give two characters in a story a name starting with the same letter or be identical. 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.[25]

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.[44] The Atlantic pondered that it may be Martin's ultimate intent that the readers end up sympathizing with characters on both sides of the Lannister-Stark feud early on, long before plot developments force invested readers into wrenching emotional choices about who to root for.[56] Martin guessed that the characters Arya Stark, Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen generate the most feedback.[57] All Ice and Fire characters are written with moral ambiguity (see section #Moral ambiguity),[19] but Tyrion is Martin's personal favorite as the greyest of the grey characters; his cunning and wit make him the most fun to write.[40]

In 2000, Martin found Bran to be the hardest character to write for several reasons. Bran was the character most deeply involved in magic, and Martin is very careful with the handling the supernatural aspects of the books and has to watch the writing of Bran fairly sharply. Bran was also the youngest of the major viewpoint characters, and kids are already difficult to write about,[19] and have to deal with adult thems like grief, loneliness and anger in the series (which would later also make the casting for the TV series difficult).[53] Martin set out to have the young characters grow up faster between chapters and make a book would represent a year. However, as it was implausible for a character to take two months to respond, Martin wound up writing a whole book with very little time passed. Martin hoped the planned five-year break would ease the situation where the kids were older and almost an adult in terms of the Seven Kingdoms, but he later dropped the five-year gap (see section #Bridging the timeline gap).[12][19]

Each character should have his or her own internal voice.[19] Martin gets emotionally involved in the lives of your characters, especially when writing them. He has to get himself inside the characters' heads and feel and see their choices as they would feel them, making the chapters with dreadful events sometimes very difficult to write for him.[19] Martin empathizes with Tyrion and all the other point of view characters. When writing from inside someone's head, he tend to see the world through their eyes, which requires a certain amount of empathy. Even with the villains, he get into their psyches.[39] 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.[25] Finally, Martin sees the characters as the heart of the story,[58] loving even the villains as if they were his children.[40][58]

Themes

Magic and realism

Although involving dragons and sorcery, the Ice and Fire series de-emphasizes magic compared to many other epic fantasy works (emblem of the 1905 fantasy work The Face in the Pool).

A Song of Fire and Ice takes place in an imaginary world not entirely dissimilar to mediaeval Earth, but with some magic like the dragons and the mysterious seasons.[10] The series attempts to mash together two seemingly contradictory genres of literature: realism and fantasy. It wants to tell you precisely what is not in the songs troubadours perform: the callous ambitions of nobles, the suffering of their serfs, the paralyzing social conventions of life for the mostly lowly blacksmith or highborn lady.[56] Compared with most epic fantasy fiction, Martin’s story contained relatively little magic, and it felt dangerous, lusty, and real.[30] Martin tried to give the story a little more historical fiction feel than a fantastic feel like previous author's books, with less emphasis on magic and sorcery and more emphasis on swordplay and battles and political intrigue.[10] Epic fantasy requires some magic in Martin's eyes, but he believe in judicious use of magic. Each book increases the level of magic gradually.[11] The Ice and Fire fantasy is quite low in magic compared to the majority of it out there.[42] The amount of magic is increasing by design from the start, but Martin intends that there is still not as much overt magic in the final volume as many other fantasies have.[19] In Martin's eyes, the books are almost set in a post-magic world where people believe dragons or the Others do not exist anymore anymore. Valyria was once a high civilization like like Rome before the Dark Ages, but now it is history. These elements gives the story a poignant sadness as if the world was a half-fallen civilization. Martin's family had little money in his childhood, but his mother came from a wealthy family. This sense of a lost golden age gave Martin a certain attraction to those kinds of stories of fallen civilizations and lost empires. And that may be one reason why Tolkien’s world appealed so much to Martin; Middle Earth is in decline as well, with the abandoned Mines of Moria and the elves' leaving.[59]

The realist heart of Martin's books—with that sense that magic lingers only on the periphery of the world in which the characters dwell, and is something more terrifying than wondrous. Rather than being about an epic, glorious battle between good and evil, this is a story about lives being crushed by the feudal system they are born into. It's a fantasy story that defies expectations by ultimately being less about a world we'd like to escape, at times becoming uncomfortably familiar to the one we live in.[56] While they may be riding horses and living in castles, it is a very modern setting. You see peasants sassing princesses, religion being disregarded and lots of things that happen. Martin did not write this with a complete medieval mindset, as that would have been too alien, but he tried to convey some of it. The people in medieval time did not have a modern-day sense of countries or nationalism like being English; they were rather citizens of a town or members of their family. The question of legitimacy of kingship was therefore very important for them, with the king seen as an avatar of god.[40] Above all else, modern fantasy is the literature of strangeness. Martin’s books, however, are generally praised for their realism. When people are stabbed, they die; when kingdoms ignore debts, the bankers show up. The characters understand their world, and we understand the characters. But this view of Martin’s books is incomplete, because the magical elements of his books are not, in fact, within the characters’ understanding at all — “the Others,” for example, are truly Other. In this sense, “A Dance With Dragons” is a kind of fantasy within a fantasy, and Martin now must find a way to let us feel that strangeness as the characters themselves do, rather than simply explaining it to death.[50] Current event have no real impact on the direction of the plot in any of your books.[16]

Politics

The Ice and Fire series was partly inspired by the Wars of the Roses (pictured), a series of dynastic civil wars for the throne of England.

The series focuses more on Machiavellian political intrigue than Tolkien-esque sword and sorcery.[36] There is a dynastic struggle going on for control of the kingdom: the Seven Kingdoms which is actually one kingdom, though it was formerly seven kingdoms. Now it's all ruled by a single king. Several of the great houses are contending for control of that throne.[10] Martin draws on historical sources to build his fantasy world. Westeros bears a startling resemblance to England in the period of the Wars of the Roses. One throne unifies the land but great houses fight over who will sit upon it. With no true king the land is beset with corrupt, money-grubbing lords whose only interest is their own prestige. Two loose alliances of power pit a poor but honourable North against a rich and cunning South. And the small folk must suffer through it all, regardless of which side wins. Many things change over the course of five centuries, but not politics it seems.[60] Rather than being about an epic, glorious battle between good and evil, this is a story about lives being crushed by the feudal system they are born into. This is more a story of politics than one of heroism, a story about humanity wrestling with its baser obsessions than fulfilling its glorious potential—and that's where the show's possible crossover appeal lies.[56]

But if Martin had only transposed a historical and political context to a fantasy world his books would never have achieved such staggering popularity. Their author's real strength is his compendious understanding of the human stories driving the grand political narrative. There does not seem to be a single living soul in the land of Westeros that Martin does not have insight into, from the highest king to the lowest petty thief. Martin does not compartmentalise evil on one side of the map and good on the other. It is a world of high stakes, where the winners prosper and the losers are mercilessly ground under heel. Against this tapestry every one of Martin's characters is forced to chose between their love for those close to them and the greater interests of honour, duty and the realm. More often than not, those who make the noble choice pay with their lives.[60] The class structures of the Middle Ages was a source of friction when someone tried to change classes, which Martin tried to reflect. People were brought up from their childhood to know their place and to know that duties of their class and the privileges of their class.[42] Martin was interested in how general goodness does not automatically make make competent leaders; a good man is not always a good king, and a bad man is not always a bad king. Martin wanted to show what decisions they made and the possible consequences of those decisions and how thing worked or how things failed to work.[42]

Moral ambiguity

Violence and death

Sexuality

Feminism

Religion

Honor & Loyalty

Honor, both personal and familial play large parts in the story as does loyalty.

Melancholia

A common theme in other works by George R.R. Martin, melancholia also runs through the narrative and lives of characters. Many characters, most prominently Sansa Stark, are unhappy with their lot in life and look for ways to change their situation.

Food

Food is so central to Mr. Martin's series that some critics have accused him of "gratuitous feasting".[61] By fans' count, the first four novels name more than 160 dishes,[62] ranging from peasant meals to royal feasts featuring camel, crocodile, singing squid, seagulls, lacquered ducks and spiny grubs.[61] The meals signal everything from a character's disposition to plot developments, and hint also at the danger that a bad harvest may not last the nation throughout a hard winter. Sometimes, inedible-sounding food is eaten in nauseating circumstances like at the Red Wedding in A Storm of Swords, preparing readers for events they may not have the stomach for in a more metaphorical sense.[62]

As cooking dishes from popular fantasy books has become a pastime for fans seeking to immerse themselves in their favorite fictional worlds and connect on a deeper level with the books, two fans has been chronicling their culinary efforts with Martin's series on their blog, "Inn at the Crossroads", receiving more than a million hits. Martin, who is "very good at eating [but] not too much of a cook",[61] received repeated requests to write a cookbook over the years, and two rival cookbooks based on Martin's series are coming out.[61]

Reception

Critical response

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".[19] A Song of Ice and Fire, which Weird Tales called a "superb fantasy saga" in 2007,[9] 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.[9] 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.[30] After the fourth volume came out, Time anointed Martin "the American Tolkien",[29] a term picked up by New Yorker.[30] The New York Times even said Martin was "much better than that".[46]

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".[36] 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.[21] The Washington Post was sure in 2011 that "no work of fantasy has generated such anticipation since Harry Potter's final duel with Voldemort".[45]

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."[63] He landed a spot on Time magazine's coveted 2011 100 List.[21]

Verkauf

Sales performance of the Ice and Fire series in the New York Times Bestseller Lists in 2011 between the airing of the Game of Thrones pilot episode and the publication of A Dance With Dragons.[64]

As of April 2011, Martin has sold more than fifteen million Ice and Fire books worldwide,[3][30] with the series translated into more than 20 languages.[4] Martin's American publisher Bantam reported in early 2011 that 4.5 million copies of the first four volumes were in print.[33] As of May 2012, the fifth volume of the series has sold more than six million copies in North America.[2]

Martin's publishers expected A Game of Thrones to be a best-seller,[8] generating a fierce bidding war in the UK which HarperCollins eventually won for £450,000.[65] However, the book turned out to be a disappointment saleswise,[8] which left Martin unsurprised as it is "a fool's game to think anything is going to be successful or to count on it".[58] The book slowly won the passionate advocacy of some independent booksellers, who recommended it to their customers, who in turn recommended it to their friends by word of mouth.[30] As Martin continued the complex story in subsequent volumes, the series' popularity skyrocketed.[8] The second and third volume made the The New York Times Best Seller lists in 1999[20] and 2000,[22] respectively. The series gained Martin's old writings new attention in 2000, and Martin's American publisher Bantam Books was to reprint his out-of-print solo novels.[19]

The fourth installment, A Feast for Crows, went straight to No. 1 on the best-seller list when it was released in 2005,[8] which for a fantasy novel suggested that Martin's books were attracting mainstream readers.[34] The paperback edition of A Game of Thrones reached its 34th printing in 2010, surpassing the one million mark.[66] HBO's Game of Thrones boosted sales of the book series even before the TV series premiered.[33] Ice and Fire was approaching triple-digit growth in year-on-year sales, and Bantam was looking forward to seeing the tie-ins boost sales further.[33] The Random House Publishing Group had shipped four million copies of the first four books by January 2011,[37] and the book series re-appeared on the paperback fiction bestseller lists in the second quarter of 2011.[64][67]

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[68] and reached the top of The New York Times bestseller list.[1] Unlike most other big titles, the fifth volume sold more physical than digital copies.[37] Barnes & Noble buyer James Killen predicted an uptick in sales for similar novels, saying "Recently, much of the focus in fantasy has been fixed on vampires and werewolves, urban fantasy or paranormal romance. I think the dark medieval fantasy of Game of Thrones has the potential to revitalize interest in ambitious heroic epics."[33]

Fandom

During his years in television, Martin's novels slowly earned him something of a reputation in science fiction circles,[27] although he said to only received a few fans letters a year in the pre-internet days.[39] The publication of A Game of Thrones caused Martin's following to grow and fan sites to spring up; a Trekkie-like society of followers evolved that met regularly.[27] By 2005, Martin received tons of fans e-mails and was about 2000 letters behind that may go unanswered for years.[39] 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.[12] He is committed to nurturing his audience, no matter how vast it gets. He administers a lively blog with the assistance of Ty Franck.[30] Fan mail occasionally includes photos of children and pets named for his characters,[27] which is displayed on Martin's website.[1]

Starting out as a fan himself, Martin visited his first convention in 1971 after selling his first story. 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.[69] Martin attends the gatherings of the Brotherhood Without Banners on his travels, an unofficial fan club operating globally that does not charge a membership fee or have a defined organizational structure. Tracing back their origins to a convention in the early 2000s in Philadelphia, Martin counts the Brotherhood founders and other longtime members among his good friends.[30]

A Swedish-based fan of Cuban-American decent, Elio M. García, Jr., maintains an official presence for Martin on Facebook and Twitter. García also runs one of the main Ice and Fire fansites named Westeros.org, which he established with his girlfriend in 1999. The site had about seventeen thousand registered members in 2011, and García estimates that he spends up to thirty-five hours a month supervising the site. Although García's participation in Westeros.org is voluntary, his involvement with Martin's work has become semi-professional. García is what the New Yorker calls a superfan with such a vast knowledge of Martin's invented world that Martin has referred HBO researchers to him when they have questions regarding the production of Game of Thrones. García is a paid consultant to licensors creating tie-in merchandise and to write text for a video game based on the series. He and Martin are collaborating on a comprehensive guide to the books, The World of Ice and Fire. Martin himself sometimes checks with García when he is not sure about a fictional detail.[30] Since Martin enjoys heraldry, he helped the operators of the Westeros fansite with their heraldy pages of all the houses of the Seven Kingdoms on their site (Martin estimates it is over 400 shields up there now). They send him the shields for approval, and he sends them suggestions.[19]

"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[70]

Some of Martin's fans turned against him in anger because by his taking his time with releasing A Dance With Dragons, he breaches his authorly duty to their obsessions.[30] Martin's assistant Ty pondered if that may be a generational misunderstanding between Martin from the Baby Boomer generation who had to wait for everything, and the younger "Entitlement Generation" is used to instant gratification.[12] A renegade movement of disaffected fans called GRRuMblers formed in 2009,[30] harassing Martin with sites such as Finish the Book, George that brim with vituperation,[3] or humming with hostile creativity such as Is Winter Coming?.[30] It is not uncommon for Mr. Martin to be mobbed at book signings; in November 2011, 600 people showed up to see him at the Barnes & Noble at Astor Place in Manhattan.[27] 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.[30] Salon.com's Andrew Leonard saw this as a great affirmation about how deep a chord Martin has struck.[71] The Globe and Mail asked, "Is this any way to treat the dean of the genre, a master storyteller dubbed 'the American Tolkien' and recently named one of 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine?"[3]

When fans' vocal impatience for A Dance with Dragons peaked in 2009, Martin issued an angry statement called "To My Detractors"[70] on his blog to stem a rising tide of anger.[72] He sees it a right to withdraw anytime and enjoy his leisure times as he chooses, to what "the more hardcore trolls" object.[12] Even author Neil Gaiman got dragged into the feud when he responded, on his own blog, to an inquiry about Martin's tardiness by issuing this reproof: "George R. R. Martin is not your bitch."[30][73] Martin tries to give his readers a good story, but "owing" them something is the wrong word. Martin believes of himself as being bound by an informal contract with his readers; he feels that he owes them his best work. He doesn't, 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.[30]

Awards and nominations

Derived works

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

Excerpt-based novellas

There are three novellas based on chapter sets from the books:

Tales of Dunk and Egg

Main article: Tales of Dunk and Egg

There are three separate novellas set in the same world, known as the "Tales of Dunk and Egg" after the main protagonists.

  • The Hedge Knight (1998)
  • The Sworn Sword (2003)
  • The Mystery Knight (2010)

The stories are set about ninety years before the novels and for now have no direct connection with the plot of A Song of Ice and Fire. However, there is mentioning of both characters in both A Storm of Swords (p. 620 lists Duncan the Tall as a Lord Commander of the Kingsguard) and A Feast For Crows (Brienne has her shield painted over with his sigil; a tree beneath a falling star. - Egg and Duncan are mentioned by Maester Aemon on the ship to the Citadel; Egg wished Aemon to help him rule but instead has Ser Duncan escort him to the Wall.)

The Hedge Knight and The Sworn Sword are also both available as graphic novels from Dabel Brothers Productions. The author has said that he would like to write a number of these stories (varying from six to twelve from interview to interview) covering the entire lives of these two characters. The first two installments were published in the Legends and Legends II anthologies. The third "Dunk and Egg" novella, titled The Mystery Knight, was published in March 2010 in the anthology Warriors, edited by Martin and Gardner Dozois. A fourth installment is currently planned for an as yet untitled sequel to the Warriors anthology. It will focus on Dunk and Egg in the North. Martin announced on his 2011 national book tour that the Dunk and Egg series will be collected into a book and published by Bantam Spectra after the fourth novella is first published in an original anthology he and Gardner Dozois are editing.

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.[32] 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.[78] Shortly after the conclusion of the first season, the show received 13 Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Drama and Outstanding Supporting Actor.

Other works

There are board games[79] and tabletop role-playing games[80] 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.[81] 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.[30]

References

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