A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of high fantasy novels by the American author George R. R. Martin. Martin began writing the first volume, A Game of Thrones, in 1991, and published it in 1996. Martin, who originally envisioned the series as a trilogy, has released five out of seven planned volumes. The most recent entry in the series, A Dance with Dragons, was published in 2011. Martin plans to write the sixth novel, titled The Winds of Winter. A seventh novel, A Dream of Spring, is planned to follow.
A Song of Ice and Fire depicts a violent world dominated by political realism. What little supernatural power exists is confined to the margins of the known world. Moral ambiguity pervades the books, and many of the storylines frequently raise questions concerning loyalty, pride, human sexuality, piety, and the morality of violence. The story unfolds through an alternating set of subjective points of view, the success or survival of any of which is never assured. Each chapter is told from a limited third-person perspective, drawn from a group of characters that expands from nine in the first novel to 31 by the fifth.
The novels are set on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos (the world as a whole does not have an established name). Martin's stated inspirations for the series include many supposed historic events. The work as a whole consists of three interwoven plots: a dynastic war among several families for control of Westeros, the ambition of the surviving members of the dethroned Targaryen dynasty to return from their exile in Essos and reassume the Iron Throne, and the growing threat posed by the powerful supernatural Others from the northernmost region of Westeros.
As of 2026, more than 100 million copies in 47 languages had been sold. The fourth and fifth volumes reached the top of the New York Times Best Seller lists when published in 2005 and 2011 respectively.
| style="text-align:center;"|33 h 53 min
|align="right"|August 1996
| style="text-align:center;"|37 h 17 min
|align="right"|February 1999
| style="text-align:center;"|47 h 37 min
|align="right"|November 2000
| style="text-align:center;"|31 h 10 min
|align="right"|November 2005
| style="text-align:center;"|48 h 56 min
|align="right"|July 2011
A Dream of Spring
Martin is not firm about ending the series with the seventh novel. Thus, he wanted to combine the realism of historical fiction with the magic appeal of the best fantasies,
Martin is widely credited with broadening the fantasy fiction genre for adult content.
Writing process
Setting out to write something on an epic scale,
Martin set the A Song of Ice and Fire story in a secondary world inspired by Tolkien's writing. and Elizabeth Woodville. Martin immersed himself in many diverse medieval topics such as clothing, food, feasting, and tournaments to have the facts at hand if needed during writing. are based on events in Scottish history such as the Black Dinner of 1440 and the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692.
Martin has also drawn from Roman history for inspiration, comparing Stannis Baratheon to the Roman Emperor Tiberius.
The story is written to follow principal landmarks with an ultimate destination, but leaves Martin room for improvisation. On occasion, improvised details significantly affected the planned story. || style="border-left:2px solid gray;"|
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! Cersei Lannister
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! Brienne of Tarth
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! Asha Greyjoy
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! Arys Oakheart
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! Victarion Greyjoy
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