title: Michael J. Fox

text: In 2020, Fox retired from acting due to the increasing unreliability of his speech. Fox's memoir, "No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality", was released that November. In the book, Fox explained that, "not being able to speak reliably is a game-breaker for an actor" and that he was experiencing memory loss. Fox wrote, "There is a time for everything, and my time of putting in a 12-hour workday, and memorizing seven pages of dialogue, is best behind me...I enter a second retirement. That could change, because everything changes. But if this is the end of my acting career, so be it."


title: Michael J. Fox

text: In 2021, Fox appeared in one episode of the television series "Expedition: Back to the Future" and in the animated film "Back Home Again".


title: Michael J. Fox

text: Fox served as an executive producer of "Spin City" alongside co-creators Bill Lawrence and Gary David Goldberg.


title: Michael J. Fox

text: Fox has authored four books: "Lucky Man: A Memoir" (2002), "Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist" (2009), "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned" (2010), and "No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality" (2020).


title: Michael J. Fox

text: Fox met his wife, Tracy Pollan, when she played the role of his girlfriend, Ellen, on "Family Ties". They were married on July 16, 1988, at West Mountain Inn in Arlington, Vermont. The couple have four children: son Sam Michael (born May 30, 1989), twin daughters Aquinnah Kathleen and Schuyler Frances (born February 15, 1995), and daughter Esmé Annabelle (born November 3, 2001). Fox holds dual Canadian-US citizenship. He provided a light-hearted segment during the 2010 Winter Olympics' closing ceremony in Vancouver, British Columbia on February 28, 2010, when he expressed how proud he is to be Canadian. On June 4, 2010, the city of Burnaby, British Columbia granted him the Freedom of the City. Fox and his family live primarily in Manhattan. The family owns a second home in Quogue, New York.


title: Michael J. Fox

text: Fox started displaying symptoms of early-onset Parkinson's disease in 1991 while shooting the movie "Doc Hollywood", and was diagnosed shortly thereafter. Though his initial symptoms were only a twitching little finger and a sore shoulder, he was told that within a few years he would not be able to work. The causes of Parkinson's disease are not well understood, and may include genetic and environmental factors. Fox is one of at least four members of the cast and crew of "Leo and Me" who developed early-onset Parkinson's. According to Fox, this is not enough people to be defined as a cluster so has not been well researched. He told Hadley Freeman of "The Guardian" in late 2020: "I can think of a thousand possible scenarios: I used to go fishing in a river near paper mills and eat the salmon I caught; I've been to a lot of farms; I smoked a lot of pot in high school when the government was poisoning the crops. But you can drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out."


title: Michael J. Fox

text: After his diagnosis, Fox started drinking heavily and grew depressed. He eventually sought help and stopped drinking altogether. In 1998, he went public about his Parkinson's disease, and has become a strong advocate of Parkinson's disease research. His foundation, The Michael J. Fox Foundation, was created to help advance every promising research path to curing Parkinson's disease. Since 2010, he has led a $100 million effort, which is the Foundation's landmark observational study, to discover the biological markers of Parkinson's disease with the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI).


title: Michael J. Fox

text: Fox manages the symptoms of his Parkinson's disease with the drug carbidopa/levodopa, and he had a thalamotomy in 1998.


title: Michael J. Fox

text: His first book, "Lucky Man", focused on how, after seven years of denial of the disease, he set up the Michael J. Fox Foundation, stopped drinking and became an advocate for people living with Parkinson's disease. In "Lucky Man", Fox wrote that he did not take his medication prior to his testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee in 1999 (partial C-SPAN video clip).


title: Michael J. Fox

text: In 2006, Fox starred in a campaign ad for then-State Auditor of Missouri Claire McCaskill in her successful 2006 Senate campaign against incumbent Jim Talent, expressing her support for embryonic stem cell research. In the ad, he visibly showed the effects of his Parkinson's disease:


title: Michael J. Fox

text: "The New York Times" called it "one of the most powerful and talked about political advertisements in years" and polls indicated that the commercial had a measurable impact on the way voters voted, in an election that McCaskill won. His second book, "Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist", describes his life between 1999 and 2009, with much of the book centered on how Fox got into campaigning for stem-cell research. On March 31, 2009, Fox appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" with Mehmet Oz to discuss his condition as well as his book, his family and his primetime special, which aired May 7, 2009, ("Michael J. Fox: Adventures of an Incurable Optimist").


title: Michael J. Fox

text: His work led him to be named one of the 100 people "whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world" in 2007 by "Time" magazine. On March 5, 2010, Fox received an honorary doctorate in medicine from Karolinska Institute for his contributions to research in Parkinson's disease. He received an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of British Columbia.


title: Michael J. Fox

text: On May 31, 2012, he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the Justice Institute of British Columbia to recognize his accomplishments as a performer as well as his commitment to raising research funding and awareness for Parkinson's disease. Fox recalled performing in role-playing simulations as part of police recruit training exercises at the Institute early in his career.


title: Michael J. Fox

text: In 2016, his organization, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, created a raffle to raise awareness for Parkinson's disease and raised $6.75 million, with the help of Nike via two auctions, one in Hong Kong and the other in London.


title: Michael J. Fox

text: At the 2022 Governors Awards, Fox was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his efforts in fighting Parkinson's, having raised over $1 billion for research. The award was presented by friend Woody Harrelson.


title: House of Gucci

text: House of Gucci is a 2021 American biographical crime drama film directed by Ridley Scott, based on the 2001 book "The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed" by Sara Gay Forden. The film follows Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) and Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), as their romance transforms into a fight for control of the Italian fashion brand Gucci. Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, Jack Huston, Salma Hayek, and Al Pacino also star.


title: House of Gucci

text: Scott wanted to make a film about the Gucci dynasty after acquiring rights to Forden's book in the early 2000s. The project languished for several years, with a number of directors and rumored actors being considered before Scott and Gaga became officially attached in November 2019. Much of the remaining cast joined the following summer, and filming began in Italy, lasting from February through May 2021.


title: House of Gucci

text: The world premiere of "House of Gucci" was held at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square in London on November 9, 2021. It was theatrically released by United Artists Releasing in the United States on November 24, 2021. The film received mixed reviews from critics who praised the cast's performances, but criticized the inconsistent tone and editing. Gaga and Leto were nominated for the Critics' Choice Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Satellite Award for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, respectively, with the former also receiving nominations for the BAFTA Award and Golden Globe Award. The film earned a nomination at the 94th Academy Awards for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. It has grossed over $154 million against a $75 million budget.


title: House of Gucci

text: In 1978, Patrizia Reggiani is the office manager of her father's small trucking firm. At a party in the early 80s, she meets Maurizio Gucci, a law student and heir to a 50% interest in the Gucci fashion house through his father Rodolfo. Patrizia aggressively pursues the awkward Maurizio, charming him into love.


title: House of Gucci

text: Rodolfo warns Maurizio that Patrizia is only after wealth and tells him he will disinherit him if he marries Patrizia; Maurizio chooses her over his connection to Gucci, leaving the family. Patrizia and Maurizio marry, and he gets a job at the trucking company.


title: House of Gucci

text: When Patrizia becomes pregnant, she sees her child as an avenue for familial reconciliation. She lets it slip to Maurizio's uncle Aldo that she is pregnant; he is delighted by the news and takes the couple under his wing.


title: House of Gucci

text: Aldo introduces Patrizia to his eccentric son Paolo, who aspires to be a designer within Gucci despite his lack of talent. Aldo helps Maurizio and a terminally ill Rodolfo reconcile shortly before the latter's death. Rodolfo writes Maurizio back into his will, but fails to sign a document transferring the Gucci shares to him before he dies. Patrizia forges Rodolfo's signature, giving Maurizio a 50% interest in Gucci.


title: House of Gucci

text: Patrizia devises a plot to obtain controlling interest in Gucci by acquiring some of Aldo and Paolo's shares (they hold the other 50% interest). She clashes with Aldo over the firm's clandestine sale of cheap "fake" Gucci products on the black market, and begins to consult Giuseppina "Pina", a psychic, for guidance. She manipulates Maurizio, who has little real interest in Gucci, into taking a more active role within the company.


title: House of Gucci

text: Paolo acquires proof that Aldo has been evading taxes in the United States; he gives this to Patrizia in exchange for her promise that he will be allowed to design his own line. Aldo is arrested by the IRS and sentenced to a year and a day in prison.


title: House of Gucci

text: Patrizia lies to the Italian police and tells them that Paolo is not authorized to use the Gucci trademark, so they stop his fashion show by force. Patrizia and Maurizio ask Paolo to sell them his shares, but he rebuffs and cuts ties with them.


title: House of Gucci

text: Italian police search Maurizio's, attempting to arrest him for forging Rodolfo's signature. His family flees to Switzerland, where Maurizio meets his old friend Paola Franchi. After an argument between Maurizio and Patrizia, he decides he is tired of his wife's influence on himself and the company. He orders his wife and daughter to return to Italy and begins an affair with Paola, which Pina seemingly senses.


title: House of Gucci

text: When Maurizio's business plans harm the company, he seeks assistance from equity company Investcorp, through which he hatches a scheme to acquire shares of the company from a now-impoverished Paolo. Aldo returns from prison and immediately realizes what Paolo has done. When Investcorp offers to buy Aldo out, he refuses until Maurizio reveals himself as the deal's instigator. Dejected, Aldo sells the shares and cuts contact with Maurizio.


title: House of Gucci

text: Patrizia attempts a reconciliation with Maurizio, but he flatly ignores her. Later, he asks her for a divorce through his long-time assistant Domenico De Sole, which she refuses. Maurizio recruits up-and-coming designer Tom Ford to revitalize the company's image through a new line. His products are successful, but Maurizio has so thoroughly mismanaged the company that, by 1995, Investcorp's leaders feel compelled to buy him out, replacing him with Tom and Domenico.


title: House of Gucci

text: Patrizia eventually grows so furious with Maurizio that she asks Pina to help her assassinate him. She puts her in contact with two hitmen. A few days later, they shoot Maurizio to death in broad daylight outside his office.


title: House of Gucci

text: Closing intertitles describe the fate of the remaining characters: Aldo died of prostate cancer in 1990 and Paolo died in poverty shortly following the sale of their shares to Maurizio. Patrizia, Pina, and the hitmen are sentenced to long prison terms following their arrest for murder. Gucci is fully acquired by Investcorp and successfully managed into the present; no Gucci family members remain at the company.


title: House of Gucci

text: In the final scene, Patrizia takes her husband's last name while announcing herself in court, indicating that she still considers herself to be a Gucci even if the law does not.


title: House of Gucci

text: In June 2006, Ridley Scott was set to direct a film about the downfall of the Gucci family dynasty, with Andrea Berloff writing the script, despite the family's dismissal of the project, with Angelina Jolie and Leonardo DiCaprio rumored to play Patrizia Reggiani and Maurizio Gucci. In February 2012, Scott's daughter Jordan Scott had replaced him as director and was in talks with Penélope Cruz to play Reggiani. In November 2016, Wong Kar-wai took over as director from Jordan Scott, with Charles Randolph writing alongside Berloff and Margot Robbie now considered to play Reggiani. In November 2019, Ridley Scott was once again set to direct the film, with Roberto Bentivegna writing the script, and Lady Gaga set to star. According to the Gucci CEO, Marco Bizzarri, the fashion house cooperated with the production and gave them full access to their archives for wardrobe and props.


title: House of Gucci

text: Gaga explained that she took into account how her long-time friend Tony Bennett "feels about Italians being represented in film in terms of crime", and aspired to "make a real person out of Patrizia, not a caricature." To achieve that, she studied Reggiani's vocal cadence and attitude. She explained: "I felt the best way to honor Maurizio and Italians was for my performance to be authentic, from the perspective of a woman. Not an Italian-American woman but an Italian woman." She stayed in character for 18 months, speaking with an accent for nine months during that period. She also adlibbed many of her lines, including the film's iconic quote "Father, Son and House of Gucci," which went viral after the release of the film's first trailer.


title: House of Gucci

text: In November 2019, it was announced that Gaga would play Reggiani. In April 2020, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the rights to the film. By August, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Jack Huston and Reeve Carney had entered negotiations to join the cast. Driver, Leto, Pacino and De Niro were confirmed by October. Huston and Carney were confirmed in December along with Jeremy Irons, while De Niro had exited the film. Dariusz Wolski announced his involvement as cinematographer that same month. Camille Cottin joined the cast in January 2021. In March, Mădălina Diana Ghenea, Mehdi Nebbou, and Miloud Mourad Benamara were added to the cast, along with Salma Hayek, who is married to the CEO of Gucci's parent company, François-Henri Pinault.


title: House of Gucci

text: In August 2020, it was reported that the filming was expected to begin when Scott completed production of "The Last Duel" (2021). On February 3, 2021, Leto said that the film was still in the pre-production phase and they would start shooting it in Italy in the coming weeks. Principal photography began in Rome at the end of February, with COVID-19 safety precautions in place. Several scenes were filmed in early March in the cities of Gressoney-Saint-Jean and Gressoney-La-Trinité, specifically in the Italian Alps in the Aosta Valley, which were used to recreate the tourist complex of St. Moritz in Switzerland. Filming also took place in other locations in the country such as Florence, Lake Como (at Villa del Balbiano), and Milan, including the Villa Necchi-Campiglio (previously featured in the film "I Am Love"). At the end of March, they returned to Rome to shoot scenes at Via Condotti. Filming wrapped on May 8.


title: House of Gucci

text: "House of Gucci" had its world premiere at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square in London on November 9, 2021. It was released theatrically in North America on November 24, 2021, and in the United Kingdom on November 26. Following its theatrical release, it will also be available to stream on Paramount+.


title: House of Gucci

text: United Artists Releasing aired the first trailer for the film during the 2021 Summer Olympics. Social media accounts promoting the film on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook had a total of 415.4 million followers, including 234 million followers from the cast. Overall, the marketing campaign delivered at least 1.2 billion impressions and 407 million views online. Marketing tactics included radio, social, and ticketing partnerships, television spots, and promotions on TikTok, Twitter, and Snapchat. Crime podcasts were used to attract younger audiences. In theaters, trailers for the film ran during screenings of "Respect", "Reminiscence", "Dear Evan Hansen", "", "No Time to Die", "Halloween Kills", "The Last Duel", "Eternals" and "King Richard". By November 25, United Artists Releasing had spent $12.8 million on television advertisements promoting the film.


title: House of Gucci

text: "House of Gucci" became available for streaming on February 1, 2022. It was released on Blu-ray and DVD on February 22.


title: House of Gucci

text: "House of Gucci" grossed $53.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $100.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $154.3 million.


title: House of Gucci

text: In the United States and Canada, "House of Gucci" was released alongside "Encanto" and "", and was originally projected to gross $15–20 million from 3,441 theaters in its five-day opening weekend. The film opened nationwide on Wednesday, November 24, 2021, and made $4.2 million on its first day—including $1.3 million from Tuesday night previews—from a total of 345,000 theater admissions. "House of Gucci" went on to debut to a $22 million five-day opening. The main reasons given for seeing the film were Lady Gaga (40%), the ensemble cast (32%), and the plot (34%). Audiences were 45% between the ages of 18 and 34, and 34% over the age of 45, a higher-than-average result for a drama film targeting an older audience during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to "Deadline Hollywood", "House of Gucci" had the best box office opening for a drama film since "Little Women" in 2019, and "Forbes" predicted that the film would become "by far, the most 'successful' adult-skewing non-action drama of the so-called pandemic era." The film made $7 million in its second weekend, $4.1 million in its third, $1.99 million in its fourth, and $915,339 in its fifth. In its seventh weekend, the film crossed the $50 million mark in the U.S. and Canada while also finishing tenth at the box office with $616,744.


title: House of Gucci

text: Outside the U.S. and Canada, the film earned $12.8 million from 40 markets in its opening weekend; the top countries in its first five days were the U.K. ($3.4 million), France ($1.9 million), Mexico ($975,000), Spain ($795,000), and the Netherlands ($629,000). The film went on to make $14.8 million in its second weekend and $10.1 million in its third. In its fourth weekend, "House of Gucci" grossed $4.1 million and crossed the $100 million mark worldwide. The film earned $3.16 million in its sixth weekend, $4 million in its seventh, $4.4 million in its eighth, and $2.8 million in its ninth.


title: House of Gucci

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, of critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of . The website's consensus reads, ""House of Gucci" vacillates between inspired camp and dour drama too often to pull off a confident runway strut, but Lady Gaga's note-perfect performance has a timeless style all its own." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 59 out of 100 based on 57 critics, indicating mixed or average reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an 82% positive score, with 60% saying they would definitely recommend it. "Deadline Hollywood" noted a strong divide between critics and audiences and said, "it appears moviegoers are overpowering." "Screen Rant" commented that although the film received mixed reviews from critics, the performances of the cast were highly praised, with particular emphasis on Lady Gaga and Jared Leto.


title: House of Gucci

text: Alissa Wilkinson of "Vox" gave the film a mixed review, praising the performances but criticizing the screenplay and writing: "The movie the trailer is selling is actually a little more dishy and wild than the real "House of Gucci", which would be a pointless and somewhat perfunctory dud if it weren't for the brilliance, or madness, of the performances." Reviewing the film for "The Hollywood Reporter", David Rooney wrote: "Ridley Scott's film is a trashtacular watch that I wouldn't have missed for the world. But it fails to settle on a consistent tone — overlong and undisciplined as it careens between high drama and opera buffa."


title: House of Gucci

text: Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film two and a half out of four stars, writing: "Adam Driver (who has now played a French squire and an Italian fashion heir in consecutive Ridley Scott movies) and Lady Gaga have legit chemistry together, and it's still a kick to see Al Pacino roaring like a lion in winter. But Hayek and Irons are playing cardboard-thin characters, Leto flounders about as if he's in a movie all his own, and "House of Gucci" feels coldly calculating when it should have been flush and warm with scandalous sensationalism." Writing for "The New York Times", A. O. Scott found the film to be a missed opportunity that could've been crafted more in line with better cinematic standards, stating that it lacks "the necessary vision or inspiration."


title: House of Gucci

text: Gaga's Italian accent was met with criticism by Italian actress and dialect coach Francesca De Martini, who worked on set as a dialogue coach for Hayek, and claimed that Gaga's "accent is not exactly an Italian accent, it sounds more Russian." BBC stated that Leto's portrayal of Paolo Gucci inspired "both ridicule and irritation." Film critic Mark Kermode described his performance as "parodic", writing that "while others adopt faintly ridiculous Italian inflections, Leto delivers his lines in a string of high-pitched whoops that suggest he is attempting to communicate with whales." David Ehrlich of "IndieWire" described Leto as "brilliantly over-the-top".


title: House of Gucci

text: Responding to negative reviews characterizing the cast's performances as "high-flown and jarringly incongruous," Michael Shindler of "The American Conservative" wrote that such comments overlook those performances' relation to the film's "dramatic substance," "a conflict of high-flown and jarringly incongruous personalities vying to remake Gucci in their own image," arguing in that vein that the film, like Scott's "All the Money in the World", is a historical drama about the emergence of "a new man whose very character is adapted to the demands of contemporary commerce," comparing J. Paul Getty's role in the latter to that of Tom Ford.


title: House of Gucci

text: In January 2021, during an interview with Italian magazine "Novella 2000", Patrizia Reggiani approved that Gaga would portray her and commented she "immensely" likes her, saying "she's a genius". However, in March, Reggiani gave an interview to the Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA) where she stated she was "annoyed" that Gaga had not contacted her to meet her and claimed that "it is not an economic question. I won't get a cent from the film. It is a question of good sense and respect". Later that month, it was confirmed that the producers did not want Gaga to meet her and they were "aware of not wanting to endorse or support the awful crime" she committed, saying Gaga had watched much footage and many documentaries, and read books about her life. Gaga also stated that she has no interest in "colluding" with Reggiani, but her heart goes "out to her daughters... I do care deeply that this must be very painful for them."


title: House of Gucci

text: Patrizia Gucci, who is Paolo Gucci's daughter and Maurizio Gucci's first cousin once removed, told the Associated Press, in the name of the Gucci family, they were "truly disappointed" by the film. "They are stealing the identity of a family to make a profit, to increase the income of the Hollywood system." She added, "Our family has an identity, privacy. We can talk about everything, but there is a borderline that cannot be crossed". According to Gucci, the three central concerns of the family are inaccuracies in the film, the lack of contact with Ridley Scott, and the casting of high-profile actors to play people who were not connected with the murder. She also said that the Gucci family will decide what their next course of action will be after watching the completed film. Scott rejected her claims, saying that "You have to remember that one Gucci was murdered and another went to jail for tax evasion so you can't be talking to me about making a profit. As soon as you do that you become part of the public domain."


title: House of Gucci

text: Tom Ford, in an article for "Air Mail", stated that he "felt as though [he] had lived through a hurricane when [he] left the theater," saying that, despite laughing on a few occasions, he found it "hard for [him] to see the humor and camp in something that was so bloody. In real life, none of it was camp. It was at times absurd, but ultimately it was tragic". Ford praised most of the cast, though he did criticize Pacino's and Leto's performances, comparing them to "Saturday Night Live" performers and adding on the latter, "Leto's brilliance as an actor is literally buried under latex prosthetics... Paolo, whom I met on several occasions, was indeed eccentric and did some wacky things, but his overall demeanor was certainly not like the crazed and seemingly mentally challenged character of Leto's performance". While not directly commenting on his role in the film or Reeve Carney's portrayal of him, Ford noted that the moment of Maurizio toasting him was inaccurate, as he had already been bought out by the company before Ford became Gucci's creative director.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Robert John Odenkirk (; born October 22, 1962) is an American actor, comedian and filmmaker best known for his role as Saul Goodman on "Breaking Bad" (2008–2013) and its spin-off "Better Call Saul" (2015–2022), for which he has received five nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. As a producer on "Better Call Saul" since its premiere, he has also received six nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series. He is also known for the HBO sketch comedy series "Mr. Show with Bob and David" (1995–1998), which he co-created and starred in with fellow comic David Cross. In 2015, he and Cross reunited, along with the rest of the "Mr. Show" cast, for "W/ Bob & David" on Netflix.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: From the late 1980s to the 1990s, Odenkirk wrote for television series "Saturday Night Live" (1987–1991) and "The Ben Stiller Show"(1992), winning Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series in 1989 and 1993. He also wrote for "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" (1993–1994) and acted in a recurring role as Agent Stevie Grant in "The Larry Sanders Show" (1993–1998). In the early 2000s, Odenkirk discovered the comedy duo Tim & Eric and produced their television series "Tom Goes to the Mayor" (2004–2006) and "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" (2007–2010). His feature directorial credits include the films "Melvin Goes to Dinner" (2003), "Let's Go to Prison" (2006), and "The Brothers Solomon" (2007).


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: The success of "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul" led to acting work in high-profile projects, such as "Nebraska" (2013), the first season of "Fargo" (2014), "Hell and Back" (2015), Steven Spielberg's "The Post" (2017), Pixar's "Incredibles 2" (2018), "Little Women" (2019) and as the lead in the action film "Nobody" (2021), which he also produced.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Odenkirk was born in Berwyn, Illinois, then raised in Naperville. He is the second oldest of seven siblings born to Walter Henry Odenkirk, who was employed in the printing business, and Barbara Mary ( Baier) Odenkirk (1936–2021), Catholics of German and Irish descent. His parents divorced in part due to Walter's alcoholism, which influenced Bob's decision to avoid alcohol as much as possible. He describes his father as "remote, fucked-up, and not around". Odenkirk would later say that he grew up "hating" Naperville as a 15-year-old because "it felt like a dead end, like Nowheresville. I couldn't wait to move into a city and be around people who were doing exciting things." Walter Odenkirk died of bone cancer in 1986. Odenkirk's younger brother is comedy writer Bill Odenkirk. Bob had helped with Bill's early career.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Odenkirk attended Naperville North High School and graduated at 16; he was "tired of high school", and because he had enough credits, he was able to leave high school when he was still a junior. Because he was so young and thought he would be awkward at any college, he decided to attend the local College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. After a year, he went to Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, then transferred to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, "honing his sketch-writing and performance skills with live shows on both colleges' radio stations". He began his foray into comedy writing as a radio DJ for WIDB, the local non-broadcast college station at SIU. At WIDB he created a late-night (midnight to 4 am) radio comedy show called "The Prime Time Special". After three years of college, Odenkirk was three credits short of graduating when he decided to try writing and improv in Chicago. He completed the credits at Columbia College Chicago and received his bachelor's degree from SIU in 1984. First studying with Del Close, Odenkirk attended the Players Workshop where he met Robert Smigel, and they began a collaboration that would last for years and take Odenkirk to "Saturday Night Live". He also performed at the Improv Olympic alongside notable comedians Chris Farley and Tim Meadows.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Odenkirk would sharpen his stand-up and improv skill's at Elmhurst's now defunct Who's on First comedy club, then part of The Steve and Leo show. Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Odenkirk visited Chicago's Second City Theater at the age of fourteen. He said his strongest comedic influence was "Monty Python's Flying Circus", primarily due to its combination of cerebral humor and verbal slapstick, which Odenkirk characterized as "laugh-out-loud" humor. Other influences included radio personality Steve Dahl, "SCTV", Steve Martin's "Let's Get Small", Woody Allen, The Credibility Gap, and Bob and Ray.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Odenkirk was hired as a writer at "Saturday Night Live" in 1987 and worked there through 1991. Working alongside Robert Smigel and Conan O'Brien, he contributed to many sketches they created but felt uncertain of the efficacy of his writing at the show. When "SNL" took its 1988 summer break, Odenkirk returned to Chicago to perform a stage show with Smigel and O'Brien, titled "Happy Happy Good Show". The following summer he did a one-man show, "Show-Acting Guy", directed by Tom Gianas. During his final summer hiatus, he wrote and acted in the Second City Mainstage show, "Flag Burning Permitted in Lobby Only". In that particular show, he wrote the character "Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker", for Chris Farley, which would later be reprised on "SNL".


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: He acted in several small roles on the show, most visibly during a 1990 parody commercial for Bad Idea Jeans. During his final year at "SNL", he worked alongside Adam Sandler, David Spade, Chris Rock and Chris Farley, but eventually he decided to leave the show in order to pursue performing. He has credited "SNL" with teaching him many lessons about sketch writing, from senior writers like Jim Downey and Al Franken, as well as his friends Smigel and O'Brien. In 1991, Odenkirk relocated to Los Angeles and was hired to write for the TV show "Get a Life", which starred "Late Night with David Letterman" alumnus Chris Elliott. He wrote for "The Dennis Miller Show".


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Odenkirk's friendship with Ben Stiller, with whom he briefly shared an office at "SNL", would lead to his being hired for the cast of "The Ben Stiller Show" in 1992. Working as both a writer and actor on the show, he created and starred in the memorable sketch "Manson Lassie", and helped the show win an Emmy Award for writing. However, the show had already been canceled by the time it won the award. Odenkirk served as a writer on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" for the show's 1993 and 1994 seasons. Odenkirk met David Cross at "Ben Stiller"; shortly afterward, the pair began performing live sketch shows, which eventually evolved into "Mr. Show with Bob and David". In 1993, Odenkirk began a recurring role on "The Larry Sanders Show" as Larry Sanders' agent, Stevie Grant. He would continue the character through 1998. Also in 1993, he had brief acting roles on "Roseanne" and Tom Arnold's "The Jackie Thomas Show". Odenkirk's first movie roles were very minor parts in films such as "Wayne's World 2", "The Cable Guy", "Can't Stop Dancing" and "Monkeybone". Odenkirk briefly attempted a stand-up career in the mid 90s, but ditched it soon after, admitting he "hated telling the same joke twice."


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Created by Odenkirk and David Cross, "Mr. Show" ran on HBO for four seasons. The series featured a number of comedians in the early stages of their careers, including Sarah Silverman, Paul F. Tompkins, Jack Black, Tom Kenny, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Brian Posehn and Scott Aukerman. While nominated for multiple Emmy awards in writing and generally well-liked by critics, it never broke out of a "cult" audience into larger mainstream acceptance due to being a premium cable show. After "Mr. Show", Bob and David and the writers from the staff wrote the movie "Run, Ronnie, Run". The film was an extension of a sketch from the show's first season. However, the studio took production control away from Cross and Odenkirk during the editing stages, and the pair disowned the final product.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Odenkirk starred in numerous television shows and some films. He has written and produced many TV pilots, including "The Big Wide World of Carl Laemke" and "David's Situation", but none have made it to air or been picked up as a series. In 2003, Odenkirk directed "Melvin Goes to Dinner" and played the role of Keith. The film received positive reviews from critics and won the Audience Award at the SXSW Film and Music Festival. It was later self-released in five cities, then distributed on DVD by Sundance.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: In 2004, Odenkirk received an unsolicited package including the work of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. Inspired by their unique voice, he connected with them and helped them develop a semi-animated show for Adult Swim called "Tom Goes to the Mayor". He assisted Tim and Eric with the development of their second series, "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job". He had several small featuring roles on TV shows, including "Everybody Loves Raymond", "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist", "NewsRadio", "Just Shoot Me!", "Joey", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "Arrested Development", "Entourage", "Weeds", and "How I Met Your Mother".


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Odenkirk was considered for the role of Michael Scott in the pilot of "The Office", a role that ultimately went to Steve Carell. Odenkirk finally guested in the final season of "The Office" as a Philadelphia manager strongly reminiscent of Michael Scott. In 2006, Odenkirk directed "Let's Go to Prison", which was written by Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant, and starred Will Arnett, Dax Shepard and Chi McBride. The film received a 12% "All Critics" score from the website Rotten Tomatoes and had a total box office gross of a little more than US$4.6 million. The following year Odenkirk directed "The Brothers Solomon", written by Will Forte and starring Forte, Will Arnett and Kristen Wiig. The film received a 15% "All Critics" score from Rotten Tomatoes and had a total box office gross of approximately $1 million.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: In 2009, Odenkirk joined the cast of AMC's "Breaking Bad" as corrupt lawyer Saul Goodman. Writer Peter Gould, as well as several others, had been quickly drawn to Odenkirk for this role based on his "Mr. Show" performances. The Goodman role was only intended to cover a three-episode guest spot in the second season, but Odenkirk's performance led Gould and Vince Gilligan to extend the character as an ongoing role. Odenkirk became a series regular as Goodman for the show's third through fifth and final season.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: In 2011, Odenkirk wrote and developed "Let's Do This!" for Adult Swim, starring Cal Mackenzie-Goldberg a "two-bit movie mogul and head of Cal-Gold Pictures as he leads a collection of crazy, fame-hungry strivers chasing Hollywood dreams". The pilot can be seen on Adult Swim's website. Odenkirk executive produced the sketch comedy show "The Birthday Boys", which starred the comedy group of the same name. Odenkirk also appeared in and directed a number of the sketches on the show. It premiered on IFC on October 18, 2013. In 2014, Odenkirk played Police Chief Bill Oswalt in FX's miniseries "Fargo". In fall of 2014, Odenkirk played Dr. Stork, a podiatrist who specializes in cutting off people's toes, in Adult Swim's anthology series "Tim & Eric's Bedtime Stories".


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: After starring in "Breaking Bad", Odenkirk began to have more prominent roles in critically successful films, such as "Incredibles 2", "Little Women", "The Post", "The Disaster Artist", "The Spectacular Now", which received the Special Jury Award for Acting at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, and the Alexander Payne-directed "Nebraska", which was nominated for a Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: It was reported in April 2015 that Odenkirk was teaming with former co-star David Cross to produce a new sketch comedy series based on their previous production, "Mr. Show", called "W/ Bob and David". The series was commissioned by Netflix with the first season having been released in November 2015, featuring four 30-minute-long episodes, along with an hour-long behind-the-scenes special. Odenkirk and Cross both write, star in, and produce the show. Odenkirk has expressed interest in doing more seasons.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Odenkirk starred in the title role of "Better Call Saul", a "Breaking Bad" spinoff. Primarily set in the early 2000's, years before the character's debut in "Breaking Bad", the series follows lawyer Saul Goodman's journey from court-appointed defense attorney origins to his eventual status as a successful, though unscrupulous, criminal defense lawyer. He is also credited as a producer for the series.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: The first season consists of ten 47-minute-long episodes, with a second and third season of ten episodes apiece following in early 2016 and 2017, respectively. The fourth season was available on Netflix as of August 6, 2018, and the fifth season premiered on AMC on February 23, 2020. The show's final sixth season, which started production in February 2020 but was delayed due to COVID-19, started airing on April 18, 2022.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Odenkirk co-wrote, produced, and starred in "Girlfriend's Day", a Netflix original film. This film-noir comedy about a greeting card writer was directed by Michael Stephenson and influenced by "Chinatown". It was a movie Odenkirk had wanted to make for 16 years, after "Mr. Show" writer Eric Hoffman sent him the original script and they began developing it. In April 2020, with the end of "Better Call Saul" in sight, Odenkirk established his own production company Cal-Gold Pictures and signed a first-look deal with Sony Pictures Television. Odenkirk, with Cal-Gold, plans to develop unique stories, with dynamic characters and social relevance. Former Comedy Central vice president Ian Friedman will serve as Cal-Gold's head of television. In March 2021, Odenkirk starred as Hutch Mansell in the action-thriller film "Nobody", which opened at number one at the US box office, with $6.7 million in ticket sales.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Odenkirk received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on April 18, 2022, the date of the premiere of the final season of "Better Call Saul". Odenkirk's star is located next to the star of his "Breaking Bad" co-star Bryan Cranston.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: In 2022, a new series starring Odenkirk was announced for AMC, entitled Straight Man. It is planned to air in 2023.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: In the early 1990s, Odenkirk was linked romantically to fellow comedian, actress, and writer Janeane Garofalo, who introduced him to "Mr. Show with Bob and David" co-creator David Cross. In 1997, Odenkirk married Naomi Yomtov, who was later the executive producer of "W/ Bob and David". They have two children.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: Discussing costume choices on "Better Call Saul", Odenkirk stated he has a bit of color blindness, and leaves it to the costume department to select the right outfits for his roles.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: On December 15, 2019, Odenkirk's alma mater SIU announced it had awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Performing Arts.


title: Bob Odenkirk

text: On July 27, 2021, Odenkirk was hospitalized in Albuquerque after having what he described as a "small heart attack" on the set of the sixth season of "Better Call Saul". Three days later, on July 30, Odenkirk reported that he would "be back soon", and on September 8 he reported he had returned to work. In 2022, Odenkirk revealed that he had two stents placed in his coronary arteries shortly after the widow-maker heart attack due to arterial plaque build-up, which he had been diagnosed with earlier in 2018; he also said that his condition was more severe than had initially been understood, disclosing that his heart stopped and he required cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation to recover a pulse.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of epic fantasy novels by the American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. He began the first volume of the series, "A Game of Thrones", in 1991, and it was published in 1996. Martin, who initially envisioned the series as a trilogy, has published five out of a planned seven volumes. The fifth and most recent volume of the series, "A Dance with Dragons", was published in 2011, six years after the publication of the preceding book, "A Feast for Crows". He is currently writing the sixth novel, "The Winds of Winter". A seventh novel, "A Dream of Spring", is planned.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: "A Song of Ice and Fire" takes place on the fictional continents Westeros and Essos. The point of view of each chapter in the story is a limited perspective of a range of characters growing from nine in the first novel, to 31 characters by the fifth novel. Three main stories interweave: a dynastic war among several families for control of Westeros, the rising threat of the supernatural Others in northernmost Westeros, and the ambition of the deposed king's exiled daughter to assume the Iron Throne.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin's inspirations included the Wars of the Roses and the French historical novel series "The Accursed Kings" by Maurice Druon. An assortment of disparate and subjective points of view confronts the reader, and the success or survival of point-of-view characters is never assured. Within the often morally ambiguous world of "A Song of Ice and Fire", questions concerning loyalty, pride, human sexuality, piety, and the morality of violence frequently arise.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: The books have sold 90 million copies worldwide , after having been translated into 47 languages . The fourth and fifth volumes reached the top of the "New York Times" Best Seller lists upon their releases. Among the many derived works are several prequel novellas, two TV series, a comic book adaptation, and several card, board, and video games.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: "A Song of Ice and Fire" takes place in a fictional world in which seasons last for years and end unpredictably. Nearly three centuries before the events of the first novel, the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros were united under the Targaryen dynasty, establishing military supremacy through their control of dragons. The Targaryens ruled for three hundred years, continuing past the extinction of the dragons. Their dynasty eventually ended with a rebellion led by Lord Robert Baratheon, in which Aerys "the Mad King" Targaryen was killed and Robert proclaimed king of the Seven Kingdoms. At the beginning of "A Game of Thrones", 15 years have passed since Robert's rebellion, with a nine-year-long summer coming to an end.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: The principal story chronicles the power struggle for the Iron Throne among the great Houses of Westeros following the death of King Robert in "A Game of Thrones". Robert's heir apparent, the 13-year-old Joffrey, is immediately proclaimed king through the machinations of his mother, Queen Cersei Lannister. When Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark, Robert's closest friend and chief advisor, discovers that Joffrey and his siblings are the product of incest between Cersei and her twin brother Ser Jaime Lannister, Eddard attempts to unseat Joffrey, but is betrayed and executed for treason. In response, Robert's brothers Stannis and Renly both lay separate claims to the throne. During this period of instability, two of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros attempt to become independent from the Iron Throne: Eddard's eldest son Robb is proclaimed King in the North, while Lord Balon Greyjoy desires to recover the sovereignty of his region, the Iron Islands. The so-called "War of the Five Kings" is in full progress by the middle of the second book, "A Clash of Kings".


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: The second part of the story takes place in the far north of Westeros, where an 8,000-year-old wall of ice, simply called "the Wall", defends the Seven Kingdoms from supernatural creatures known as the Others. The Wall's sentinels, the Sworn Brotherhood of the Night's Watch, also protect the realm from the incursions of the "wildlings" or "Free Folk", who are several human tribes living on the north side of the Wall. The Night's Watch story is told primarily through the point of view of Jon Snow, Lord Eddard Stark's bastard son. Jon follows the footsteps of his uncle Benjen Stark and joins the Watch at a young age, rising quickly through the ranks. He eventually becomes Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. In the third volume, "A Storm of Swords", the Night's Watch storyline becomes increasingly entangled with the War of the Five Kings.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: The third storyline follows Daenerys Targaryen, daughter of Aerys II, the last Targaryen king. On the continent of Essos, east of Westeros across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys is married off by her elder brother Viserys Targaryen to a powerful warlord, but slowly becomes an independent and intelligent ruler in her own right. Her rise to power is aided by the historic birth of three dragons, hatched from eggs given to her as wedding gifts. The three dragons soon become not only a symbol of her bloodline and her claim to the throne, but also devastating weapons of war, which help her in the conquest of Slaver's Bay. The story follows her year-long conflict with the region's city states, in which she aims to consolidate power, disrupt the Essosi slave trade, and gather support for her ambitions to reclaim Westeros.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Books in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series are first published in hardcover and are later re-released as paperback editions. In the UK, Harper Voyager publishes special slipcased editions. The series has also been translated into more than 30 languages. All page totals given below are for the US first editions.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: 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. Martin had published his first short story in 1971 and his first novel in 1977. By the mid-1990s, he had won three Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards, and other awards for his short fiction. 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. He worked principally on the revival of "The Twilight Zone" throughout 1986 and on "Beauty and the Beast" until 1990, but he also developed his own TV pilots and wrote feature film scripts. He grew frustrated that his pilots and screenplays were not getting made and that TV-related production limitations like budgets and episode lengths were forcing him to cut characters and trim battle scenes. This pushed Martin back towards writing books, where he did not have to worry about compromising the size of his imagination. Admiring the works of J. R. R. Tolkien in his childhood, he wanted to write an epic fantasy, though he did not have any specific ideas.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: 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". Putting "Avalon" aside, Martin finished this chapter in a few days and grew certain that it was part of a longer story. After a few more chapters, Martin perceived his new book as a fantasy story and started making maps and genealogies. 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 ultimately never aired.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: In 1994, Martin gave his agent, Kirby McCauley, the first 200 pages and a two-page story projection as part of a planned trilogy with the novels "A Dance with Dragons" and "The Winds of Winter" intended to follow. When Martin had still not reached the novel's end at 1400 manuscript pages, he felt that the series needed to be four and eventually six books long, which he imagined as two linked trilogies of one long story. Martin 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 the Dead Men Sing", stemming from his obsessions with songs. Martin also named Robert Frost's 1920 poem "Fire and Ice" and cultural associations such as passion versus betrayal as possible influences for the series' title.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: The revised finished manuscript for "A Game of Thrones" was 1088 pages long (without the appendices), with the publication following in August 1996. "The 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. "Blood of the Dragon", a pre-release sample novella drawn from Daenerys's chapters, went on to win the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella. The first book was marketed as part of the ""Song of Ice and Fire" trilogy" in 1996, but by the second book's release, the "trilogy" suffix had been dropped and the series was retitled to "A Song of Ice and Fire".


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: The 300 pages removed from the "A Game of Thrones" manuscript served as the opening of the second book, entitled "A Clash of Kings". It was released in February 1999 in the United States, with a manuscript length (without appendices) of 1184 pages. "A Clash of Kings" was the first book of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series to make the best-seller lists, reaching 13 on "The New York Times" Best Seller list in 1999. After the success of "The Lord of the Rings" films, Martin received his first inquiries to the rights of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series from various producers and filmmakers.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin was several months late turning in the third book, "A Storm of Swords". The last chapter he had written was about the "Red Wedding", a pivotal scene notable for its violence (see Themes: Violence and death). "A Storm of Swords" was 1521 pages in manuscript (without appendices), 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, whereas some other-language editions were divided into two, three, or even four volumes. "A Storm of Swords" debuted at number 12 in the "New York Times" bestseller list.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: After "A Game of Thrones", "A Clash of Kings", and "A Storm of Swords", Martin originally intended to write three more books. The fourth book, tentatively titled "A Dance with Dragons", was to focus on Daenerys Targaryen's return to Westeros and the associated conflicts. 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. 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". 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 on the Iron Islands were to have an impact in the book and could not be told with existing POV characters, Martin eventually introduced three new viewpoints.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: In 2001, Martin was still optimistic that the fourth installment might be released in the last quarter of 2002. 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 happen for five years. After working on the book for about a year, Martin realized he needed an additional interim book, which he called "A Feast for Crows". The book would pick up the story immediately after the third book, and Martin scrapped the idea of a five-year gap. The material of the written 250-page prologue was mixed in as new viewpoint characters from Dorne and the Iron Islands. These expanded storylines and the resulting story interactions complicated the plot for Martin.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: The manuscript length of "A Feast for Crows" eventually surpassed "A Storm of Swords". 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. On the other hand, Martin rejected the publishers' idea of splitting the narrative chronologically into "A Feast for Crows", Parts One and Two. Being already late with the book, Martin had not even started writing all characters' stories, and also objected to ending the first book without any resolution for its many viewpoint characters as in previous books.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: With the characters spread out across the world, a friend suggested that Martin divide the story geographically into two volumes, of which "A Feast for Crows" would be the first. This approach would give Martin the room to complete his commenced story arcs as he had originally intended, which he still felt was the best approach years later. 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", and left "A Feast for Crows" to cover the events in King's Landing, the Riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands. Both books begin immediately after the end of "A Storm of Swords", running in parallel instead of sequentially, and involve different casts of characters with only little overlap. 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".


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

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


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: With around 1600 pages in manuscript length, "A Dance with Dragons" was eventually published in July 2011 after six years of writing, longer in page count and writing time than any of the preceding four novels. The story of "A Dance with Dragons" catches up with and goes beyond "A Feast for Crows" around two-thirds into the book, but nevertheless covers less story than Martin had intended, omitting at least one planned large battle sequence and leaving several character threads ending in cliff-hangers. 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]". Martin also acknowledged spending too much time on rewriting and perfecting the story, but soundly rejected the theories of some of his critics that he had lost interest in the series or would bide his time to make more money.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin believes the last two volumes of the series will be large books of 1500 manuscript pages each. The sixth book will be called "The Winds of Winter", taking the title of the last book of the originally planned trilogy. Displeased with the provisional title "A Time for Wolves" for the final volume, Martin ultimately announced "A Dream of Spring" as the title for the seventh book in 2006. Martin said in March 2012 that the final two novels will take readers farther north than any of the previous books, and that the Others will appear. Martin indicated he would not permit another writer to finish the book series.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: "The Winds of Winter" will resolve the cliffhangers from "A Dance with Dragons" early on and "will open with the two big battles that [the fifth book] was building up to, the battle in the ice and the battle [...] of Slaver's Bay. And then take it from there." By the middle of 2010, Martin had already finished five chapters of "The Winds of Winter" from the viewpoints of Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Arianne Martell, and Aeron Greyjoy, coming to around 100 completed pages. After the publication of "A Dance with Dragons" in 2011, Martin announced he would return to writing in January 2012. He spent the meantime on book tours, conventions, and continued working on his "The World of Ice & Fire" companion guide and a new "Tales of Dunk and Egg" novella. In December 2011, Martin posted a chapter from "The Winds of Winter" from the viewpoint of Theon Greyjoy; several other chapters have been made public since. Four hundred pages of the sixth novel had been written , although Martin considered only 200 as "really finished"; the rest needed revising. During the Guadalajara International Book Fair in Mexico in early December 2016, Martin offered the following hint as to the tone of this book: "There are a lot of dark chapters right now ... I've been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fill the world, so this is not going to be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places." Martin did not intend to separate the characters geographically again.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: In 2011, Martin gave three years as a realistic estimate for finishing the sixth book at a good pace, but said ultimately the book "will be done when it's done", acknowledging that his publication estimates had been too optimistic in the past. In 2015 there were indications that the book would be published before the sixth season of the HBO show but in early January 2016 Martin confirmed that he had not met an end-of-year deadline that he had established with his publisher for release of the book before the sixth season. He also revealed there had been a previous deadline of October 2015 that he had considered achievable in May 2015, and that in September 2015 he had still considered the end-of-year deadline achievable. He further confirmed that some of the plot of the book might be revealed in the upcoming season of "Game of Thrones". In February 2016, Martin stated that he dropped all his editing projects except for "Wild Cards", and that he would not be writing any teleplays, screenplays, short stories, introductions or forewords before delivering "The Winds of Winter". In March 2020, Martin stated that he was writing "The Winds of Winter" every day, and in June he hoped to be done with it in 2021. In October 2022, Martin said that he had written approximately three quarters of the book.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin is only firm about ending the series with the seventh novel "until I decide not to be firm". With his stated goal of telling the story from beginning to end, he will not truncate the story to fit into an arbitrary number of volumes. He knows the ending in broad strokes as well as the future of the main characters, and will finish the series with bittersweet elements where not everyone will live happily ever after. 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 the TV series "Lost", which left some fans disappointed by deviating too far from their own theories and desires. In 2012, Martin had acknowledged his concerns about "A Dream of Spring" not being completed by the time the TV series "Game of Thrones" catches up in its storyline to the novels.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: In 2015, Martin said that he was not writing "A Dream of Spring" together with "The Winds of Winter", and in early 2016, he said he did not believe "A Dream of Spring" would be published before the last season of the HBO show. In April 2018, Martin commented he had not started working on the book, and in November he said that after "The Winds of Winter" he would decide what to do next: "A Dream of Spring" or the second volume of "Fire & Blood" or one or two stories for the "Tales of Dunk and Egg". In May 2019, he reiterated he had not started writing "A Dream of Spring" and would not do so before finishing "The Winds of Winter".


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: During a question-and-answer session at the 2016 Guadalajara International Book Fair, Martin said, "I'm not going to tell you how I'm going to end my book, but I suspect the overall flavor is going to be as much bittersweet as it is happy."


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Regarding "A Song of Ice and Fire" as his masterpiece, Martin stated he would never write anything on this scale again and would only return to this fictional universe in the context of stand-alone novels. He prefers to write stories about characters from other "A Song of Ice and Fire" periods of history such as his "Tales of Dunk and Egg" project, instead of continuing the series directly. Martin said 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.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: George R. R. Martin believes the most profound influences to be the ones experienced in childhood. Having read H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Robert A. Heinlein, Eric Frank Russell, Andre Norton, Isaac Asimov, Fritz Leiber, and Mervyn Peake in his youth, Martin never categorized these authors' literature into science fiction, fantasy, or horror and will write from any genre as a result. Martin classified "A Song of Ice and Fire" as "epic fantasy", and specifically named Tad Williams' high fantasy epic "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" as very influential for the writing of the series. One of his favorite authors is Jack Vance, although Martin considered the series not particularly Vancean.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin experienced some harsh winters when living in Dubuque a few years in the 1970s, and suspects these winters had an influence on his writing; "I think a lot of the stuff in "A Game of Thrones", the snow and ice and freezing, comes from my memories of Dubuque".


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: The medieval setting has been the traditional background for epic fantasy. However, where historical fiction leaves versed readers knowing the historical outcome, original characters may increase suspense and empathy for the readers. Yet Martin felt historical fiction, particularly when set during the Middle Ages, had an excitement, grittiness, and a realness to it that was absent in fantasy with a similar backdrop. Thus, he wanted to combine the realism of historical fiction with the magic appeal of the best fantasies, subduing magic in favor of battles and political intrigue. He also decided to avoid the conventional good versus evil setting typical for the genre, using the fight between Achilles and Hector in Homer's "Iliad", where no one stands out as either a hero or a villain, as an example of what he wants to achieve with his books.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin is widely credited with broadening the fantasy fiction genre for adult content. Writing for "The Atlantic", Amber Taylor assessed the novels as hard fantasy with vulnerable characters to which readers become emotionally attached. CNN found in 2000 that Martin's mature descriptions were "far more frank than those found in the works of other fantasy authors", although Martin assessed the fantasy genre to have become rougher-edged a decade later and that some writers' work was going beyond the mature themes of his novels. Adam Roberts called Martin's series the most successful and popular example of the emerging subgenre of grimdark fantasy.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Setting out to write something on an epic scale, Martin projected to write three books of 800 manuscript pages in the very early stages of the series. His original 1990s contract specified one-year deadlines for his previous literary works, but Martin only realized later that his new books were longer and hence required more writing time. 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. However, with "A Song of Ice and Fire" series evolving into the biggest and most ambitious story he has ever attempted writing, he still has two more books to finish . Martin said he needed to be in his own office in Santa Fe, New Mexico to immerse himself in the fictional world and write. , Martin was still typing his fiction on a DOS computer with WordStar 4.0 software. He begins each day at 10 am with rewriting and polishing the previous day's work, and may write all day or struggle to write anything. Excised material and previous old versions are saved to be possibly re-inserted at a later time. Martin does not consider "A Song of Ice and Fire" a "series" but a single story published in several volumes.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin set the "A Song of Ice and Fire" story in a secondary world inspired by Tolkien's writing. Unlike Tolkien, who created entire languages, mythologies, and histories for Middle-earth long before writing "The Lord of the Rings", Martin usually starts with a rough sketch of an imaginary world that he improvises into a workable fictional setting along the way. He described his writing as coming from a subconscious level in "almost a daydreaming process", and his stories, which have a mythic rather than a scientific core, draw from emotion instead of rationality. Martin employs maps and a cast list topping 60 pages in the fourth volume, but keeps most information in his mind. His imagined backstory remains subject to change until published, and only the novels count as canon. Martin does not intend to publish his private notes after the series is finished.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin drew much inspiration from actual history for the series, having several bookcases filled with medieval history for research and visiting historic European landmarks. For an American who speaks only English, the history of England proved the easiest source of medieval history for him, giving the series a British rather than a German or Spanish historic flavor. For example, Ned and Robb Stark resemble Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and his son Edward IV, and Queen Cersei resembles both Margaret of Anjou 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. The series was in particular influenced by the Hundred Years' War, the Crusades, the Albigensian Crusade, and the Wars of the Roses, although Martin refrained from making any direct adaptations. Martin was also inspired by the French historical novels "The Accursed Kings" by Maurice Druon, which are about the French monarchy in the 13th and 14th centuries. Martin has also said that important events of the narrative are based on events in Scottish history such as the Black Dinner of 1440 and the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin has also drawn from Roman history for inspiration, comparing Stannis Baratheon to the Roman emperor Tiberius. Martin has sourced the Massacre of Glencoe and Black Dinner as inspiration for the "Red Wedding," a crucial twist in "A Storm of Swords".


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: 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. By the fourth book, Martin kept more private notes than ever before to keep track of the many subplots, which became so detailed and sprawling by the fifth book as to be unwieldy. Martin's editors, copy editors, and readers monitor for accidental mistakes, although some errors have slipped into publication. For instance, Martin has inconsistently referred to certain characters' eye colors, and has described a horse as being of one sex and then another.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: The books are divided into chapters, each one narrated in the third person limited through the eyes of a point of view character, an approach Martin learned himself as a young journalism student. Beginning with nine POV 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 prologues and epilogues. David Orr of "The New York Times" noted the story importance of "the Starks (good guys), the Targaryens (at least one good guy, or girl), the Lannisters (conniving), the Greyjoys (mostly conniving), the Baratheons (mixed bag), the Tyrells (unclear), and the Martells (ditto), most of whom are feverishly endeavoring to advance their ambitions and ruin their enemies, preferably unto death". However, as "Time" Lev Grossman noted, readers "experience the struggle for Westeros from all sides at once", such that "every fight is both triumph and tragedy [...] and everybody is both hero and villain at the same time".


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Modeled on "The Lord of the Rings", the story of "A Song of Ice and Fire" begins with a tight focus on a small group (with everyone in Winterfell, except Daenerys) and then splits into separate stories. The storylines are to converge again, but finding the turning point in this complex series has been difficult for Martin and has slowed down his writing. Depending on the interview, Martin is said to have reached the turning point in "A Dance with Dragons", or to not quite have reached it yet in the books. The series' structure of multiple POVs and interwoven storylines was inspired by "Wild Cards", a multi-authored shared universe book series edited by Martin since 1985. As the sole author, Martin begins each new book with an outline of the chapter order and may write a few successive chapters from a single character's viewpoint instead of working chronologically. The chapters are later rearranged to optimize character intercutting, chronology, and suspense.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Influenced by his television and film scripting background, Martin tries to keep readers engrossed by ending each "A Song of Ice and Fire" chapter with a tense or revelational moment, a twist or a cliffhanger, similar to a TV act break. Scriptwriting has also taught him the technique of "cutting out the fat and leaving the muscle", which is the final stage of completing a book, a technique that brought the page count in "A Dance with Dragons" down almost eighty pages. Dividing the continuous "A Song of Ice and Fire" story into books is much harder for Martin. Each book shall represent a phase of the journey that ends in 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 originally intended. Both one-time and regular POV characters are designed to have full character arcs ending in tragedy or triumph, and are written to hold the readers' interest and not be skipped in reading. Main characters are killed off so that the reader will not rely on the hero to come through unscathed and will instead feel the character's fear with each page turn.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: The unresolved larger narrative arc encourages speculation about future story events. According to Martin, much of the key to "A Song of Ice and Fire" future lies over a dozen years in the fictional past, of which each volume reveals more. Events planned from the beginning are foreshadowed, although Martin is careful not to make the story predictable. The viewpoint characters, who serve as unreliable narrators, may clarify or provide different perspectives on past events. Therefore, what the readers believe to be true may not necessarily be true.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Regarding the characters as the heart of the story, Martin planned the epic "A Song of Ice and Fire" to have a large cast of characters and many different settings from the beginning. "A Feast for Crows" has a 63-page list of characters, with many of the thousands of characters mentioned only in passing or disappearing from view for long stretches. When Martin adds a new family to the ever-growing number of genealogies in the appendices, he devises a secret about the personality or fate of the family members. However, their backstory remains subject to change until written down in the story. Martin drew most character inspiration from history (without directly translating historical figures) and his own experiences, but also from the manners of his friends, acquaintances, and people of public interest. Martin aims to "make my characters real and to make them human, characters who have good and bad, noble and selfish well-mixed in their natures". Jeff VanderMeer of the "Los Angeles 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" (see Themes: Moral ambiguity).


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin deliberately ignored the writing rule of never giving two characters names starting with the same letter. Instead, character names reflect the naming systems in various European family histories, where particular names were associated with specific royal houses and where even the secondary families assigned the same names repeatedly. The story of "A Song of Ice and Fire" therefore has children called "Robert" in honor of King Robert of House Baratheon, a "Brandon" in every other generation of the Starks in commemoration of Brandon the Builder (of the Wall), and the syllable "Ty" commonly occurring in given names of House Lannister. Confident that readers would pay attention, Martin distinguished people sharing a given name by adding numbers or locations to their given names (e.g. Henry V of England). The family names were designed in association with ethnic groups (see backstory): the First Men in the North of Westeros had very simply descriptive names like Stark and Strong, whereas the descendants of the Andal invaders in the South have more elaborate, undescriptive house names like Lannister or Arryn, and the Targaryens and Valyrians from the Eastern continent have the most exotic names with the letter Y.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: All characters are designed to speak with their own internal voices to capture their views of the world. "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. Contrary to most conventional epic fantasies, the characters of "A Song of Ice and Fire" are vulnerable so that, according to "The Atlantic", the reader "cannot be sure that good shall triumph, which makes those instances where it does all the more exulting." Martin gets emotionally involved in the characters' lives during writing, which makes the chapters with dreadful events sometimes very difficult to write. Seeing the world through the characters' eyes requires a certain amount of empathy with them, including the villains, all of whom he has said he loves as if they were his own children. Martin found that some characters had minds of their own and took his writing in different directions. He returns to the intended story if it does not work out, but these detours sometimes prove more rewarding for him.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Arya Stark, Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, and Daenerys Targaryen generate the most feedback from readers. They are also four of the "big six" main characters of the series, according to Martin (the other two being Sansa Stark and Bran Stark). Martin has stated that Tyrion is his personal favorite, as the grayest of the gray characters, with his cunning and wit making him the most fun to write. Martin has also said that 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, and has to deal with the series' adult themes like grief, loneliness, and anger. 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).


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Modern fantasy may often embrace strangeness, but "A Song of Ice and Fire" series is generally praised for what is perceived as a sort of medieval realism. Believing that magic should be used moderately in the epic fantasy genre, Martin set out to make the story feel more like historical fiction than contemporary fantasy, with less emphasis on magic and sorcery and more on battles, political intrigue, and the characters. Though the amount of magic has gradually increased throughout the story, the series is still to end with less overt magic than most contemporary fantasies. In Martin's eyes, literary effective magic needs to represent strange and dangerous forces beyond human comprehension, not advanced alien technologies or formulaic spells. As such, the characters understand only the natural aspects of their world, but not the magical elements like the Others.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Since Martin drew on historical sources to build the world of "A Song of Ice and Fire", Damien G. Walter of "The Guardian" saw a strong resemblance between Westeros and England in the period of the Wars of the Roses. "The Atlantic" Adam Serwer 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. Martin not only wanted to reflect the frictions of the medieval class structures in the novels, but also explore the consequences of the leaders' decisions, as general goodness does not automatically make competent leaders and vice versa.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: A common theme in the fantasy genre is the battle between good and evil, which Martin rejects for not mirroring the real world. Attracted to gray characters, Martin instead endorses William Faulkner's view that only the human heart in conflict with itself was worth writing about. Martin explores the questions of redemption and character change in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. The multiple viewpoint structure allows characters to be explored from many sides, such that the supposed villains can provide their viewpoint.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Although fantasy comes from an imaginative realm, Martin sees an honest necessity to reflect the real world where people, even beloved people, sometimes die ugly deaths. Main characters are killed off so that the reader will not expect the supposed hero to survive, and instead will feel the same tension and fear that the characters might. The novels also reflect the substantial death rates in war. The deaths of supernumerary extras, or of orcs or their equivalents, have no major effect on readers, whereas a friend's death has much more emotional impact. Martin prefers a hero's sacrifice to say something profound about human nature.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: According to Martin, the fantasy genre rarely focuses on sex and sexuality, instead often treating sexuality in a juvenile way or neglecting it completely. Martin, however, considers sexuality an important driving force in human life that should not be excluded from the narrative. Providing sensory detail for an immersive experience is more important than plot advancement for Martin, 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." 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. The non-existent concept of adolescence in the Middle Ages served as a model for Daenerys' sexual activity at the age of 13 in the books. The novels also allude to the incestuous practices in the Ptolemaic dynasty of Ancient Egypt to keep their bloodlines pure.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin provides a variety of female characters to explore the place of women in a patriarchal society. Writing all characters as human beings with the same basic needs, dreams, and influences, his female characters are to cover the same wide spectrum of human traits as the males.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: "Science Fiction Weekly" stated 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", for which reviews have been "orders of magnitude better" than for his previous works, as Martin described to "The New Yorker". In 2007, "Weird Tales" magazine described the series as a "superb fantasy saga" that "raised Martin to a whole new level of success". Shortly before the release of "A Dance with Dragons" in 2011, Bill Sheehan of "The Washington Post" was sure that "no work of fantasy has generated such anticipation since Harry Potter's final duel with Voldemort", and Ethan Sacks of "Daily News" saw the series turning Martin into a darling of literary critics as well as mainstream readers, which was "rare for a fantasy genre that's often dismissed as garbage not fit to line the bottom of a dragon's cage". Salon.com's Andrew Leonard stated:


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: "Publishers Weekly" noted in 2000 that "Martin may not rival Tolkien or Robert Jordan, but he ranks with such accomplished medievalists of fantasy as Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson." After the fourth volume came out in 2005, "Time" Lev Grossman considered Martin a "major force for evolution in fantasy" and proclaimed him "the American Tolkien", explaining that, although Martin was "[not] the best known of America's straight-up fantasy writers" at the time and would "never win a Pulitzer or a National Book Award ... his skill as a crafter of narrative exceeds that of almost any literary novelist writing today". As Grossman said in 2011, the phrase "American Tolkien" "has stuck to [Martin], as it was meant to", being picked up by the media including "The New York Times" ("He's much better than that"), the "New Yorker", "Entertainment Weekly" ("an acclaim that borders on fantasy blasphemy"), "The Globe and Mail", and "USA Today". "Time" magazine named Martin one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2011, and "USA Today" named George R.R. Martin their Author of the Year 2011.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: According to "The Globe and Mail" John Barber, Martin manages simultaneously to master and transcend the genre so that "Critics applaud the depth of his characterizations and lack of cliché in books that are nonetheless replete with dwarves and dragons". "Publishers Weekly" gave favorable reviews to the first three "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels at their points of release, saying that "A Game of Thrones" had "superbly developed characters, accomplished prose and sheer bloody-mindedness", that "A Clash of Kings" was "notable particularly for the lived-in quality of [their fictional world and] for the comparatively modest role of magic", and that "A Storm of Swords" was one "of the more rewarding examples of gigantism in contemporary fantasy". However, they found that "A Feast For Crows" as the fourth installment "sorely misses its other half. The slim pickings here are tasty, but in no way satisfying." Their review for "A Dance with Dragons" repeated points of criticism for the fourth volume, and said that, although "The new volume has a similar feel to "Feast"", "Martin keeps it fresh by focusing on popular characters [who were] notably absent from the previous book."


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: According to the "Los Angeles Times", "Martin's brilliance in evoking atmosphere through description is an enduring hallmark of his fiction, the settings much more than just props on a painted stage", and the novels captivate readers with "complex storylines, fascinating characters, great dialogue, perfect pacing, and the willingness to kill off even his major characters". CNN remarked that "the story weaves through differing points of view in a skillful mix of observation, narration and well-crafted dialogue that illuminates both character and plot with fascinating style", and David Orr of "The New York Times" found that "All of his hundreds of characters have grace notes of history and personality that advance a plot line. Every town has an elaborately recalled series of triumphs and troubles." Salon.com's Andrew Leonard "couldn't stop reading Martin because my desire to know what was going to happen combined with my absolute inability to guess what would happen and left me helpless before his sorcery. At the end, I felt shaken and exhausted." "The Christian Science Monitor" advised reading the novels with an "A Song of Ice and Fire" encyclopedia at hand to "catch all the layered, subtle hints and details that [Martin] leaves throughout his books. If you pay attention, you will be rewarded and questions will be answered."


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Among the most critical voices were Sam Jordison and Michael Hann, both of "The Guardian". Jordison detailed his misgivings about "A Game of Thrones" in a 2009 review and summarized "It's daft. It's unsophisticated. It's cartoonish. And yet, I couldn't stop reading ... Archaic absurdity aside, Martin's writing is excellent. His dialogue is snappy and frequently funny. His descriptive prose is immediate and atmospheric, especially when it comes to building a sense of deliciously dark foreboding [of the long impending winter]." Hann did not consider the novels to stand out from the general fantasy genre, despite Martin's alterations to fantasy convention, although he rediscovered his childhood's views:


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Academic literary criticism has been slow to engage with the series; there will likely be much more criticism if and when the series is completed . The first scholarly monograph on the series is "George R. R. Martin and the Fantasy Form", by New Zealand scholar Joseph Rex Young.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: The reported overall sales figures of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series vary. "The New Yorker" said in April 2011 (before the publication of "A Dance with Dragons") that more than 15 million "A Song of Ice and Fire" books had been sold worldwide, a figure repeated by "The Globe and Mail" in July 2011. Reuters reported in September 2013 that the books including print, digital and audio versions have sold more than 24 million copies in North America. "The Wall Street Journal" reported more than six million sold copies in North America by May 2011. "USA Today" reported 8.5 million copies in print and digital overall in July 2011, and over 12 million sold copies in print in December 2011. The series has been translated into more than 20 languages; "USA Today" reported the fifth book to be translated into over 40 languages. "Forbes" estimated that Martin was the 12th highest-earning author worldwide in 2011 at $15 million.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin's publishers initially expected "A Game of Thrones" to be a best-seller, but the first installment did not even reach any lower positions in bestseller list. This left Martin unsurprised, as it is "a fool's game to think anything is going to be successful or to count on it". However, the book slowly won the passionate advocacy of independent booksellers and the book's popularity grew by word of mouth. The series' popularity skyrocketed in subsequent volumes, with the second and third volumes making "The New York Times" Best Seller lists in 1999 and 2000, 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.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: The fourth installment, "A Feast for Crows", was an immediate best-seller at its 2005 release, hitting number one on "The New York Times" hardcover fiction bestseller list November 27, 2005, which for a fantasy novel suggested that Martin's books were attracting mainstream readers. The paperback edition of "A Game of Thrones" reached its 34th printing in 2010, surpassing the one million mark. Before it even premiered, the TV series had boosted sales of the book series, with "A Song of Ice and Fire" approaching triple-digit growth in year-on-year sales. Bantam was looking forward to seeing the tie-ins boost sales further, and Martin's British publisher Harper Voyager expected readers to rediscover their other epic fantasy literature. With a reported 4.5 million copies of the first four volumes in print in early 2011, the four volumes re-appeared on the paperback fiction bestseller lists in the second quarter of 2011.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: At its point of publication in July 2011, "A Dance with Dragons" was in its sixth print with more than 650,000 hardbacks in print. 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. "A Dance with Dragons" reached the top of "The New York Times" bestseller list on July 31, 2011. Unlike most other big titles, the fifth volume sold more physical than digital copies early on, but nevertheless, Martin became the tenth author to sell 1 million Amazon Kindle e-books. All five volumes and the four-volume boxed set were among the top 100 best-selling books in the United States in 2011 and 2012.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: The TV series has contributed significantly boosting sales of both the books and collectibles like box-sets, merchandise, and other items. The TV series also contributed in increasing the geographic coverage of the books, introducing new customers in emerging countries like India and Brazil to the book series. All this has significantly increased the overall book sales. As of April 2019, the book series has sold 90million copies worldwide.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: During the 1980s and early 1990s, Martin's novels had slowly earned him a reputation in science fiction circles, although he said to only have received a few fans' letters a year in the pre-internet days. 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. Westeros.org, one of the main "A Song of Ice and Fire" fansites with about seventeen thousand registered members , was co-founded in 1999 by a Swedish-based fan of Cuban descent, Elio M. García, Jr., as well as Linda Antonsson, who introduced him to the series; their involvement with Martin's work has now become semi-professional. The Brotherhood Without Banners, an unofficial fan club operating globally, was formed in 2001. Their founders and other longtime members are among Martin's good friends.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin runs an official website and administers a lively blog with the assistance of Ty Franck. He also interacts with fandom by answering emails and letters, although he stated in 2005 that their sheer numbers might leave them unanswered for years. 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. He does not read message boards anymore, so that his writing will not be influenced by fans foreseeing twists and interpreting characters differently from what he intended.


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: While Martin calls the majority of his fans "great", and enjoys interacting with them, he lost some of them because of the six years it took to release "A Dance with Dragons". A movement of disaffected fans called GRRuMblers formed in 2009, creating sites such as "Finish the Book, George" and "Is Winter Coming?" When fans' vocal impatience for "A Dance with Dragons" peaked shortly after, Martin issued a statement called "To My Detractors" on his blog that received media attention. "The New York Times" noted that it was not uncommon for Martin to be mobbed at book signings. "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."


title: A Song of Ice and Fire

text: Martin has written several prequel novellas. The "Tales of Dunk and Egg" series, three novellas set 90 years before the events of the novel series, feature the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire "Egg", who later became King Aegon V 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 installment, "The Hedge Knight", was published in the 1998 anthology "Legends". "The Sworn Sword" followed in 2003, published in "Legends II". Both were later adapted into graphic novels. The third novella, "The Mystery Knight", was first published in the 2010 anthology "Warriors" and in 2017 it was adapted as a graphic novel, as well. In 2015, the first three novellas were published as one illustrated collection, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms".