page_title: George R. R. Martin
section_title: A Song of Ice and Fire
hierarchical_section_title: George R. R. Martin / Writing career / A Song of Ice and Fire
caption_attribution_description: English: w:George R.R. Martin at w:Clarion West 1998. Scanned from a print June 2006.
context_page_description: George Raymond Richard Martin, also known as GRRM, is an American novelist and short story writer, screenwriter, and television producer. He wrote the series of epic fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire, which was adapted into the HBO series Game of Thrones.
  In 2005, Lev Grossman of Time called Martin "the American Tolkien", and in 2011, he was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.
context_section_description: In 1991, Martin briefly returned to writing novels. He had grown frustrated that his TV 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 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.
  His epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, was inspired by the Wars of the Roses, The Accursed Kings and Ivanhoe. Though Martin originally conceptualized it as being three volumes, it is currently slated to comprise seven. The first, A Game of Thrones, was published in 1996, followed by A Clash of Kings in 1998 and A Storm of Swords in 2000. In November 2005, A Feast for Crows, the fourth novel in this series, became The New York Times No. 1 Bestseller. The fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, was published July 12, 2011, and became an international bestseller, including achieving a No. 1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List and many others; it remained on the New York Times list for 88 weeks. In 2012, A Dance With Dragons made the final ballot for science fiction and fantasy's Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, Locus Poll Award, and the British Fantasy Award; the novel went on to win the Locus Poll Award for Best Fantasy Novel. Two more novels are planned in the series: The Winds of Winter and the final volume A Dream of Spring. On April 25, 2018, Martin announced the release date of his new book, Fire & Blood, dealing with the history of House Targaryen, which was released on November 20, 2018.
caption: Teaching at Clarion West, 1998
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "600", "Image YResolution": "600", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0", "Image DateTime": "2006:06:27 13:06:25", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4424", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "800", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "558"}