A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of epic fantasy novels by American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. He started the first volume of the series, A Game of Thrones, in 1991, and it was published in 1996. Martin, who originally envisioned this series as a trilogy, has published five of seven planned. volume. The fifth and latest volume of the series published in 2011, A Dance with Dragons , took Martin six years to write. He is still writing the sixth novel, The Winds of Winter .
Song of Ice and Fire occurs on the continent of Westeros and Essos fiction. The perspective of each chapter in the story is a limited perspective of the various characters growing from nine, in the first novel, up to 31 characters by the fifth novel. The three main stories foretold: a dynasty war between several families to control Westeros, the growing threat of supernatural people in the northernmost part of Westeros, and the ambition of Daenerys Targaryen, the king's daughter overthrown, to occupy the Iron Throne.
Martin's inspiration included the War of the Roses and the French historical novels The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon. Song of Ice and Fire received praise for its diverse portrayal of women and religion, and its realism. A variety of different and subjective points of view confront the reader, and the success or continuity of the character's point of view is never guaranteed. In the often ambiguous world of A Song of Ice and Fire, the question of loyalty, pride, human sexuality, piety and violent morality often arises.
As of August 2016, the books have sold over 70 million copies worldwide and, by January 2017, have been translated into 47 languages. The fourth and fifth volumes reached the top of the New York Times Best Sellers list when they were released. Among his many derivative works are some prequel books, TV series, comic book adaptations, and some card games, boards, and videos.
Video A Song of Ice and Fire
Sinopsis plot
A Song of Ice and Fire occurs in a fictional world where the season lasts for years and ends unexpectedly. Nearly three centuries before the first novel (see background), the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros united under the Targaryen dynasty by Aegon I and his sisters, Visenya and Rhaenys, with Aegon Targaryen being the first king on the continent. from Westeros, save for south Dorne. At the beginning of the A Game of Thrones, 15 years of peace have passed since the rebellion led by Lord Robert Baratheon who overthrew and killed the last king of Targaryen, Aerys II "the Mad King", and proclaimed Robert king of the Seven Kingdoms , with the nine-year summer will end soon.
The main story recounts the power struggle for the Blacksmith among the Great Westeros Houses after the death of King Robert in the A Game of Thrones. Robert the clear heir, 13-year-old Joffrey, soon proclaims the king through the machinations of his mother, Queen Cersei Lannister. When Lord Eddard's "Ned" Stark, a close friend and principal adviser of Robert, discovered that Joffrey and his siblings were the result of incest between Cersei and his twin brother Jaime "The Kingslayer" Lannister, Eddard attempted to overthrow Joffrey, but was betrayed and executed for treason. In response, Robert's brothers, Stannis and Renly, both put forward separate claims to the throne. During this period of instability, two of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros sought to become independent of the Iron Strip: Eddard's eldest son, Robb, proclaimed the King in the North, while Lord Balloong Greyjoy wanted to restore the territorial sovereignty of the Iron Islands. The so-called "War of the Five Kings" is making full headway in the middle of the second book, A Clash of Kings .
The second story takes place at the northern end of Westeros, where the 8,000-year-old ice wall, called the "Wall," defends Seven Kingdoms from Others. The Wall's Sentinels, Sworn Brotherhood of the Night's Watch, also protects the territory from the "wildlings" or "Free Folk" raids, which are humans living in the north of the Wall. The Watch Night is told primarily through the perspective of Jon Snow, the illegitimate Eddard. Jon followed in the footsteps of his uncle Ben Stark and joined the Watch at a young age, rushing through the ranks. He eventually became Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. In the third volume, A Storm of Swords , the Night's Watch storyline becomes more and more cited by the War of the Five Kings.
The third story follows Daenerys Targaryen, daughter of Aerys, the last Targaryen king. On the continent of Essos, east of Westeros on the other side of the Narrow Sea, Daenerys is married by his older brother Viserys Targaryen into a powerful warlord but gradually becomes an independent and intelligent ruler within himself. The ascension into power is aided by the historic birth of three dragons, hatching from the eggs given to him as a wedding gift. The three dragons soon became not only a symbol of his lineage and his legitimate claim to the throne, but also a destructive weapon of war.
Maps A Song of Ice and Fire
Publish history
Overview
The book in the series A Song of Ice and Fire was first published on hardcover and later re-released as a paperback edition. In England, Harper Voyager publishes a special edition that can be shifted. The series has also been translated into more than 30 languages. All of the total pages given below are for the first US edition. First three first (1991-2000)
George R. R. Martin has been a successful fantasy and sci-fi writer and TV writer before writing a series of books titled "Song of Ice and Fire". Martin has published his first short story in 1971 and his first novel in 1977. In the mid-1990s, he has won three Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards, and other awards for his short fiction. Although his early books were well received in the fantasy fiction community, his readers remained relatively small and Martin took a job as a writer in Hollywood in the mid-1980s. He worked mainly on the Twilight Zone revival throughout 1986 and on Beauty and the Beast until 1990, but he also developed his own TV pilot and wrote feature film scripts. He became frustrated because pilots and scenarios were not made and TV production-related limitations such as budget and episode duration forced him to cut his character and trim the battle scenes. This pushed Martin back toward writing the book, where he did not have to worry about sacrificing the size of his imagination. Admiring the work of J. R. R. Tolkien in his childhood, he wanted to write epic fantasy, even though he did not have any special ideas.
When Martin was among Hollywood's projects in the summer of 1991, he began writing a new science fiction novel called Avalon. After three chapters, he had a clear idea of ​​a boy who saw the beheadings of men and found direwolves in the snow, which would eventually become the first non-prologue chapter of A Game of Thrones. By putting aside Avalon, Martin finished this chapter in a few days and was convinced that it was part of a longer story. After several more chapters, Martin considers his new book a fantasy story and begins to map and genealogy. However, the writing of this book was interrupted for several years when Martin returned to Hollywood to produce his TV series Doorways that ABC had ordered but never aired.
In 1994, Martin gave his agent, Kirby McCauley, the first 200 pages and two pages of projections of the story as part of a planned trilogy with the novel A Dance with Dragons and The Winds of Winter meant to follow. When Martin still had not reached the end of the novel in the 1400 pages of the manuscript, he felt that the series should be four and eventually six long books, which he imagined as two related trilogy of a long story. Martin chose the A Song of Ice and Fire as the overall title series: Martin saw the cruelty of the cold man and the fiery dragon as a possible meaning for "Ice and Fire", while the previous "song" has appeared in the title of Martin's book A Song for Lya and Songs the Dead Men Sing, derived from his obsession with the song. Martin also named Robert Frost's 1920 poem, "Fire and Ice" and cultural associations such as passion versus betrayal as a possible influence for the title of the series.
The completed draft completed for A Game of Thrones is 1088 pages long (no attachment), with the following publication in August 1996. Wheel of Time author Robert Jordan has written support short for influential covers in ensuring the early success of the book and hence the series with fantasy readers. Blood of the Dragon , an example of a pre-release novel taken from chapters of Daenerys, then won the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella.
The 300 pages removed from the A Game of Thrones manuscript served as the opening of the second book, titled A Clash of Kings . It was released in February 1999 in the United States, with the length of the manuscript (without attachment) of 1184 pages. A Clash of Kings is the first book of the A Song of Ice and Fire series to create a best-seller list, reaching 13 on The New York Times List of Best Sellers in 1999. After the success of The Lord of the Rings film, Martin received his first question for the rights of A Song of Ice and Fire series from various manufacturers and filmmakers.
Martin a few months late in the third book, A Storm of Swords . The last chapter he wrote was about "Red Wedding," an important scene famous for its violence (see Theme: Violence and Death). Storm of Swords is 1521 pages in the manuscript (no attachments), causing problems for many Martin publishers around the world. Bantam Books published A Storm of Swords in a single volume in the United States in November 2000, while several other language editions were split into two, three, or even four volumes. Storm of Swords debuted at number 12 on the New York Times bestseller list.
Bridging the time-line gap (2000-2011)
After the Game of Thrones, the A Clash of Kings and the Storm of Swords, Martin originally intended to write three more books. The fourth book, while titled A Dance with Dragons , is the focus on Daelerys Targaryen's return to Westeros and related conflicts. Martin wants to organize this story five years after A Storm of Swords so that the younger characters get older and the dragon grows bigger. Agree with the publisher early on that the new book should be shorter than A Storm of Swords , Martin began writing a novel closer in length to A Clash of Kings . A long prologue was to establish what had happened at the time, initially only as a chapter of Aeron Damphair in the Iron Islands at Kingsmoot. Because events in the Iron Islands had an impact in the book and can not be told with existing POV characters, Martin finally introduced three new points of view.
In 2001, Martin was still optimistic that the fourth installment might be released in the last quarter of 2002. However, the five-year gap does not apply to all characters during writing. On the one hand, Martin is not content with covering events during the gap only through flashbacks and internal retrospection. On the other hand, it does not make sense for nothing to happen for five years. After working on the book for about a year, Martin realizes that he needs an additional temporary book, which he calls A Feast for Crows . The book will pick up the story soon after the third book, and Martin cancels the idea of ​​a five-year gap. The 250 pages written prologue material is mixed as a new angle character from Dorne and the Iron Islands. This expanded storyline and story interaction generated complicated plots for Martin.
The length of the A Feast for Crows manuscript finally goes beyond A Storm of Swords . Martin was reluctant to make the deep cuts necessary to bring the book down to its published length, because it would jeopardize the story in his mind. Printing a book in "microtype on an onion leather paper and giving each magnifying glass reader" is not an option for him either. On the other hand, Martin rejects the idea of ​​a publisher splitting the narrative chronologically into A Feast for Crows , Part One and Two. Because it was too late with the book, Martin had not even begun writing all the characters' stories and also objected to ending the first book without resolution for many of his character's point of view as in the previous book.
With characters scattered around the world, a friend suggested that Martin divide the story geographically into two volumes, where A Feast for Crows would be first. This approach will give Martin space to complete the already begun story arc he originally wanted, which he still feels as the best approach many years later. Martin moved the unfinished character story 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 events in Westeros, King's Landing, Riverlands, Dorne, and Iron Islands. Both books begin shortly after the end of A Storm of Swords , running in parallel rather than sequentially, and involving various characters with only slightly overlap. Martin divides the Aryan chapters into both books after having moved the other three most popular characters (Jon Snow, Tyrion, and Daenerys) into A Dance with Dragons .
After being released in October 2005 in England and November 2005 in the US, A Feast for Crows went directly to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Among the positive reviewers was Lev Grossman of Time, who was nicknamed Martin "the American Tolkien". However, fans and critics are equally disappointed with the split story that leaves the fate of some unresolved popular characters after the cliffhanger's
With about 1600 pages in the long script, A Dance with Dragons finally published in July 2011 after six years of writing, longer on page count and time of writing than the previous four novels. The story of A Dance with Dragons succeeded in overtaking and exceeding about two-thirds of the A Feast for Crows into the book, but it included fewer stories than Martin intended, eliminating at least one a large battle sequence is planned and leaving some character threads that end up on a cliff-hangers. Martin attributes the delay mainly to the "Meereenese node," which the interviewer understood as "making chronology and character fit together when various threads gather in [Daenerys]". Martin also admits to spending too much time rewriting and perfecting his story, but clearly rejecting the theories of some of his critics that he has lost interest in the series or will gain time to make more money.
Novel planned and future
Martin believes the last two volumes of this series will be a ledger of 1500 pages of each manuscript. The sixth book will be called The Winds of Winter , taking the title of the last book of the trilogy that was originally planned. Feeling uncomfortable with the temporary title of A Time for Wolves for the final volume, Martin finally announced A Dream of Spring as the title for the seventh book in 2006. Martin said in March 2012 that two the last novel will bring the reader further north than the previous books, and that Others will appear in the book.
Winter Wind
The Winds of Winter will complete the cliffhangers of A Dance with Dragons early on and "will be open with two big battles that [the fifth book] is developing,...] from Slaver's Bay and then take it from there. "By mid-2010, Martin has completed five chapters of The Winds of Winter from Sansa Stark's perspective, Arya Stark, Arianne Martell, and Aeron Greyjoy, collecting up to about 100 completed pages. After publishing A Dance with Dragons in 2011, Martin announced he will be back in January 2012. He spent his time on book tours, conventions, and continues to work on the 'Ice & Fire new companion guide and novel Tales of Dunk and Egg .
In December 2011, Martin posted a chapter from The Winds of Winter from Theon Greyjoy's point of view; several other chapters have been published since then. The four hundred pages of the sixth novel have been written in October 2012, though Martin considers only 200 to be "completely finished"; the rest needs to be revised. In 2011, Martin gave three years as a realistic estimate to finish the sixth book at a good pace, but said in the end the book "will finish when it's done", acknowledging that its public estimates are too optimistic in the past. Martin did not mean to separate the characters geographically again.
By 2015 there is an indication that the book will be published before the sixth season of the HBO event but in early January 2016 Martin insists that he has not met the year-end limit he has made with his publisher for the release of the book. before the sixth season. He also revealed that there was a time limit before October 2015 which he deemed achievable in May 2015, and that in September 2015 he was still considering the year-end deadline that could be reached. He further confirms that some book plots may be revealed in the upcoming season of Game of Thrones. In February 2016, Martin declared that he wasted all his editing projects except Wild Card , and that he would not write teleplays, scenarios, short stories, introductions or introductions before delivering The Winter Winds . In April 2018, Martin announced in a blog post that The Winds of Winter will not be published in 2018.
During the Guadalajara International Book Fair in Mexico in early December 2016, Martin offered the following instructions for the tone of this book:
There are many dark chapters now... I've been telling you for 20 years that winter is coming. Winter is a time when everything dies, and cold and ice and darkness fill the world, so this will not be the happy feeling people expect. Some characters are in a very dark place.
Spring Dream
Martin was firm about ending the series with the seventh novel "until I decided not to be assertive". With the stated purpose of telling the story from beginning to end, he will not cut the story to fit the arbitrary volume. He knows the end in the broad stroke as well as the future of the main character, and will complete the series with the bitter elements where not everyone will live happily ever after. Martin hopes to write a similar ending to the The Lord of the Rings that he feels gives a satisfying depth and resonance story. On the other hand, Martin noted the challenge of avoiding situations like the end of the Lost TV series, which left some fans disappointed by straying too far from their own theories and desires. In 2015, Martin said that he did not write A Dream of Spring with The Winds of Winter , and in early 2016, he said he did not believe A Dream of Spring will be published before the last season of the HBO event. In 2018, Martin commented he had not started working on the book.
Martin offers the following instructions on how this series will end during Q & amp; A at the Guadalajara International Book Fair. "I'm not going to tell you how I'm going to end my book, but I suspect the overall taste will be as bitter as it's happy."
TV series and other posts
Early on in the TV series, Martin told the main plot points to producers David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. (The New York Times reported in 2011 that, at the age of 62, Martin is with all accounts in strong health.) Martin believes he will publish at least The Winds of Winter before the TV series caught up with him. However, there is general concern about whether Martin will be able to stay ahead of the show. As a result, the head writers Benioff and Weiss learn more points of future plots from Martin in 2013 to help them organize a possible event of the new season. This includes the ultimate story for all the core characters. The deviation from the story line of the book is also being considered, but two years of showing emptiness to wait for new books is not an option for them as child actors continue to grow and the popularity of the show will decrease. Martin indicated he would not allow other authors to complete the book series. On 2 January 2016, Martin confirmed that the sixth volume will not be published before the start of the sixth season of the HBO series.
As for the Song of Ice and Fire as his magnum opus, Martin believes he will never write anything on this scale again and will only return to this fictional universe in the context of a stand-alone novel. He prefers to write stories about characters from other A Song of Ice and Fire periods like the Tales of Dunk and Egg project, instead of continuing the series live. A possible future side project is a prequel set during Aegon's conquest of Westeros. Martin said he would love to re-write short stories, novels, novels and novels that stand out from multiple genres like science fiction, horror, fantasy, or even murder mystery. However, he will see if his audience follows him after publishing his next project.
Inspiration and writing
Genre
George R. R. Martin believes the greatest influence ever experienced in childhood. After reading HP 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 this author's literature into science fiction, fantasy, or horror. and will write from any genre as a result. Martin ranked 'A Song of Ice and Fire' as 'epic fantasy', and specifically names Tad Williams's high fantasy epic Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn as very influential for series writing. One of his favorite writers is Jack Vance, though Martin considers the series not very Vancean.
Martin experienced some harsh winters while living in Dubuque several years in the 70s, and suspects this winter has had an influence on his writing; "I think a lot of things in A Game of Thrones, snow and ice and frozen, comes from my memories of Dubuque".
Medieval settings have become the traditional backdrop for epic fantasy. However, where historical fiction leaves readers who know the results of history, the original character can increase tension and empathy for the reader. Yet Martin feels historical fiction, especially when set in the Middle Ages, has a joy, clinging, and reality that is not in a fantasy with a similar background. Thus, he wants to combine the realism of historical fiction with the magic appeal of the best fantasies, subdue magic in favor of political battles and intrigues. He also decided to avoid setting up the conventional versus evil versus typical for the genre, using the battle between Achilles and Hector in Homer Iliad, where nothing stands out either as a hero or a villain, as an example of what one wants he accomplished with his books.
Martin is widely credited with expanding the fantasy fiction genre for adult content, including incest, pedophilia, and adultery. For Amy Taylor's Writing The Washington Post for the Atlantic, Amber Taylor rated the novel as a violent fantasy with a vulnerable character that readers become emotionally attached. CNN discovered in 2000 that Martin's mature descriptions were "much brighter than those found in the works of other fantasy writers," although Martin judged the fantasy genre to have become rougher a decade later and that some of the works of the author would transcend the adult theme of his novel. Adam Roberts calls the Martin series as the most successful and popular example of a subgenre emerging from grimdark fantasies, influencing other writers associated with that style, such as Joe Abercrombie.
The writing process
Setting out to write something on an epic scale, Martin projected to write three books out of 800 manuscript pages in the early stages of the series. The original contract in the 1990s set a one-year deadline for previous literary works, but Martin realized later that his new books were longer and therefore required more writing time. In 2000, Martin planned to take 18 months to two years for each volume and projected the last of six books planned to be released five or six years later. However, with the series A Song of Ice and Fire developing into the biggest and most ambitious story he has ever tried to write, he still has two more books to write in 2018. Martin says he needs to be in his own office at Santa Fe, New Mexico to immerse herself in the world of fiction and writing. In 2011, Martin still typed his fiction on a DOS computer with WordStar 4.0 software. She starts everyday at 10 am by rewriting and polishing the work of the previous day, and maybe writing all day or struggling to write anything. The material that was issued and the previous old version is saved for possible reinserted at a later time. Martin does not consider the A Song of Ice and Fire a series but one story is published in several volumes.
Martin set the story of A Song of Ice and Fire in a secondary world inspired by Tolkien's writings. Unlike Tolkien, who created all the languages, mythology, and history for Middle-earth long before writing The Lord of the Rings, Martin usually begins with a rough sketch of an imaginary world that he improves into a workable fictional arrangement along the way. He describes his writing as coming from the subconscious level in "almost a daydreaming process", and his story, which has myth and not the scientific core, draws from emotion rather than rationality. Martin uses a map and a list of players that contains 60 pages in the fourth volume, but keeps most of the information in his mind. His imaginary backstory can still change until it is published, and only the novel is counted as a canon. Martin did not intend to publish his personal record after the series was over.
Martin drew a lot of inspiration from the actual history for this series, has several bookshelves filled with medieval history for research and visiting the historic buildings of Europe. For an English-speaking English, English history proves to be the easiest source of medieval history for him, giving a call to England rather than a taste of German or Spanish history. For example, Ned and Robb Stark resemble Richard, 3rd Duke of York and his son Edward IV, and Queen Cersei resembles Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth Woodville. Martin immersed himself in various medieval topics such as clothing, food, parties, and tournaments, to have the facts that existed when needed during writing. The series was mainly influenced by the Hundred Years War, the Crusades, the Albigensian Crusade, and the Rose War, although Martin refrained from making direct adaptations. Martin was also inspired by Maurits Druon's French Accra of The Accursed Kings by French novels in the 13th and 14th centuries.
The story is written to follow the main landmark with the ultimate goal, but leave Martin's space for improvisation. Sometimes, the details of improvisation significantly affect the story being planned. In the fourth book, Martin kept more personal records than ever before to track many of the subplots, which became very detailed and extensive by the fifth book being heavy. Martin's editor, copy editor, and reader monitor accidental errors, even though some errors have gone into publication. For example, Martin inconsistently refers to the eye color of a particular character, and describes a horse as one sex and another.
Narrative Structure
The books are divided into chapters, each narrated by a third person limited by the eyes of the view, Martin approaches himself as a student of young journalism. Starting with nine POV characters in A Game of Thrones , the number of POV characters grew to a total of 31 in A Dance with Dragons (see table). The short-lived one-time POV character is largely confined to the prologue and epilogue. David Orr of The New York Times noted the importance of the story "Starks (Tender), Targaryens (at least one good person, or woman), Lannisters (conniving), Greyjoys (mostly conniving), Baratheons (mixed bag ), Tyrells (unclear) and Martell (ditto), most of whom are working hard to advance their ambitions and destroy their enemies, better to die ". However, as Lev Grossman noted, the reader "experienced the struggle for Westeros from all sides at once", so "every fight is a victory and a tragedy [...] and everyone is a hero and a villain at the same time ".
Modeled on The Lord of the Rings, the story of A Song of Ice and Fire begins with a tight focus on the small group (with everyone in Winterfell, except Daenerys) and then splits into some separate stories. The storyline will meet again, but finding a turning point in this complicated series has troubled Martin and has slowed his writing. Depending on the interview, Martin is said to have reached a turning point in A Dance with Dragons , or has not reached it in the book. The series structure of several POVs and the plot of the storyline was inspired by the Wild Cards, a multi-authored series of universe books edited by Martin since 1985. As the sole author, Martin began each new book with an outline of chapter sequences and can write several successive chapters from a character's point of view instead of working chronologically. The chapters are then rearranged to optimize the character of intercutting, chronology, and suspense.
Influenced by the background of the script and the film, Martin tries to keep the reader cool by ending the Ice and Fire Songs with a moment of tension or revelation, twist or cliffhanger, similar to a TV action. break. Scriptwriting has also taught it the technique of "cutting fat and leaving muscles", which is the final stage of completing a book, a technique that brings the number of pages in A Dance with Dragons down nearly eighty pages. The continuous sharing of A Song of Ice and Fire into the book is much harder for Martin. Each book should represent a travel phase that ends with a closure for most characters. A small portion of the remaining characters with cliffhangers is clear to ensure the reader returns for the next installment, though A Dance with Dragons has more cliffhangers than Martin originally intended. Both regular and regular POV characters are designed to have full characters that end in tragedy or victory, and are written to hold the reader's interest and not be missed in reading. The main character is killed so the reader will not rely on the hero to come unscathed and instead will feel the fear of character with every page changing.
The larger, unresolved narrative narratives encourage speculation about future story events. According to Martin, many of the keys to the Song of Ice and Fire Period are spaced over a dozen years in the fictional past, with each volume revealing more. Events planned from the outset were conceivable, though Martin was careful not to make the story predictable. The character of the point of view, which functions as an unreliable narrator, can clarify or provide a different perspective on past events. Therefore, what the readers believe to be true may not necessarily be true.
Character development
Regarding the character as the heart of the story, Martin plotted the epic of A Song of Ice and Fire to have a large number of characters and many different settings from scratch. A Feast for Crows has a 63-page character list, with many of the thousands of characters mentioned only in passing or disappearing from view for a long time. When Martin adds a new family to the growing number of genealogies in the appendix, he designs secrets about the personality or fate of family members. However, their backstory can still change until it is written in the story. Martin gets the most inspirational character from history (without directly translating historical figures) and his own experience, but also from the behavior of his friends, acquaintances, and people of public interest. Martin aims to "make my character real and make them human, character who has good and bad, noble and selfishly mixed well in their nature". Jeff VanderMeer of the Los Angeles Times stated that "Martin's Martri to fully inhabit his character, good or bad, creates an unstoppable momentum in his novel and contains an implicit critique of Tolkien's moral simplicity" (see Theme: Moral ambiguity ).
Martin purposely ignored the rules of writing to never give two characters names starting with the same letter. Instead, the names of characters reflect the naming system in various European family histories, where certain names are associated with certain royal houses and where even the secondary family assigns the same name over and over again. The Story of A Song of Ice and Fire therefore has children called "Robert" in honor of King Robert of the Westheon House, a "Brandon" in every other Starks generation in commemoration of Brandon the Builder (of the Wall), and the syllable "Ty" is common in the names given by House Lannister. Convinced that the reader will notice, Martin distinguishes people who share a particular name by adding a number or location to a given name (eg Henry V of England). Family names are designed in association with ethnic groups (see background): The First People in North Westeros have very simple names like Stark and Strong, while the offspring of the Andal in the South invaders have more complicated house names and no clear. such as Lannister or Arryn, and Targaryens and Valyrians from the Eastern continent have the most exotic name with the letter Y.
All the characters are designed to speak with their own internal voice to capture their view of the world. The Atlantic reflects whether Martin ultimately intended readers to sympathize with the characters on both sides of the Lannister-Stark feud long before the plot's development forced them to make their emotional choices. Contrary to most conventional epic fantasies, the characters of A Song of Ice and Fire are so vulnerable that, according to The Atlantic , readers "can not be sure that goodness will prevail, where it's all the more exciting. "Martin is emotionally involved in character life during writing, which makes chapters with terrible events sometimes very difficult to write. Seeing the world through the eyes of character requires some empathy with them, including the criminals, all of whom he says he likes as if they are his own children. Martin discovers that some characters have their own thoughts and take their writing in different directions. He returns to the intended story if it does not work, but this detour sometimes proves to be more useful to him.
Arya Stark, Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, and Daenerys Targaryen generate the most feedback from readers. Martin has stated that Tyrion is his personal favorite, as a gray gray character, with his cunning and intelligence making him the most fun to write. Martin also said that Bran Stark is the most difficult character to write. As the character most involved in magic, Bran's story has to be handled carefully in the supernatural aspects of the books. Bran is also the youngest point of view character, and has to deal with adult theme series such as sadness, loneliness, and anger. Martin began to have young characters that grew faster among his chapters, but, since it did not make sense for a character to take two months to respond, a completed book represents only a little time elapsed. Martin hoped the planned five-year break would alleviate the situation and the age of the children became almost mature in the Seven Kingdoms, but he then dropped a five-year break (see the Bridging section of the timeline gap).
Themes
Although modern fantasies may often receive peculiarities, the series is generally praised for what is considered a kind of medieval realism. Believing that magic should be used moderately in the epic fantasy genre, Martin decided to make the story feel more like historical fiction than contemporary fantasy, with little emphasis on magic and magic and more about battles, political intrigue, and character. Although the number of magic has gradually increased throughout the story, this series still ends with less magic than most contemporary fantasies. In Martin's eyes, the literary effective power must represent strange and dangerous forces beyond human comprehension, not sophisticated alien technology or formulative mantras. Thus, the characters only understand the natural aspects of their world, but not the magical elements like the others.
Since Martin drew 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 Britain in that period. from the Wars of the Roses. The Atlantic Adam Serwer considers A Song of Ice and Fire as "more a story about politics than one of heroism, a story about humanity struggling with basic obsession rather than fulfilling its noble potential, "in which the emerging power struggle comes from the repression of the feudal system and not from a struggle between good and evil. Martin not only wanted to reflect the friction of the medieval class structure in the novel, but also explored the consequences of the decisions of the leaders, since the common good did not automatically create competent leaders and vice versa.
A common theme in the fantasy genre is the battle between good and evil, which Martin refuses not to reflect the real world. Attracted to the gray character, Martin instead supports William Faulkner's view that only the human heart is against himself worthy of writing. Martin explores the questions of redemption and character changes in the series A Song of Ice and Fire . The structure of multiple viewpoints allows characters to be explored from many sides, so suspected criminals can give their point of view.
Although fantasy comes from an imaginative world, Martin sees an honest need to reflect the real world where people die sometimes bad deaths, even loved ones. The main character is killed so that the reader will not expect the hero that is expected to survive, and will instead feel the same tension and fear that the character may have. The novels also reflect a considerable degree of death in the war. An extra death or supernumerary orc does not have a major effect on the reader, whereas the death of a friend has a much more emotional impact. Martin prefers a hero's sacrifice to say something profound about human nature.
According to Martin, the fantasy genre rarely focuses on sex and sexuality, often treating teenage sexuality or ignoring it completely. Martin, however, regarded sexuality as an important driving force in human life that should not be excluded from narration. Providing sensory detail for the immersive experience is more important than the development of a plot for Martin, which aims to let the reader experience a novel sex scene, whether it is sex transeden, attractive, mind blowing, or whether it is annoying, twisting, dark sex, or disappointing lingering sex. "Martin was fascinated by the medieval contrast in which the knights honored their women with poetry and put on their help in the tournament while their soldiers cleverly raped women in wartime.The concept of a non-existent teenager in the Middle Ages served as a model for Daenerys sexual activity on age 13 years in the books.The novels also allude to the incest practices in the Ancient Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty to keep their lineage pure.
Martin provides a variety of female characters to explore the place of women in a patriarchal society. Writing all the characters as human beings with the same basic needs, dreams, and influences, the female character encompasses a wide spectrum of human nature as a male.
Reception
Critical response
Science Fiction Weekly stated in 2000 that "few would argue that Martin's most monumental achievement to date is the breakthrough of the historical fantasy series" A Song of Ice and Fire ", whose review had "orders of magnitude better" than his earlier works, such as Martin explained to The New Yorker . In 2007, Weird Tales magazine described this series as a "great fantasy story" that "lifted Martin to a new level of success." Shortly before the release of A Dance with Dragons in 2011, Bill Sheehan of The Washington Post believes that "no fantasy works have resulted in such anticipation since the last Harry Potter duel with Voldemort "and Ethan Sacks of Daily News saw the series transform Martin into a dear literary critic and a mainstream reader," rare for the fantasy genre that is often overlooked because the garbage does not fit the bottom line of the dragon cage ". Salon.com Andrew Leonard states:
This success is even more remarkable because [the debut series] without mass market publicity or any kind of buzz in the fantasy scene/SF. George R. R. Martin follows him the hard way, word of mouth, by linking his characters to the souls of his readers to the limits most fantasy writers dream of.
The Weekly Publisher noted in 2000 that "Martin may not compete with Tolkien or Robert Jordan, but he is ranked with medieval fantasy figures such as Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson." After the fourth volume came out in 2005, Lev Grossman considered Martin a "major force for evolution in fantasy" and proclaimed him "the American Tolkien", explaining that, although Martin was "not the most famous of American fantasy writers" at the time and would "never win a Pulitzer or National Book Award... his skills as a narrative crafter than most of today's literary writing literature". As Grossman said in 2011, the phrase American Tolkien "has been attached to [Martin], as intended for", taken by the media including The New York Times (" He's so much better than that "), New Yorker , Entertainment Weekly (" an acknowledgment bordering on denial of fantasy "), The Globe and Mail , and USA Today . Time Magazine called Martin one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2011, and USA Today named George R.R. Martin as the Author of the Year 2011.
According to John Barber's
According to Los Angeles Times, "Martin's brilliance in evoking the atmosphere through descriptions is the eternal feature of his fiction, the arrangement is more than a visual aid on a painted stage," and the novel captivates readers with "complex storylines, interesting characters, great dialogue, a perfect tempo, and a desire to kill even the main character ". CNN commented that "this story establishes different points of view in a skilful combination of well-crafted observations, narratives and dialogue that illuminate characters and plots in an interesting style," and David Orr of The New York Times Find out that "All of his hundreds of characters have a record of history and personality grace that advanced the flow line.Each city has a series of victories and very complicated problems." Salon.com Andrew Leonard "can not stop reading Martin because of my desire to know what will happen combined with my inability to guess what will happen and make me helpless in the presence of his magic In the end, I feel shaken and exhausted." < i> Christian Science Monitor suggested reading a novel with A Song of Ice and Fire encyclopedia on hand to "capture all the clues and fine detail and detail that [Martin] goes to all his books If you pay attention, you will be rewarded and questions will be answered. "
Among the most important voices are Sam Jordison and Michael Hann, both The Guardian . Jordison detailed his doubts about the A Game of Thrones in a 2009 review and concluded, "It's stupid, it's not sophisticated, it's a cartoon, but I can not stop reading.... Archaic absurdity aside, Martin writes very well The dialogue is sharp and often humorous.The direct descriptive prose and atmospheric, especially when building a sense of grim feeling [winter to come]. "Hann does not consider the novel to stand out from the general fantasy genre, despite Martin's change to the fantasy convention, even though he rediscovered his childhood view:
That when everything, as a whole, is bad enough [in the real world], it is a deep joy to dive into something really immersive, something that does not need to emerge from hour by hour. And if the dye involves a dragon, a magic, a ghost from the outside of death, the deformed wolves and the cast away, then it will be.
Sales
The reported overall sales figures from 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 books of A Song of Ice and Fire had been sold worldwide, a number repeated by The Globe and Mail in July 2011. Reuters reported in September 2013 that books including print, digital and audio versions have sold over 24 million copies in North America. The Wall Street Journal reported more than six million copies sold in North America in May 2011. USA Today reported 8.5 million copies in print and digital as a whole in July 2011, and over 12 million copies were sold in print in December 2011. The series has been translated into over 20 languages; USA Today reports a fifth book translated into over 40 languages. Forbes estimates that Martin is the 12th highest earning writer around the world in 2011 with $ 15 million.
Martin publishers initially expected the Game of Thrones to become best-sellers, but the first installment did not even reach a lower position in the bestseller list. This made Martin not surprised, because this is "a fool's game to think anything will work or rely on it". However, the book slowly won the vigorous advocacy of independent booksellers and the popularity of the book grew by word of mouth. The series' popularity skyrocketed in the next volume, with the second and third volumes listing Best Sellers in the New York Times in 1999 and 2000, respectively. The series gained the longest attention from Martin's old writings, and the publisher Martin American Bantam Spectra was to reprint his previously outdated solo novel.
The fourth installment, A Feast for Crows , was a best-seller live in the 2005 release, reaching number one on the fictional hardcover bestseller list "The New York Times" November 27, 2005, which for a fantasy novel suggested that the book Martin's book attracts mainstream readers. The paperback edition A Game of Thrones reached its 34th in 2010, exceeding one million marks. Before even airing, the TV series has increased book sales, with A Song of Ice and Fire approaching a three-digit growth in year-to-year sales. Bantam is looking forward to seeing further sales push sales, and British publisher Martin Harper Voyager expects readers to rediscover their other epic fantasy literature. By reporting 4.5 million copies of the first four volumes in print in early 2011, four volumes re-appeared on bestseller bestseller list in the second quarter of 2011.
In essence of publication in July 2011, A Dance with Dragons is in the sixth mold with over 650,000 hardbacks printed. It also has the highest single sales and day one of each new fiction title published in 2011 at the time, 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 sells more physically than digital copies early but Martin remains the tenth author to sell 1 million Amazon Kindle books. All five volumes and four volumes of box sets are among the 100 best-selling books in the United States in 2011 and 2012.
TV series have contributed greatly in increasing sales of books and collectibles such as box-sets, merchandise, and other items. The TV series also contributes in increasing the geographic coverage of the book, introducing new customers in developing countries such as India and Brazil to the book series. All of this has boosted overall book sales.
Fandom
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Martin's novels gradually gave him a reputation among science fiction, though he said he only received several fan letters a year in the days before the Internet. The publication of A Game of Thrones caused Martin's followers to grow, with fan sites popping up and an evolving community of Trekkie followers meeting regularly. Westeros.org, one of A Song of Ice and Fire's top fans with about seventeen thousand registered members in 2011, was founded in 1999 by American descendants of Cuban descent, Elio M GarcÃÆ'a, Jr., and his girlfriend; Their involvement with Martin's work has now become semi-professional. Brotherhood Without Banners, an unofficial fan club that operates globally, was formed in 2001. Their founders and old members were among Martin's good friends.
Martin runs the official website and manages the live blog with the help of Ty Franck. He also interacted with fandom by answering emails and letters, although he stated in 2005 that their figures may have left them unanswered for years. Because there are different types of conventions today, it tends to go to three or four science fiction conventions a year just to get back to the roots and meet friends. He does not read the message boards anymore, so his writing will not be influenced by fans foretelling the bend and interpreting different characters from what he means.
While Martin calls the majority of his fans "great", and enjoys interacting with them, some of them turn against him because of the six years needed to release the A Dance with Dragons . Dissatisfied fan movements called GRRuMblers formed in 2009, creating sites like Complete Books, George and Are Winter Coming? . When the fan vocal impatience for A Dance with Dragons peaked shortly afterwards, Martin issued a statement called "To My Detractors" on his blog that received media attention. The New York Times notes that not infrequently Martin is surrounded on book signings as well. The New Yorker calls this "an astounding amount of effort to denounce a confessing author, few contemporary writers can claim to have inspired such a passion."
Awards and nominations
- Game of Thrones (1996) - Locus Award winner, World Fantasy Award nominee and 1997 Nebula Award,
- A Clash of Kings (1998) - Locus Award Winner, Nebula Award nomination, 1999
- Storm of Swords (2000) - Locus Award winner, Hugo Award and Nebula Awards nomination, 2001
- A Feast for Crows (2005) - Hugo, Locus, and Fantasy Awards UK nominations, 2006
- Dance with the Dragon (2011) - Locus Award Winner, Hugo Award and World Fantasy Award 2012 nominations,
Derived from work
Novellas
Martin has written several prequel books. The Tales of Dunk and Egg series, three novels set ninety years before the events of the novel series, featured the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire "Egg", which was then King Aegon V Targaryen. The stories have no direct connection to the A Song of Ice and Fire flow, 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 anthology 1998 Legends . The Sworn Sword was followed in 2003, published in Legends II. Both were later adapted into graphic novels. The third novel, titled The Mystery Knight , was first published in the 2010 anthology
The The Princess and the Queen or the Black and Green People novel appear in the Tor Books 2013 Dangerous Women novel, and explain some backstory Targaryen two centuries before her novel. Prince Rogue, or, King's Brother , published in the 2014 Anthology
The chapters of these novels are also compiled into three novels released between 1996 and 2003 by Asimov's Science Fiction and Dragon :
- Blood of the Dragon (July 1996), taken from Daenerys chapter in A Game of Thrones . The Path of the Dragon (December 2000), taken from the Daenerys chapter on the A Storm of Swords .
- Kraken Weapon (March 2003), based on the Iron Islands chapters of A Feast for Crows .
serial TV
With the growing popularity of the series, HBO chose A Song of Ice and Fire for a television adaptation in 2007. A pilot episode was produced at the end of 2009, and the series commitments for the next nine episodes were made in March 2010. Serial, titled Game of Thrones , aired in April 2011 for high praise and ratings (see Game of Thrones: Reception). The network took the event for the second season covering A Clash of Kings two days later. Shortly after the end of the first season, the event received 13 Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series, winning Outstanding Main Title Design and Outstanding Supporting Actor in Drama Series for Peter Dinklage's photo shoot of Tyrion Lannister. HBO announced an extension for the third season in April 2012, ten days after the premier 2 season. Since the length of the book is appropriate, the third season covers only about the first half of A Storm of Swords .
Shortly after the premier 3 season in March 2013, the network announced that Game of Thrones will be back for the fourth season, which will include the second half of A Storm of Swords along with the start of < i> A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons . Game of Thrones was nominated for 15 Emmy Awards for season 3. Two days after its inaugural fourth season in April 2014, HBO updated the Game of Thrones for the fifth and sixth seasons. Season 5 airs on April 12, 2015 and sets Guinness World Records to win the highest number of Emmy Awards for the series in a season and year, winning 12 out of 24 nominations, including Extraordinary Drama Series. These episodes were watched by 8 million viewers, setting a record number for this series. The sixth season premiered on April 24, 2016. This episode received the most nominations for the 68th Emmy Primetime Awards with 23, 12 winners, including awards for the Exceptional Drama Series. The seventh season premiered on July 16, 2017. The eighth and final seasons are set to premiere in 2019.
Other works
A Song of Ice and Fire spawned a spin-off product industry. Fantasy Flight Games released a collection of card games, board games, and two collections of artwork inspired by the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Roleplaying game products released by Guardians of Order and Green Ronin. Dynamite Entertainment adapted A Game of Thrones to the same monthly comic in 2011. Some video games are available or in production, including A Game of Thrones: Genesis (2011) and < i> Game of Throne
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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