George R.R. Martin is an American novelist, screenwriter and television producer, born in Bayonne, New Jersey, on 20 September 1948. He is best known for “A Song of Ice and Fire”, the epic fantasy series that HBO adapted as “Game of Thrones”, and he has also written science fiction and horror.
The son of a longshoreman, Martin grew up in a federal housing project near the Bayonne docks and sold monster stories to other children in the neighbourhood. He took a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s in journalism at Northwestern University, and began selling science fiction short stories professionally in 1970. The first, “The Hero”, appeared in Galaxy magazine in February 1971. He worked as a chess tournament director and taught English and journalism at Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa, before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the end of 1979 to write full time.
His first novel, “Dying of the Light”, came out in 1977. “Fevre Dream” (1982) is a vampire novel set on the Mississippi in the age of the paddle steamers. The commercial failure of “The Armageddon Rag” (1983) pushed him towards television, where he wrote for the revived “The Twilight Zone” and was a writer and producer on “Beauty and the Beast”. In the same years he began editing “Wild Cards”, a shared-world series written by many authors, in which an alien virus gives a small part of humanity superpowers after the Second World War.
Martin returned to novels in 1991. “A Game of Thrones” (1996) opened “A Song of Ice and Fire”, which was inspired by the Wars of the Roses and was first conceived as three volumes. It is now planned as seven. Five have been published, the latest being “A Dance with Dragons” (2011), which won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. “The Winds of Winter” and “A Dream of Spring” are still to come, and neither has a publication date.
HBO bought the television rights in 2007. “Game of Thrones” ran from 2011 to 2019, with Martin as co-executive producer and writer of one episode in each of the first four seasons. “Fire & Blood” (2018), a history of House Targaryen, is the basis of the prequel series “House of the Dragon”, which began in 2022. The Dunk and Egg novellas, collected in “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”, have been adapted by HBO under that title from 2026. Martin also contributed worldbuilding to the video game “Elden Ring” (2022).
Publication Order of A Song of Ice and Fire Books
A Game of Thrones
1996
A Clash of Kings
1998
A Storm of Swords
2000
A Feast for Crows
2005
A Dance with Dragons
2011
Publication Order of Tales of Dunk and Egg Books
The Hedge Knight
1998
The Sworn Sword
2003
The Mystery Knight
2010
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
2015
Publication Order of A Song of Ice and Fire Companion Books
The Lands of Ice and Fire
2012
The Wit & Wisdom of Tyrion Lannister
2013
The World of Ice & Fire (With: Elio M. García Jr., Linda Antonsson)
2014
Fire & Blood
2018
The Rise of the Dragon (With: Elio M. García Jr., Linda Antonsson)
2022
Publication Order of Wild Cards Books (Edited by George R.R. Martin)
Wild Cards
1987
Aces High
1987
Jokers Wild
1987
Aces Abroad
1988
Down and Dirty
1988
Ace in the Hole
1990
Dead Man’s Hand
1990
One-Eyed Jacks
1991
Jokertown Shuffle
1991
Double Solitaire
1992
Dealer’s Choice
1992
Turn of the Cards
1993
Card Sharks
1993
Marked Cards
1994
Black Trump
1995
Deuces Down
2002
Death Draws Five
2006
Inside Straight
2008
Busted Flush
2008
Suicide Kings
2009
Fort Freak
2011
Lowball
2014
High Stakes
2016
Mississippi Roll
2017
Low Chicago
2018
Texas Hold ’Em
2018
Knaves Over Queens
2018
Three Kings
2020
Joker Moon
2021
Full House
2022
Pairing Up
2023
Sleeper Straddle
2024
House Rules
2025
Aces Full
2025
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
Dying of the Light
1977
Windhaven (With: Lisa Tuttle)
1981
Fevre Dream
1982
The Armageddon Rag
1983
Tuf Voyaging
1986
Hunter’s Run (With: Gardner Dozois, Daniel Abraham)
2007
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
The Princess and the Queen
2013
The Rogue Prince
2014
The Sons of the Dragon
2017
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
A Song for Lya
1976
Songs of Stars and Shadows
1977
Sandkings
1981
Songs the Dead Men Sing
1983
Nightflyers
1985
Portraits of His Children
1987
Quartet
2001
Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective / GRRM: A RRetrospective
