A Song of Ice and Fire takes place in a fictional world in which seasons last for years and end unpredictably. R. Martin Talks Season Two, The Winds of Winter, and Real-World Influences for A Song of Ice and Fire". During the 1980s and early 1990s, Martin's novels had slowly earned him a reputation in science fiction circles, [145] although he said to only have received a few fans' letters a year in the pre-internet days. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

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.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones 5-Book Boxed Set (Song of Ice and Fire Series): A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and A Dance with Dragons by George R. What that age-old wisdom neglects to mention is that girls have the most fun when they’re running the world. Award-winning illustrator Jonathan Burton has provided a series of gorgeous colour illustrations that take the reader deeper into the realms of Westeros than ever before.

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. The Wall's sentinels, the Sworn Brotherhood of the Night's Watch, also protect the realm from incursions by the " wildlings" or "Free Folk", a number of human tribes living on the north side of the Wall. However, the book slowly won the passionate advocacy of independent booksellers and the book's popularity grew by word of mouth. With A Dance with Dragons said to be half-finished, [51] Martin mentioned in the epilogue of A Feast for Crows that the next volume would be released by the next year.Martin's publishers initially expected A Game of Thrones to be a best-seller, [24] but the first installment did not even reach any lower positions in the bestseller list. Walter of The Guardian saw a strong resemblance between Westeros and England in the period of the Wars of the Roses.

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. Deviations from the books' storylines were considered, but a two-year hiatus to wait for new books was not an option for them (as the child actors continue to grow and the show's popularity would wane).

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.

Far to the north, behind the towering Wall, lie savage Wildings and worse - unnatural things relegated to myth during the centuries-long summer, but proving all too real and all too deadly in the turning of the season. 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). Depending on the interview, Martin is said to have reached the turning point in A Dance with Dragons, [22] or to not quite have reached it yet in the books.A social network game titled Game of Thrones Ascent (2013) by Disruptor Beam allows players to live the life of a noble during the series' period setting. In the east, Daenerys Targaryen, the last scion of House Targaryen, rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death.