A Song of Ice and Fire

For the in-universe chronicle written by Archmaester Ebrose, see A Song of Ice and Fire (Ebrose).

American cover art for the first five books in the series

A Song of Ice and Fire is an award-winning series of best-selling books of epic fantasy novels by American author and scriptwriter George R.R. Martin. The series currently comprises five published novels with two more anticipated to bring the series to a conclusion. The fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, was published on July 12, 2011. There are also three prequel novellas set in the same world. Game of Thrones is the television adaptation of the books.

Works

Main series novels

1. A Game of Thrones (1996) - after which the TV series is named.
2. A Clash of Kings (1998)
3. A Storm of Swords (2000)
4. A Feast for Crows (2005)
5. A Dance with Dragons (2011)
6. The Winds of Winter (forthcoming)
7. A Dream of Spring (forthcoming)

Tales of Dunk and Egg

Main page: Tales of Dunk and Egg

The Tales of Dunk and Egg are a series of prequel novellas set about 90 years before the events of the main A Song of Ice and Fire series.

1. The Hedge Knight (1998)
2. The Sworn Sword (2002)
3. The Mystery Knight (2009)
4. The She-Wolves of Winterfell (forthcoming)

The first three novellas were released in unrelated sci-fi and fantasy short story collections, and were later collected into an omnibus titled A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (featuring new artwork), released in 2015.

Through his blog, Martin has indicated that The She-Wolves of Winterfell was just a working title, and that the final title when it is released will be something else. Another forthcoming Dunk & Egg story which he has fairly well planned out is called The Village Hero and takes place in the Riverlands. Others he intends to write include The Sellsword, The Champion, The Kingsguard, and The Lord Commander, along with several as-yet untitled story ideas.

There are at least nine more, unpublished novellas that Martin tentatively intends to write, for a total of twelve novellas once the entire series is finished.

The Dance of the Dragons prequel novellas

1. The Princess and the Queen (2013)
2. The Rogue Prince (2014)

Martin began writing a detailed in-universe history text about the great Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons (in which Targaryen fought Targaryen and dragon fought dragon) as a submission for an omnibus of collected works by several authors. In his own words he got a bit carried away, and ended up writing a detailed 80,000 word history even though the maximum length set for the novella submission was 30,000 pages. Martin had to focus only on one 30,000 work piece of the larger story, which he submitted as The Princess and the Queen (2013). This was later followed by The Rogue Prince (2014), which is about 10,000 words long. Therefore, as of 2015 about half of what he wrote has not been released.

The narrative conceit that Martin developed for these prequels is a drastic departure from his previous third person POV writing style. Instead, it is presented as an in-universe history text from Westeros written by "Archmaester Gyldayn". This format allowed Martin to write about events which were public knowledge to most people in Westeros, while still keeping the secret reasons why people actually did things unknown, or allowing secret betrayals to remain secret. To explain why only a 30,000 page section of the full 80,000 word text Martin wrote was not released, he gave the in-universe explanation that Gyldayn's history text was severely damaged and certain volumes lost, but that new sections are released as soon as the Citadel can locate copies of the missing sections.

As a result, The Rogue Prince takes place immediately before The Princess and the Queen, but it isn't really a true "prequel" because they were both written at the same time. Rather, it is as if the original draft was divided up into eight parts, of which The Princess and the Queen is "part two through part four" and The Rogue Prince is "part one", but the parts were then released out of order. A reader can actually start with The Rogue Prince, out of publication order, without being spoiled for later events, because this is the order the material was actually originally intended to be read in.

Companion books

• The Art of Ice and Fire, Volume I (2005).
• The Art of Ice and Fire, Volume II (2011).
• A Feast of Ice and Fire (2012) - a companion cooking book, with a forward by Martin.
• The Lands of Ice and Fire (2012) - a collection of map-posters, including exclusive maps previously unreleased with the novels, and the first full map of the known world.
• The World of Ice and Fire (2014) - a sourcebook containing extensive amounts of previously unreleased information about Westeros, Essos, and other lands. Presented as an in-universe history book, giving a broad overview of the entire world.
• Fire & Blood (2018) - another in-universe history book: while the World book broadly covers everything from the North and the Reach to the Free Cities, Fire & Blood is focused in more detail on the three century reign of the Targaryen dynasty up to Aegon III. It is meant to be based on all of Martin's previously unpublished notes about the backstory of House Targaryen. The upcoming prequel series House of the Dragon is based on this book, specifically the events of the Dance of the Dragons.
• Fire & Blood, Volume Two (forthcoming) - a continuation of Fire and Blood up to the reign of Aerys II Targaryen, the "Mad King." Martin revealed in July 2017 that Fire & Blood would have a second volume due to the size it had grown too, but that he won't continue with it until after the main novels are finished.

The World of Ice & Fire

The World of Ice & Fire was published in 2014, presented as being an in-universe history book. It presents the expansive backstory of the known world of Westeros and beyond, much of it never revealed before in the main novels. It has not yet been mentioned within the main novel series, though it is considered to be fully part of the book-continuity canon.

It was produced as an extensive collaboration between Martin himself and his long-time collaborators/fact-checkers, Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson, who run the fansite Westeros.org. The project lasted nearly ten years: originally it was intended that Elio & Linda would write most of it as a summation of what was already mentioned in the novels, with Martin writing a few sidebars, but ultimately he produced vast new amounts of material both about the past of Westeros, and about the lands beyond it (actually expanding to detail the histories of lands east of the Dothraki such as Yi Ti, which are barely even mentioned in the main novels).

Originally the authors found it difficult to simply present an objective compendium/encyclopedia of events, because it would give away major revelations: would an article on Jon Snow actually state that he isn't Ned Stark's son, but Rhaegar Targaryen's? Would an article about Jaime Lannister explain why he really killed the Mad King, even though that is a secret revelation only given in the third novel? The answer they came up with was to present it as an in-universe history textbook written by "Maester Yandel". Yandel is the author-avatar of Elio & Linda, but at times he quotes from an earlier and more expansive history textbook written by "Maester Gyldayn" (the author avatar of George R.R. Martin). Thus the book isn't objective, but represents what is common knowledge to the average and reasonably well-informed lord in Westeros - i.e. most people actually know the general events of the Robert's Rebellion but in the core novels they don't halt the narrative for a dozen pages to give a long speech detailing everything about it. Similarly, most people in real life know the general outline of World War II, but characters in television and movies don't stop to give long speeches outlining the entire event, because they and everyone around them already knows it.

Martin actually wrote a much longer history of House Targaryen which had to be edited down for the excerpts in The World of Ice & Fire - which were eventually collected into a volume called Fire & Blood.

Spin-offs

Board games

• A Game of Thrones, Fantasy Flight (2003)
  • A Game of Thrones: A Clash of Kings, Fantasy Flight (2004)
  • A Game of Thrones: A Storm of Swords, Fantasy Flight (2006)

Roleplaying games

• A Game of Thrones Roleplaying, Guardians of Order (2005)
• A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: Adventures in the Seven Kingdoms, Green Ronin (2009)
  • Peril at King's Landing, Green Ronin (2009)
  • A Song of Ice and Fire Narrator's Kit, Green Ronin (2009)
  • A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide, Green Ronin (2010)

Computer and console games

• A Game of Thrones: Genesis, Cyanide Studios (2011)
• A Game of Thrones: The Roleplaying Game, Cyanide Studios (2012)
• Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series, Telltale Games (2014)

See also

• A Song of Ice and Fire on A Wiki of Ice and Fire
• A Song of Ice and Fire on Wikipedia
• A Song of Ice and Fire (Ebrose)