The Song of Ice and Fire - George R.R. Martin

George R.R. Martin, born in 1948, comic book fan and collector, full-time writer since 1979 is a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. Best known because of this series, he has also published some other novels and short stories and has won several Hugo Awards and Nebula Awards. Critics has described his work as dark and cynical with multi-faceted characters with intricate pasts, inspirations and ambitions. This series sure is hard as hell, partial as he is to sacked castles, bloody battles, dirty betrayals, public executions, assassinations, multiple violations and corpses left rotting everywhere. How HBO is going to manage with some deeply disgusting parts of the series is a mistery but, to start, they have modified the age of some major characters in the book in order to avoid complaints about children abuse.

Martin began writing The Song of Ice & Fire in 1991. The series consists of the following books published by Bantam:

1.- The Game of Thrones
2.- A Clash of Kings
3.- A Storm of Swords
4.- A Feast for Crows
5.- A Dance with Dragons (waiting yet for the Paperback edition)

and forthcoming (be patient, we've have to wait five long years for the fifth book in the series to be released)

6.- The Winds of Winter
7.- A Dream of Spring

A Game of Thrones is the first book in the series and the title refers to a phrase in a crucial-for-the-plot conversation between the Queen, Cersei Lannister and the King's Hand and Lord of Winterfell, Eddard Stark. It's in the middle of the confrontation (chapter 48) when she says what can be considered like the axis of the series: "“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”. In this book, King Robert Baratheon arrives in Winterfell to ask his friend Eddard to be the Hand of the King and he reluctantly agrees. Eddard's sister in law, recent widow of the previous Hand sends a letter to Eddard stating that his husband was murdered by the Queen. Eddard's middle son Bran spies the Queen and her brother Jaime and discovers their secret. Jaime throws him out of the tower window but Bran survives. At King's landing, Eddard understand Cersei Lannister's betrayal and confronts her. He mercifully offers Cersei the chance to flee but King Robert dies of a suspicious hunting mishap, and Cersei's eldest son Joffrey is crowned King and Eddard is captured. A great number of complex characters parade through the pages of this book: Tyrion Lannister, Cersei and Jaime's brother, a misshapen dwarf nicknamed "The Imp" and "Halfman", nevertheless endowed with great cunning and a keen wit. Jon Snow, Eddard Stark's bastard son and his legitimate ones: Robb, the eldest; Sansa, the beautiful and perfect one; her untamed sister Arya; Bran, crippled after the fall from the tower and little Rickon, only three years old.

Meanwhile, in the Wall, Jon Snow joins the Night's Watch and destroys with fire two wights, corpses re-animated, outpost of the monstruous army that is to come. At the same time, across the sea in the east, the exiled Prince Viserys Targaryen conspires to sell his thirteen-year-old sister Daenerys to Khal Drogo of the Dothraki planning to use Drogo's army to conquer his lost kingship.