Donato Giancola, “Damphair, What is Dead May Never Die”, Illustration for “A Song of Ice and Fire”

“A Song of Ice and Fire” is a series of epic fantasy novels by the American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. The first volume of the series, “A Game of Thrones”, was begun in 1991 and first published in 1996. The series has grown from a planned trilogy to seven volumes, the fifth and most recent of which, A Dance with Dragons, took Martin five years to write before its publication in 2011. The sixth novel, The Winds of Winter, is still being written.

The story of “A Song of Ice and Fire” takes place on the fictional continents Westeros and Essos. The point of view of each chapter in the story is a limited perspective of a range of characters growing from nine, in the first novel, to thirty-one by the fifth. Three main stories interweave a dynastic war among several families for control of Westeros, the rising threat of the supernatural Others beyond Westeros’ northern border, and the ambition of Daenerys Targaryen, the deposed king’s exiled daughter, to assume the Iron Throne.