A Song of Ice and Fire

Written from secondary sources (reference descriptions of the series), not from the novels.

An unfinished fantasy series, five novels so far, about a continent’s ruling houses fighting over a throne while a threat gathers in the north that most of them ignore. Three stories run side by side: the war for the Iron Throne in Westeros, the exiled Targaryens across the sea in Essos, and the Others beyond the Wall.

It is known for political realism over magic, and for its structure. Every chapter is told from one character’s limited point of view, nine of them in the first book and thirty-one by the fifth, so a conflict is seen from several sides and nobody is purely hero or villain. Martin drew on the Wars of the Roses, the Hundred Years’ War and Maurice Druon’s The Accursed Kings, with Tolkien behind the invented world.

It has no ending yet. Fifteen years after A Dance with Dragons, the sixth book is unpublished and the seventh not begun, so any account of what the series means is provisional, and the HBO adaptation, which overtook the books, ended its own way. It is also criticised for its graphic violence and sexual content, which Martin defends as historical realism.