George R.R. Martin: The World of Ice and Fire

As a child, author George Martin began what would become his writing career by writing "Monster Stories", and then selling them to children in his community for pennies. Then, in high school, he found comic books very interesting, and began writing for amateur comic magazines. His first actual professional sale of a book came in 1970 (then 21), when he sold The Hero to Galaxy Publishing. And thus began his illustrious writing career.

After receiving his BS Degree from Northwestern University, Evanston Campus, he started writing in the science fiction genre, but it was not paying the bills. He took a position at Clarke University until he lost a friend to a sudden death, and Martin began re-evaluating his own life. He resigned his job and moved to Santa Fe where he devoted his time to only writing. Next, came the opportunity to work on the remake of The Twilight Zone TV series. After that and other series were cancelled, he ended up being hired as a writer/producer of the ABC series, Beauty and the Beast, having written 14 of the episodes.

His most important work was, A Song of Ice and Fire, in which he received inspiration from the events of the Wars of the Roses and Ivanhoe. The first in the series was titled A Game of Thrones, which we all know as the current HBO hit series. A Feast for Crows, the fourth in the series, has been the most successful piece in the literary world, but in 2007, HBO bought the film rights to the entire A Song of Fire and Ice series.

Of Martin's works, TM Wagner says: "There's great tragedy here, but there's also excitement, humor, heroism even in weaklings, nobility even in villains, and now and then, a taste of justice after all. It's a rare gift when a writer can invest his story with that much humanity".