Summary
George R.R. Martin is one of the most famous fantasy authors alive, thanks mainly to the success of his Song of Ice and Fire books, adapted by HBO as Game of Thrones. HBO is also airing House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which are based on Martin’s book Fire & Blood and his Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas respectively.
In addition to being a famous writer, Martin is also a voracious reader, and if you enjoy his work, he has lots of recommendations for things you may also like.
Earthsea
A most atypical fantasy epic
While most high fantasy series focus on some kind of military conflict, Ursula K. Le Guin’s groundbreaking Earthsea series takes things a bit easier. In the first book, A Wizard of Earthsea, a gifted young man named Ged attends a magical school and brings forth a frightful shadow creature. He must reckon with what it means for him before he can continue living his life.
Ged appears in many (though not all) of the subsequent five books, none of which feature the kinds of grand military battles and dark lords fans of high fantasy have come to expect. Instead, Le Guin finds other ways to explore her enchanted archipelago, with most of the books standing on their own. The books are contemplative, imaginative, and exciting. They’re a must-read for anybody getting into epic fantasy. There is a TV adaptation but it’s best ignored.
Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
Going all the way back to the start
George R.R. Martin loves the classics. This 1819 novel follows Wilfred of Ivanhoe, a disinherited Saxon knight living in England in the 12th century. Ivanhoe enters a tournament in disguise, is wounded, and is rescued from a burning castle by, among others, the legendary outlaw Robin Hood; this book is where the modern conception of Robin Hood started to take shape.
Ivanhoe combines high adventure, medieval romance, and history in a way that thrilled contemporary readers, and helped established a template for historical fiction that lasts to this day. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels are not historical fiction but do draw heavily on real-life history, so it’s easy to see how Ivanhoe was an influence.
- Release Date
- July 31, 1952
- Runtime
- 106 minutes
- Director
- Richard Thorpe
- Writers
- Marguerite Roberts
- Producers
- Pandro S. Berman The Dying Earth by Jack Vance Fantasy with a sprinkling of sci-fi Set millions of years in Earth’s future, The Dying Earth books follow a variety of wizards, thieves, and rogues living in the ruins of a long-ago civilization, where the remnants of technological marvels are now treated as magic. The first book, 1950’s The Dying Earth, is a collection of short stories, while the next three books read more like novels. The prose in The Dying Earth is rich and baroque, the characters are morally ambiguous, and the mood is darkly whimsical. Once again, it’s easy to read this and be reminded of some of the morally flexible characters from Martin’s books. The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie Welcome to the modern day Martin isn’t just recommending decades-old classics. Joe Abercrombie is a fantasy author working right now, famous for his grimdark First Law series. The Heroes is set in Abercrombie’s First Law universe, but tells a standalone story. It jumps back and forth between various characters on either side of a brutal battle to take control of a ring of ancient standing stones that has more symbolic value than tactical worth. Abercrombie steps into the shoes of everyone from hardened commanders to fresh recruits, writing a powerful account of the futility of war. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss If you like waiting for The Winds of Winter, you’ll love waiting for this Like A Wizard of Earthsea, The Name of the Wind is about a young man attending a magic school. His name is Kvothe, and he’s a magical prodigy who is apparently also responsible for inciting a massive civil war that has torn civilization apart. Rothfuss continued to tease out the details of this story in his 2011 book The Wise Man’s Fear. Ever since then, fans have been waiting for the third and purportedly final book: The Doors of Stone. Even though it’s been a long time, the story is gripping enough and the prose poetic enough for this series to be worth reading anyway. The Accursed Kings “The original Game of Thrones” So far we’ve mostly talked about high fantasy books, but Martin is also deeply influenced by historical fiction. One of his favorites is The Accursed Kings series by Maurice Druon. The first book, The Iron King, came out in 1955, and Martin even wrote a foreward for a recent edition. The Accursed Kings traces the fall of the French Capetian dynasty in the 14th century. It begins when King Philip IV brutally executes Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar. As he burns at the stake, Molay curses the king, the pope, and their descendants down to the thirteenth generation, and the subsequent six books explore how the curse (seemingly) manifests in a non-stop wave of royal murders, political betrayals, adulterous scandals, incompetent rulers, and succession crises. Just like Game of Thrones, it’s full of scheming and backstabbing, all of it carried out by a rich cast of fascinating characters. The Saxon Stories Visit the Last Kingdom Adapted as the terrific TV show The Last Kingdom, The Saxon Stories is one of the best series written by acclaimed historical fiction author Bernard Cornwell. Set in England in the ninth and tenth centuries, it follows Uhtred of Bebbanburg, who is born a Saxon but raised a Dance. This ability to bridge the gap between two groups who are eternally trying to kill each other puts him in the center of some of the biggest events in British history. There are 13 books in the Saxon Stories series in all, following Uhtred from a young upstart to an old warlord. It’s an impressive, expansive series written with an eye for detail only Cornwell can provide. The Lord of the Rings Obviously Like many authors, fantasy or otherwise, Martin is an avowed fan of The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. This classic series follows the hobbit Frodo Baggins as he and his friends decide what to do with the One Ring, a totem of evil that could plunge Middle-earth into darkness forever if not destroyed. If you somehow have never read The Lord of the Rings, there’s never a bad time to catch up. There’s never a shortage of things to read These are only some of the titles that Martin has recommended his fans read. You can also check out the works of Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian; Watership Down by Richard Adams; The Once and Future King by T.H. White; the horror fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, and much more. It’s a good thing that there’s so much out there that fans of Martin’s might enjoy, because we still don’t have any firm word on when The Winds of Winter, the next book in his Song of Ice and Fire series, might come out.