S 15] The climate is cold overall, with hard winters and mild snows common regardless of the season.

Most of the story takes place on the continent of Westeros and in a large political entity known as the Seven Kingdoms. Influenced by his television and film scripting background, Martin tries to keep readers engrossed by ending each A Song of Ice and Fire chapter with a tense or revelational moment, a twist or a cliffhanger, similar to a TV act break.Three hundred years before the novels begin, the Targaryen dragonlord Aegon the Conqueror and his two sister-wives Visenya and Rhaenys, whose ancestors migrated from Valyria to Dragonstone [6] a century prior, invaded the Westerosi mainland and landed his army at the mouth of the Blackwater Rush. Martin was fascinated by medieval contrasts where knights venerated their ladies with poems and wore their favors in tournaments while their armies mindlessly raped women in wartime.

The fourth installment, A Feast for Crows, was an immediate best-seller at its 2005 release, [24] hitting number one on "The New York Times" hardcover fiction bestseller list November 27, 2005, which for a fantasy novel suggested that Martin's books were attracting mainstream readers.Meanwhile, HBO acquired the rights to turn A Song of Ice and Fire into a fantasy drama series in 2007 [54] and aired the first of ten episodes covering A Game of Thrones in April 2011. Martin has also drawn from Roman history for inspiration, comparing Stannis Baratheon to the Roman emperor Tiberius. However, with A Song of Ice and Fire series evolving into the biggest and most ambitious story he has ever attempted writing, [47] he still has two more books to finish as of 2022 [update].

The popularity of the HBO series has made its version of the Iron Throne an icon of the entire media franchise. According to Martin, the fantasy genre rarely focuses on sex and sexuality, [38] instead often treating sexuality in a juvenile way or neglecting it completely. The lord's chambers have doors of solid oak, and plush velvet curtains covering windows of small rhomboid panes of glass.Some time later, Bronze Age human settlers, known as the First Men, migrated from Essos via a land bridge at the southeastern end of the continent and gradually spread to the entire continent. S 8] He conceded, however, that readers may be able to piece together a world map by the end of the series.