A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones is a fantasy novel by the American author George R. R. Martin, first published in 1996. It is the first volume of his epic series A Song of Ice and Fire and the book that introduces the continent of Westeros, its great houses, and the political and supernatural conflicts that drive the saga. The novel establishes the series' hallmark structure of rotating point-of-view chapters, each told from the perspective of a different character, and its willingness to subvert the conventions of heroic fantasy.

The book lends its name to the television adaptation of the broader series, though the novel itself is the first installment of the books.

Overview

The novel opens in a realm at uneasy peace. Eddard Stark, the honorable lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, is summoned south by his old friend King Robert Baratheon to serve as Hand of the King after the death of the previous Hand. Ned reluctantly accepts and travels to the capital, King's Landing, where he becomes entangled in the deadly intrigues of the court and begins to uncover a secret about the royal family that powerful people will kill to protect.

Across the Narrow Sea, the exiled princess Daenerys Targaryen, last surviving heir of the deposed dynasty, is married to a warlord of the horse-riding Dothraki and begins a journey that will transform her from a frightened girl into a figure of growing power. Meanwhile, far in the north, Jon Snow, Ned's bastard son, takes the black and joins the Night's Watch that guards the Wall against the threats beyond, where an ancient menace long thought to be legend begins to stir.

Place in the series

As the opening volume of A Song of Ice and Fire, A Game of Thrones sets in motion the dynastic struggle for the Iron Throne that gives the series its tension, while seeding the larger supernatural threats of the Others beyond the Wall and the return of dragons in the east. Its principal viewpoint characters include Eddard Stark, his wife Catelyn, their children Bran, Sansa, and Arya, Jon Snow, the dwarf Tyrion Lannister, and Daenerys Targaryen.

The novel is renowned for the shocking turns of its final third, which established the series' reputation for the unsentimental treatment of its characters and reset readers' expectations of who is safe in the story.

Publication

A Game of Thrones was published in 1996 by Bantam Spectra in the United States. It won and was nominated for several genre awards and, though a slow seller at first, grew over time into a worldwide bestseller, especially following the success of the television adaptation.