George R.R. Martin is best known for his Game of Throne novels and the TV Shows he has helped produce. But that is not all he has written. Martin has a distinguished career as a writer and we will look at his other works.

Martin Started Writing in the 1970’s

Martin has been writing books since the late 1970’s and was a science fiction writer before diving into the Game of Thrones series. Some of the novels he wrote were centered around the theme of science fiction and horror and other times, he wrote about vampires. 

While his vampire novel Fevre Dream (1982) received praise, he following novel did the opposite. The Armageddon Rag (1983) was Martin’s biggest flop as it was a commercial failure. Martin said that “essentially destroyed my career as a novelist at the time” and made him think about switching to real estate. 

Gamne of Thrones author
Author George R.R. Martin

Martin Becomes a TV Show Writer

The failure of The Armageddon Rag led to an opportunity to work with Producer Philip DeGuere Jr. who wanted to make a film adaption of the book. That didn’t come to fruition but it did lead to Martin getting offered a job as a writer for The Twilight Zone. 

Martin went on move to Hollywood and become a writer for shows because it paid better. That didn’t stop him from writing books as he oversaw many projects including the Wild Card series that is still ongoing today.

A Song of Ice and Fire

In 1991, Martin was fed up with writing for shows as his TV Plots and screenplays were not getting made. Budgets and episode lengths getting shorter and shorter led him back to writing books again. Inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Martin decided to write an epic fantasy series and that became A Song of Ice and Fire series.

The rest is history as they say. Martin did not believe that A Song of Ice and Fire series would ever be made into a film. He knew from personal experience that the scale of the books he wrote was too big.

“I’m going to have all the characters I want, and gigantic castles, and dragons, and dire wolves, and hundreds of years of history, and a really complex plot. And it’s fine because it’s a book. It’s essentially unfilmable.” 

But luckily for him, HBO decided to take the risk of making it come to life and succeeded in doing just that. They invested time and money and were able to create one of the best epic fantasy shows of all time. A rushed ending may have ruined its status as the perfect show but now with more shows being released, Martin knows better now and yields a lot more power than before with his new HBO show House of the Dragon.

While Martin is always going to be known for Game of Thrones, he has written other stuff. You can check out the full list of his work down below.

Stand Alone Novels

  1. Dying of the Light (1977)
  2. Windhaven (1981, with Lisa Tuttle)
  3. Fevre Dream (1982)
  4. The Armageddon Rag (1983)
  5. Dead Man’s Hand (1990, with John J. Miller)
  6. Lands of Ice and Fire (2012)
  7. World of Ice and Fire (2014, with Elio M. García, Jr., and Linda Antonsson) 

A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE

  1. A Game of Thrones (1996)
  2. A Clash of Kings (1999)
  3. A Storm of Swords (2000)
  4.  A Feast for Crows (2005)
  5. A Dance with Dragons (2011)
  6. The Winds of Winter (forthcoming)
  7.  A Dream of Spring (forthcoming)

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

  1. A Song for Lya and Other Stories (1976)
  2. Songs of Stars and Shadows (1977)
  3. Sandkings (1981)
  4. Songs the Dead Men Sing (1983)
  5. Nightflyers (1985)
  6. Tuf Voyaging (1986)
  7. Portraits of His Children (1987)
  8. Quartet (2001)
  9.  GRRM: a retrospective (2003)
  10.  Starlady / Fast- Friend (2008)
  11. Shadow Twin (2005, with Gardner Dozois and Daniel Abraham)
  12. Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2015)

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  1. The Ice Dragon (2006)
  2. HBO’s House of the Dragon Panel at Comic Con
  3. Photo by FilmMagic/FilmMagic for HBO

WILD CARDS

  1. Wild Cards (1987)
  2. Wild Cards II: Aces High (1987)
  3. Wild Cards III: Jokers Wild (1987)
  4. Wild Cards IV: Aces Abroad (1988)
  5. Wild Cards V: Down & Dirty (1988)
  6. Wild Cards VI: Ace in the Hole (1990)
  7. Wild Cards VII: Dead Man’s Hand0 (1990)
  8. Wild Cards VIII: One-Eyed Jacks (1991)
  9. Wild Cards IX: Jokertown Shuffle (1991)
  10. Wild Cards X: Double Solitaire, a novel by Melinda M. Snodgrass (1992)
  11. Wild Cards XI: Dealer’s Choice (1992)
  12. Wild Cards XII: Turn of the Cards, a novel by Victor Milan (1993)
  13. Card Sharks (Wild Cards 13) (1993)
  14. Marked Cards (Wild Cards 14) (1994)
  15. Black Trump (Wild Cards 15) (1995)
  16. Wild Cards XVI: Deuces Down (2002)
  17. Wild Cards XVII: Death Draws Five, a novel by John J. Miller (2006)
  18. Inside Straight (Wild Cards 18) (2008)
  19. Busted Flush (Wild Cards 19) (2008)
  20. Suicide Kings (Wild Cards 20) (2009)
  21. Fort Freak (Wild Cards 21) (2011)
  22. Lowball, (Wild Cards 22) (2014)
  23. High Stakes, (Wild Cards 23) (2016)
  24. Mississippi Roll (Wild Cards 24) (forthcoming)
  25. Low Chicago (Wild Cards 25) (forthcoming)
  26. Texas Hold’um, (Wild Cards 26) (forthcoming)
  27. Naves over Queens, No Limits: Novel by Laura J Nixon (Wild Cards 27) (forthcoming)
  28. Joker Moon (Wild Cards 25) (forthcoming)
  29. Full House, (Wild Cards 26) (forthcoming)

George R.R. Martin Stuck With His Dream

There you have it.  A full list of George R.R. Martin’s work. You can see how his older works inspired his blockbuster series. Martin experienced the life of a writer and hit rock bottom before finding his footing. Through all that, Martin never let us love for writing hinder and stuck with it and now he is reaping all his rewards and living his best life. 

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