George R.R. Martin

George R.R. Martin remains a successful science-fiction and fantasy author of the past 25 years. Unlike many of his peers, Martin has been able to cross over into mainstream success. Time Magazine even placed him on the 2011 list for the most influential people in the world.

Early Years

George R.R. Martin grew up in a very poor neighborhood in Bayonne, New Jersey, not far from New York City. He had very little money and found escape on early 1950s science-fiction television programming. Martin was inspired by comic books and television and began to write his own fantasy works. In his own words, he noted that since he was not able to visit anyplace outside of the confines of the projects he lived in, he would write exotic tales that took place in far off mystical realms and sell them to neighborhood kids for a nickel.

Martin Becomes a Writer

Martin was a frequent letter writer to Marvel Comics as a young man. When his letters were published in the comics, other fans would write to him and this is how he started his connection with other fans. There were quite a number of crude fanzines written during the heyday of Marvel and Martin contributed quite a bit of fiction to them.

In 1970, Martin sold his first commercial story to a major magazine. The Hero was published in Galaxy Magazine. He continued to write quite a bit of fiction for magazines and, in 1973, was nominated for a Hugo Award for With Morning Comes Mistfall.

Other Works

Martin published three successful novels, but his 1983 offering, The Armageddon Rag, was a huge failure and destroyed his writing career. He had to leave writing behind for a while and explore television work. He ended up as a story consultant on the New Twilight Zone series. Soon after, he became a successful producer of the Beauty and the Beast TV series.

Martin still explored the print medium with Wildcards, which was based on his role playing adventures. Wildcards was a series on which Martin served as an editor. The short stories revolved around a virus that turns many human beings into super heroes and villains. The universe they lived in, however, was a very real world in scope and did not embody the simplicity of most traditional comic book works.

The Game of Thrones

Martin is well known to most people thanks to the HBO television series Game of Thrones. While the series may have given him mainstream success, he had been writing novels and short stories for many years. The first book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series was titled Game of Thrones and it was published in 1995. Martin plans to write a full seven books to finish out the series with the final entries to be released in the near future.

Current Projects

Currently, Martin is working on the new A Song of Ice and Fire book and preparing for the next season of Game of Thrones. He also speaks publicly at engagements all over the world.