10 Books That Inspired George RR Martins Game Of Thrones

10 Books That Inspired George R.R. Martin’s Game Of Thrones

If Game of Thrones feels familiar to viewers, it might be because author George RR Martin was inspired by several popular fantasy works while writing.

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If Game of Thrones feels familiar to viewers, it might be because author George RR Martin was inspired by several popular fantasy works while writing. All artists steal from one another, accumulating ideas to twist and mold into new and different plots. Watching or reading media is like playing Six Degrees of Separation with your favorite artists. There’s even a book by Austin Kleon called Steal Like An Artist that describes the process.

Like any other artist, Martin accesses all of the previous pieces of media that affected him when he works, which means he’s not liable to recall every single influence. In interviews, he has told fans that there are some specific works or authors that definitely had a part in shaping the world of Westeros in the A Song of Ice and Fire series.

10 Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn By Tad Williams

“Tad’s fantasy series, The Dragonbone Chair and the rest of his famous four-book trilogy was one of the things that inspired me to write my own seven-book trilogy,” Martin said. He stated that fantasies that came after Williams’ quartet gave fantasy a “bad rep for being very formulaic and ritual.”

9 Philippa Gregory’s Works

“I read a lot of historical fiction, both the classic writers of historical fiction that I read many decades ago—people like Thomas B. Costain and Frank Yerby and so forth—and some of the more contemporary writers of historical fiction, like Bernard Cornwell, Sharon Kay Penman, and Philippa Gregory. I wanted to capture these two threads to get some of the magic and the wonder and imagination of fantasy and combine it with some of the grittiness and realism and complexity of historical fiction.”

8 Conan the Barbarian By Robert E. Howard

From swords and sorcery to youthful warriors making a name for themselves well before adulthood, it’s easy to see elements of Howard’s works in Martin’s. There are tyrannical leaders, horrible monsters, damsels in distress and plenty of women falling for Conan all over the place, much like what we see in Westeros.

7 Sharon Kay Penman’s Works

Martin has explicitly recommended several of Penman’s works to his readers, including When Christ and His Saints Slept and its sequel, Time and Chance. The stories are, unsurprisingly, about the battle for the English throne, with the first volume focusing on Stephen and the Empress Maude and the second deals with Henry Fitz Empress, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Thomas Becket. Martin says Penman “brings history vividly to life.”

6 The Accursed Kings By Maurice Druon

“Iron kings and strangled queens, battles and betrayals, lies and lust, deception, family rivalries, the curse of the Templars, babies switched at birth, she-wolves, sin, and swords, the doom of a great dynasty… and all of it (well, most of it) straight from the pages of history. And believe me, the Starks and the Lannisters have nothing on the Capets and Plantagenets.”

5 The Avengers #9

Martin says that the influence of Stan Lee’s work was vast. “The Marvel characters were constantly changing. Important things were happening. The lineup for the Avengers was constantly changing. People would quit, then they would have fights and all of that. As opposed to DC where everybody got along and it was all very nice and all the heroes liked each other. None of this was happening, so really, Stan Lee introduced a whole concept of characterization to comic books and conflict; maybe even a touch of gray in some of the characters. Looking back on it now, I can see that probably was a bigger influence on my own work than I would have dreamed.”

4 Eric Frank Russell’s Stories

Russell’s works were published in pulp magazines like Astounding Science Fiction and were probably like candy to a youthful Martin. He often threw alien bureaucracy against human fighters, which is akin to Martin’s battles against the Others, or the White Walkers, as they’re called on the HBO show.

3 Thomas B. Costain’s Historical Fiction

Many fans might find this to be interesting news, especially regarding the series finale and what that means to all of the Houses that Martin brought to life.

2 Bernard Cornwell’s Works

So hopefully Martin, who cites Cornwell as one of his inspirations for the series, didn’t take it to hard too hard, especially since Cornwell, whose books were used to create an eight-part drama series called The Last Kingdom on BBC2, has praised the books themselves, saying that he still hasn’t forgiven Martin for offing Ned Stark. Martin has utilized Cornwell for inspiration, saying, “Bernard Cornwell does the best battle scenes of any writer I’ve ever read, past or present.”

1 The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien’s work is also the inspiration for how Game of Thrones is structured. Martin says that he began the series with most of the characters together at Winterfell before splitting them up on their own adventures only to come back together in the end, much like the Fellowship of the Ring.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/game-of-thrones-george-martin-books-inspired/

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