A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones is the first book in A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of epic fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin. It was first published on 6 August 1996. The novel won the 1997 Locus Award, and was nominated for both the 1998 Nebula Award and the 1997 World Fantasy Award. The novella Blood of the Dragon, comprising the Daenerys Targaryen chapters from the novel, won the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella.

The novel lends its name to several spin-off items based on the novels, including a trading card game, board game, and roleplaying game. In November 2009 HBO completed filming of a pilot episode for the television adaptation. This was followed by a ten-episode full season, due to air in April 2011.

On 2 January 2011 the novel finally became a New York Times bestseller, hitting the paperback list at #25.

Plot summary

A Game of Thrones follows three principal storylines simultaneously.

In the Seven Kingdoms

Lord Eddard Stark is the patriarch of House Stark, one of the major noble houses of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and ancestral rulers of the North. Near the city of Winterfell, Eddard's children discover a dead direwolf and five of its pups still alive. As the direwolf is the symbol of the Starks, Eddard allows each of his five children to keep one of the pups as pet. A sixth pup is discovered a short distance away from the others. It is a mute albino, and this one is given to Jon Snow, the bastard son of Lord Eddard Stark.

King Robert journeys to Winterfell with his family to ask his old friend Eddard to become Hand of the King, the top advisor and military commander in the realm. The previous Hand, Lord Jon Arryn, has died recently. Eddard's wife, Catelyn Stark, receives a letter from her sister Lysa Arryn, stating that Jon Arryn's death was a murder plotted by Queen Cersei and her powerful family, the Lannisters. Though reluctant to leave his duties and family, Eddard is convinced by his wife to accept the position in order to investigate Jon Arryn's death.

Eddard's middle son Bran Stark is engaging in his favorite activity, climbing Winterfell castle's walls and towers, when he accidentally sees Queen Cersei and her twin brother Jaime Lannister having sex. To protect their secret affair, Jaime throws the boy out of a tower window. Bran unexpectedly survives, yet he is comatose and crippled from the waist down. Since Bran's penchant for climbing was well known, it is assumed that his fall was accidental.

Lord Eddard travels south toward the capital of King's Landing with the king's entourage, taking along his daughters Sansa and Arya and their pet direwolves. Eleven year-old Sansa strives to be a proper lady, as she is promised to eventually marry King Robert's twelve year-old son Joffrey, heir to the throne. The younger Arya, however, is a tomboy who prefers the company of servants and guards. An incident between Arya and Joffrey results in Sansa's direwolf unfairly being executed. A bereaved Sansa is now aware of Joffrey's cruelty, though she unfairly blames Arya for the wolf's death. Arya must reluctantly chase her direwolf away lest it suffer the same fate. In King's Landing, Eddard discovers that Arya has smuggled along a rapier called Needle. Resigned to the conclusion that she will never be a proper lady, he hires a sword master to train her.

Catelyn foils an assassination attempt on Bran while he is comatose, proving that Bran's fall was no accident. She covertly travels to King's Landing to tell her husband this news and show him the unique dagger used by the assassin. Once there, her childhood friend Petyr Baelish, known as Littlefinger, identifies the dagger as belonging to Cersei's brother Tyrion Lannister, who is derisively called The Imp due to his dwarfism. On her way home she encounters Tyrion on the road and orders him taken captive to the Eyrie, where her sister Lysa places him on trial and is eager to promptly execute him. Out of options, Tyrion demands trial by combat and regains his freedom when his unlikely champion wins the duel.

At King's Landing, Eddard is focused on duty and justice, and immediately starts investigating the previous Hand's death. King Robert is only interested in drink and distraction, so he throws a tourney in honor of his new Hand. By following Jon Arryn's footsteps, Eddard learns the secret that got Jon killed: Robert and Cersei's three children were secretly fathered by Jaime Lannister, and therefore illegitimate. Eddard mercifully offers Cersei the chance to flee, but she refuses. Before he can be informed, King Robert is mauled to death by a boar while on a hunting retreat, an accident blamed on drunkenness. Robert's youngest brother, Renly Baratheon, suggests that Eddard should use their combined household guardsmen to detain Cersei and her children in the night, and take control of the throne before the Lannisters have a chance to act. Eddard refuses on the grounds that it would be dishonorable. Instead, he recruits Littlefinger to have the city guards legitimately arrest and charge Cersei the next day. But Littlefinger betrays Eddard and buys the captain of the guards for Cersei, who has Eddard imprisoned before he can make her crimes public. Lannister guardsmen round up or kill Eddard's entourage. Sansa is taken captive, but Arya escapes the castle with the aid of her sword instructor. Arya's unconventional traits, which were out of place at the royal court, are aptly suited to hiding and surviving in the city's ghetto.

Joffrey, the heir-apparent, is crowned king. Cersei convinces Eddard to sign a false confession of treason in return for his daughters' lives, and promises to stay his execution and exile him to the Night's Watch. But King Joffrey, eager to demonstrate his new power, defies his mother and has Eddard executed in public. Sansa is forced to watch her father's beheading, and Arya witnesses it from the crowd. Before she can react rashly, Arya is smuggled out of the city by Yoren, a member of the Night's Watch who has been collecting new recruits from the dungeons.

A civil war, later dubbed the War of the Five Kings, erupts. On the pretext of seeking retribution for the capture of his son Tyrion, Lord Tywin Lannister wages war against House Tully, the family of Catelyn Stark and Lysa Arryn. Robb Stark leads an army of northmen into the Riverlands to support his maternal grandfather Lord Hoster Tully and also to seek revenge for the death of his father. Jaime Lannister leads the siege of Riverrun, while Lord Tywin holds a large army south of the river Trident to prevent Robb from advancing to King's Landing. In a bold move, Robb covertly detaches his cavalry toward Riverrun while his infantry carries on toward Tywin's army. Tywin, joined by the liberated Tyrion, repulses the Stark footmen but discovers too late that they were a decoy. Shortly afterward Robb's forces surprise and destroy the Lannister camp besieging Riverrun, capturing Jaime in the process. Tywin falls back to castle Harrenhal. With Jaime's life in the hands of the grieving Stark family, Tywin is enraged that his daughter Cersei couldn't control King Joffrey, who had ordered Eddard executed. Demonstrating the power he wields over his children, Lord Tywin orders Tyrion to go to King's Landing to act as Hand of the King and enforce House Lannister's interests.

Renly Baratheon proclaims Joffrey's illegitimacy and declares himself King of Westeros, becoming the second of the war's five kings. Robb Stark becomes the third when bannermen of Stark and Tully proclaim him the King in the North.

On the Wall

The northern border of the Seven Kingdoms is fortified by the Wall, an ancient barrier of ice stretching 300 miles and standing 700 feet tall. It is manned by the brotherhood of the Night's Watch. In the lawless lands north of the Wall, a small patrol of Rangers from the Night's Watch encounter the fabled Others of legend, and are slain except for one. Driven to madness, the survivor flees south of the Wall, where he is captured and executed as a deserter.

Jon Snow, the bastard son of Lord Eddard Stark, feels increasingly awkward about his future in House Stark. With encouragement from his uncle Benjen Stark, the First Ranger of the Night's Watch, Jon decides to permanently join the brotherhood.

At the Wall, Jon initially feels contempt for his fellow recruits, most of whom are lowborn criminals who chose exile at the Wall in lieu of imprisonment or execution. Eventually he puts aside his prejudices, unites the recruits against their sadistic instructor, and protects cowardly but good-natured Samwell Tarly. Jon hopes that his superior combat skills will earn him assignment to the Rangers, the military arm of the brotherhood. To his dismay, he is assigned as steward to the Lord Commander of the Watch, Jeor Mormont, but comes to realize that this post means he is being groomed for command. He arranges for his friend Sam to be made steward to elderly Maester Aemon, a job suited to Sam's superior education and lack of physical ability.

Benjen Stark leads a small party of Rangers on a patrol beyond the Wall. The other brothers of the Watch grow concerned when the rangers are late in returning. Nearly six months later, the dead bodies of two of the rangers from Benjen's party are recovered from beyond the Wall, and their corpses re-animate as wights in the night. Undeterred by sword wounds, they kill six men. One wight is finally hacked to pieces by a dozen brothers, while Jon saves Lord Commander Mormont by single-handedly destroying the second with fire. In recognition, Mormont gives Jon his precious Valyrian-steel bastard sword, Longclaw.

Upon learning of his father's death, Jon sneaks away from the Wall in an attempt to join his half-brother Robb's war against the Lannisters. His friends among the brotherhood catch him and convince him to return before his desertion is noticed (an act punishable by death). Mormont convinces Jon that his place is with his new brothers, and that the war for the throne does not compare to the evil that winter is about to bring upon them from the north.

In the East

Across the sea in the Free City of Pentos, Viserys Targaryen lives in exile with his thirteen year-old sister Daenerys. He is the son and sole surviving male heir of slain King Aerys II, who was usurped by King Robert. Viserys arranges to sell his sister in marriage to Khal Drogo, warlord of a horde of nomadic Dothraki horse warriors. Viserys plans to use Drogo's army to reclaim the Iron Throne of Westeros for House Targaryen. Among the wedding gifts are three petrified dragon eggs, rare artifacts which are regarded as valuable but useless, since dragons have been extinct for centuries. A knight exiled from Westeros, Ser Jorah Mormont, joins Viserys as an advisor.

Unexpectedly, Daenerys finds trust and love with her barbaric husband, and they conceive a child who is prophesied to unite and rule the Dothraki. Drogo shows little interest in conquering Westeros, which provokes the temperamental Viserys to lash out at his sister. Initially, Drogo endures Viserys and punishes his outbursts with public humiliation. But when Viserys publicly threatens Daenerys, Drogo executes him by pouring a pot of molten gold on his head, symbolically giving him the "crown" he desired. As the last Targaryen heir, Daenerys takes up her brother's quest to reclaim the throne of Westeros.

An assassin seeking favor from King Robert unsuccessfully attempts to poison Daenerys and her unborn child. Enraged, Drogo agrees to invade Westeros to seek revenge. While sacking villages to fund the invasion, Drogo is wounded. The wound festers, so Daenerys commands a captive maegi to use blood magic to save him. But the treacherous maegi's magic sacrifices Daenerys' unborn child to power the spell, which keeps Drogo alive but in a vegetative state. As the leaderless Dothraki horde disbands, Danaerys takes pity on her once-proud husband and smothers him. Eager for revenge, she orders the maegi tied to Drogo's funeral pyre. She also places her three dragon eggs on the pyre with Drogo and while she watches it burn, Daenerys is seduced by the beauty of the flames and walks into the inferno. When the fire burns down, she emerges unscathed and has three newly-hatched dragons draped around her. Awestruck, the few remaining Dothraki and Ser Jorah swear their allegiance to her. As the first female khal and mother to the world's only known dragons, Daenerys is determined to build an army to reclaim the throne of Westeros.

Viewpoint characters

Each chapter concentrates on one character in a third person limited point of view. Each chapter bears the name of the current point of view character (ex. "Bran," "Catelyn," "Daenerys").

The tale of A Game of Thrones is told through the eyes of 8 POV characters and a one-off prologue POV.

• Prologue: Will, a man of the Night's Watch.
• Lord Eddard Stark, Warden of the North and Lord of Winterfell, Hand of the King.
• Lady Catelyn Stark, of House Tully, wife of Eddard Stark.
• Sansa Stark, elder daughter of Eddard and Catelyn Stark.
• Arya Stark, younger daughter of Eddard and Catelyn Stark.
• Bran Stark, middle of three sons of Eddard and Catelyn Stark.
• Jon Snow, bastard son of Eddard Stark.
• Tyrion Lannister, a dwarf, Queen Cersei's brother and son of Lord Tywin Lannister.
• Princess Daenerys Targaryen, Stormborn, the Princess of Dragonstone and heiress to the Targaryen throne after her older brother Viserys Targaryen.

Editions

In June 2000 Meisha Merlin released a limited edition of the book, fully illustrated by Jeffrey Jones.

Foreign language editions

• Bulgarian: "Игра на тронове"
• Macedonian: "Игра на тронови"
• Catalan: Devir Contenidos (2006): "La mà del rei"
• Chinese: 重庆出版社(2005): "权力的游戏".
• Croatian: "Igra prijestolja"
• Czech: "Hra o trůny"
• Dutch: Luitingh-Sijthoff (1997): "Het spel der tronen"
• Estonian: Two volumes, Varrak (2006): "Troonide mäng"
• Finnish: "Valtaistuinpeli" (2003)
• French: Two volumes (hardcover: Pygmalion (1998, 1999); paperback: J'ai Lu (2001)) "Le trône de fer", "Le donjon rouge".
• German: Single volume, Fantasy Productions (2004): "Eisenthron". Two volumes, Goldmann (1997, 1998): "Die Herren von Winterfell", "Das Erbe von Winterfell"
• Greek: Two volumes, Anubis (2004): "Παιχνίδι του στέμματος"
• Hebrew: משחקי הכס
• Hungarian: Single volume, Alexandra: "Trónok harca"
• Italian: Two volumes, Mondadori (hardcover: 1999, 2000; paperback: 2001): "Il trono di spade", "Il grande inverno"; as a single volume titled "Il gioco del trono" in the collection Urania Fantasy - Le grandi saghe (July 2007)
• Japanese: "七王国の玉座" (The Seven Kingdom's Throne) Hayakawa Publishing Corporation 2002 Hardcover, 2 volumes; 2006 Softcover, 5 volumes.
• Korean: "왕좌의 게임"
• Polish: Zysk (1998): "Gra o tron"
• Portuguese: Two volumes: Saída de Emergência (2007): "A Guerra dos Tronos", "A Muralha de Gelo". Partial and pirate edition: Entre Letras Editora (2002): "A Muralha" (1st part only). In Brazil, Editora Leya (2010): "A Guerra dos Tronos: As Crônicas de Gelo e Fogo, Livro Um".
• Romanian: : Two volumes: "Urzeala tronurilor" (2007)
• Russian: Single volume, AST (2001, 2004, 2007): "Игра престолов". Two volumes, AST (1999): "Игра престолов. Книга 1", "Игра престолов. Книга 2".
• Serbian: Laguna (2003): "Igra Prestola"
• Slovene: "Igra prestolov" (2007)
• Spanish: Gigamesh (2002): "Juego de tronos"
• Swedish: Two volumes, Forum: "I vargens tid", "Kampen om järntronen". Single volume, Forum (2005): "Kampen om järntronen"
• Turkish: Buz ve Ateşin Şarkısı Serisi: "Taht Oyunları" (2005)

TV Show

A Game of Thrones will be made into an HBO series, called Game of Thrones, premiering on April 17, 2011.

Literary significance and criticism

• Pelletier, J. K: FantasyBookNews.com. Abgerufen im 1. Januar 1 
• Wagner, T. M.: SF Reviews.Net. Abgerufen im 1. Januar 1 
• Seidman, James: SF Site. Abgerufen im 1. Januar 1 
• Silver, Steven H.: SFF World. Abgerufen im 1. Januar 1 

Awards and nominations

• Locus Award – Best Novel (Fantasy) (Won) – (1997)
• World Fantasy Award – Best Novel (Nominated) – (1997)
• Hugo Award – Best Novella for Blood of the Dragon (Won) – (1997)
• Nebula Award – Best Novel (Nominated) – (1997)
• Ignotus Award – Best Novel (Foreign) (Won) – (2003)

External links

• George R.R. Martin’s ‘Game Of Thrones’ Greenlit By HBO