G. R. R. Martin - Biografija

Born in Bayonne, New Jersey on September 20, 1948, George Raymond Richard
(R.R.) Martin practically grew up as a writer. As a child he sold monster stories to other
neighbourhood children; as a comic-book collector in high school, he wrote fi ction for comic
fanzines. His fi rst professional sale came in 1970, when he sold a short story to Galaxy.
Though he trained as a journalist, his ‘20s were spent in a variety of jobs including work at a
legal assistance foundation, a chess tournament director, and a college journalism instructor.
Most of his early work was science fi ction and horror rather than fantasy. He became a fulltime
writer in 1979 and a writer-in-residence at Clarke College from 1978-79.
Martin’s first professional novel-length work was Dying of the Light (1977), a
philosophical scientifi c romance of impossible love on a fading planet. This was followed by
Windhaven (co-written with Lisa Tuttle, 1981), an allegorical science fantasy. Fevre Dream
(1982), his next novel, was an American gothic of vampires and riverboats in 19th century
Mississippi. His next book, Armageddon Rag (1983) concerned a series of murders tied to
underground rock journalism and a supernatural plot focusing on the apocalyptic resurrection
of a 1960s-era band called Nazgul.
Martin continued to write short stories in a variety of genres over the next decade,
though the latter half of the ‘80s saw him enter a new fi eld of creative expression: the world of
broadcast television. He worked in Hollywood as story editor for the television series “The
New Twilight Zone” (1985- and executive story consultant for “Beauty and the Beast”
(1987-90). Additionally, he was executive producer for a television pilot called “Doorways,”
fi lmed in 1992-3 (never picked up). He wrote episodes and pilots for several other television
shows (produced and unproduced); including episodes for “The New Twilight Zone,” “Beauty
and the Beast,” “Max Headroom,” and “The Hitchhiker.” Additionally, Martin collaborated
with Melinda M. Snodgrass on screenplays adapting his “Wild Cards” series (see below), and
Edgar Rice Burroughs’s A Princess of Mars to (unproduced) feature fi lms.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Martin edited and contributed to the “Wild Cards”
anthology series, comprised of more than a dozen volumes detailing a world where superheroes
and supervillains are real. This was the fi rst of Martin’s works to be adapted to a RPG, in
the form of GURPS Wild Cards (1989) and Aces Abroad (1991), both from Steve Jackson
Games. Martin is himself a gamer, a GURPS player and Game Master.
Further work by Martin includes the short story collections A Song for Lya and Other
Stories (1976), Songs of Stars and Shadows (1977), Sandkings (1981), Songs the Dead
Men Sing (1983), Nightfl yers (1985), Tuf Voyaging (1986), and Portraits of His Children
(1987). He has also edited several science fi ction collections, award-winner collections, a
horror anthology, and new writer anthologies.
Martin lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is a member of the Science Fiction
and Fantasy Writers of America, an august organisation for which he was once a regional
director and vice president. He is also a member of the Writers Guild of America, West.
Martin’s works have been internationally published and translated into a variety of languages,
including French, Spanish, Japanese, German, Polish, Swedish, Italian, Chinese, Czech,
Korean, and Russian.
He is a multiple-award-winning author in the fi elds of science fi ction, horror, and
fantasy, and he has been nominated countless times for almost every award in these fi elds.
Martin’s stories and novellas have been critically lauded and honoured, earning him several
Hugo Awards (for “A Song for Lya” [1974], “Sandkings” [1979], “The Way of Cross &
Dragon” [1979], and more recently, his “A Song of Ice and Fire”-related work, “Blood of the
Dragon” [1997]).
Additionally, Martin won the Daikon (the Japanese Hugo award) in 1982 for his short
story “Nightfl yers.” He has won Nebula Awards for “Sandkings” (1979), “Portraits of His
Children” (1985), the Balrog Award in 1983 for Th e Armageddon Rag, the Gilgamesh Award
in 1987 for his short story collection Songs the Dead Men Sing, the Daedalus Award in 1987
for Wild Cards, the Bram Stoker Award in 1987 for “The Pear-Shaped Man,” and the World
Fantasy Award in 1988 for the novella “The Skin Trade.” “A Song for Lya” also earned the
1975 Jupiter Award, and Martin’s works have garnered him 11 Locus Awards. This is not a
complete list by any means: his magnum opus, the novels that make up “A Song of Ice and
Fire,” continue to win him critical acclaim and success.