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A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of high fantasy novels by the American author George R. R. Martin. He began writing the first volume, A Game of Thrones, in 1991, and published it in 1996. Martin, who originally envisioned the series as a trilogy, has so far released five out of seven planned volumes. The fifth and most recent entry in the series, A Dance with Dragons, was published in 2011. Martin continues to write the sixth novel, titled The Winds of Winter. A seventh novel, A Dream of Spring, is planned to follow. A Song of Ice and Fire depicts a violent world dominated by political realism. What little supernatural power exists is confined to the margins of the known world. Moral ambiguity pervades the books, and their stories continually raise questions concerning loyalty, pride, human sexuality, piety, and the morality of violence. The story unfolds through a rotating set of subjective points of view, the success or survival of any of which is never assured. Each chapter is told from a limited third-person perspective, drawn from a group of characters that grows from nine in the first novel to 31 by the fifth. The novels are set on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos. Martin's stated inspirations for the series include the Wars of the Roses and The Accursed Kings, a series of French historical novels by Maurice Druon. The work as a whole consists of three interwoven plots: a dynastic war among several families for control of Westeros, the growing threat posed by the powerful supernatural Others from the northernmost region of Westeros, and the ambition of the daughter of the deposed Westerosi king to return from her exile in Essos and assume the Iron Throne. As of 2024, more than 90 million copies in 47 languages had been sold. The fourth and fifth volumes reached the top of the New York Times Best Seller lists when published in 2005 and 2011. Among the many derived works are several prequel novellas, two series for television, a comic book adaptation, and several card, board, and video games. The series has received critical acclaim for its world-building, characters, and narrative.