<Tr> <Th> </Th> <Th> Total </Th> <Th> 4,228 </Th> <Th> 344 </Th> <Th> 1,736,054 </Th> <Th> 198h 53m </Th> <Th> </Th> </Tr> <P> George R.R. Martin was already a successful fantasy and sci - fi author and TV writer before writing his A Song of Ice and Fire book series . Martin had published his first short story in 1971 and his first novel in 1977 . By the mid-1990s, he had won three Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards, and other awards for his short fiction . Although his early books were well received within the fantasy fiction community, his readership remained relatively small and Martin took on jobs as a writer in Hollywood in the mid-1980s . He worked principally on the revival of The Twilight Zone throughout 1986 and on Beauty and the Beast until 1990, but he also developed his own TV pilots and wrote feature film scripts . He grew frustrated that his pilots and screenplays were not getting made and that TV - related production limitations like budgets and episode lengths were forcing him to cut characters and trim battle scenes . This pushed Martin back towards writing books, where he did not have to worry about compromising the size of his imagination . Admiring the works of J.R.R. Tolkien in his childhood, he wanted to write an epic fantasy, though he did not have any specific ideas . </P> <P> When Martin was between Hollywood projects in the summer of 1991, he started writing a new science fiction novel called Avalon . After three chapters, he had a vivid idea of a boy seeing a man's beheading and finding direwolves in the snow, which would eventually become the first non-prologue chapter of A Game of Thrones . Putting Avalon aside, Martin finished this chapter in a few days and grew certain that it was part of a longer story . After a few more chapters, Martin perceived his new book as a fantasy story and started making maps and genealogies . However, the writing of this book was interrupted for a few years when Martin returned to Hollywood to produce his TV series Doorways that ABC had ordered but ultimately never aired . </P> <P> In 1994, Martin gave to his agent, Kirby McCauley, the first 200 pages and a two - page story projection as part of a planned trilogy with the novels A Dance with Dragons and The Winds of Winter intended to follow . When Martin had still not reached the novel's end at 1400 manuscript pages, he felt that the series needed to be four and eventually six books long, which he imagined as two linked trilogies of one long story . Martin chose A Song of Ice and Fire as the overall series title: Martin saw the struggle of the cold Others and the fiery dragons as one possible meaning for "Ice and Fire", whereas the word "song" had previously appeared in Martin's book titles A Song for Lya and Songs the Dead Men Sing, stemming from his obsessions with songs . Martin also named Robert Frost's 1920 poem "Fire and Ice" and cultural associations such as passion versus betrayal as possible influences for the series' title . </P>

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