George R.R. Martin Books in Order

Below is the complete list of George R.R. Martin books in order of publication. This is the recommended reading sequence for the series.

A Song Of Ice and Fire Series

1. A Game of Thrones (1996)
2. A Clash of Kings (1998)
3. A Storm of Swords (2000)
4. A Feast for Crows (2005)
5. A Dance with Dragons (2011)

Game Of Thrones Collection Series

1. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2013)

Game Of Thrones Graphic Novels Series

1. A Game of Thrones, Volume 1 (2011)
2. A Game of Thrones, Volume 2 (2013)
3. A Game of Thrones, Volume 3 (2013)
4. A Game of Thrones, Volume 4 (2014)
5. A Clash of Kings, Volume 1 (2018)
6. A Clash of Kings, Volume 2 (2019)
7. A Clash of Kings, Volume 3 (2021)
8. A Clash of Kings, Volume 4 (2022)

Game Of Thrones Non-Fiction Series

1. The Art of George R.R. Martin’s a Song of Ice and Fire (2005)
2. The Art of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire, Volume Two (2011)
3. A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Companion Cookbook (2012)
   (By Chelsea Monroe-Cassel, Sariann Lehrer)
4. The Lands of Ice and Fire (2012)
5. The Wit & Wisdom of Tyrion Lannister (2013)
6. The World of Ice & Fire (2014)
7. The Official Game of Thrones Cookbook (2024)
   (By Chelsea Monroe-Cassel)

Targaryen History Series

1. Fire and Blood (2018)
2. The Rise of the Dragon (2022)
   (With Linda Antonsson, Elio M. García Jr.)

Wild Cards Series

1. Wild Cards (1986)
2. Aces High (1987)
   (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
3. Jokers Wild (1987)
   (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
4. Aces Abroad (1988)
   (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
5. Down and Dirty (1988)
   (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
6. Ace in the Hole (1990)
7. Dead Man’s Hand (1990)
8. One-Eyed Jacks (1991)
   (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
9. Jokertown Shuffle (1991)
   (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
10. Double Solitaire (1992)
    (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
11. Dealer’s Choice (1992)
12. Turn of the Cards (1993)
    (With Victor Milán)
13. Deuces Down (2002)
    (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
14. Death Draws Five (2006)
    (With John J. Miller)
15. Busted Flush (2008)
    (With Melinda M. Snodgrass, Caroline Spector)
16. Inside Straight (2008)
    (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
17. Suicide Kings (2009)
    (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
18. Ghost Girl Takes Manhattan (2010)
    (By Carrie Vaughn)
19. Fort Freak (2011)
    (With Melinda M. Snodgrass, David Anthony Durham)
20. The Button Man and the Murder Tree (2013)
    (By Cherie Priest)
21. The Elephant in the Room (2013)
    (With Paul Cornell)
22. Lowball (2014)
    (With Melinda M. Snodgrass, David Anthony Durham)
23. Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza (2014)
    (By Carrie Vaughn)
24. Prompt. Professional. Pop! (2014)
    (By Walter Jon Williams)
25. Discards (2016)
    (By David D. Levine)
26. High Stakes (2016)
    (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
27. The Thing about Growing Up in Jokertown (2016)
28. The Atonement Tango (2017)
    (By Stephen Leigh)
29. When the Devil Drives (2017)
    (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
30. Evernight (2018)
    (By Victor Milán)
31. The Flight of Morpho Girl (2018)
    (With Caroline Spector)
32. Knaves Over Queens (2018)
33. Long is the Way (2019)
34. The City That Never Sleeps (2019)
    (By Walton Simons)
35. Naked, Stoned, and Stabbed (2019)
    (By Bradley Denton)
36. Wild Cards X: Double Solitaire (2019)
    (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
37. American Hero (2020)
38. Three Kings (2020)
    (With Melinda M. Snodgrass)
39. Ripple Effects (2021)
    (By Laura J. Mixon)
40. Joker Moon (2021)
41. Skin Deep (2021)
    (By Alan Brennert)
42. Hearts of Stone (2022)
    (By Emma Newman)
43. Grow (2022)
    (By Carrie Vaughn)
44. Full House (2022)
45. Pairing Up (2023)
    (With Melinda M. Snodgrass, David Anthony Durham, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Gwenda Bond, Marko Kloos, Christopher Rowe, Bradley Denton, Peter Newman)
46. Now & Then (2023)
    (By Carrie Vaughn)
47. Sleeper Straddle (2024)
    (By Carrie Vaughn, Stephen Leigh, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Cherie Priest, Walter Jon Williams, Christopher Rowe, Max Gladstone)
48. House Rulesin Stories (2025)
49. Ante Up (2025)
    (By John Jos. Miller)

Wild Cards: USA Triad Series
by Melinda M. Snodgrass

1. Mississippi Roll (2017)
2. Low Chicago (2018)
   (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
3. Texas Hold’em (2018)

Standalone Novels Series

1. Starlady and Fast-Friend (1976)
2. Dying of the Light (1977)
3. Windhaven (1981)
   (With Lisa Tuttle)
4. Fevre Dream (1982)
5. The Armageddon Rag (1983)
6. Nightflyers (1985)
7. Tuf Voyaging (1986)
8. Hunter’s Run (2007)
   (With Gardner Dozois, Daniel Abraham)

Short Stories/Novellas Series

1. The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr (1976)
2. Nightflyers (Short Story) (1980)
3. The Ice Dragon (1980)
4. The Skin Trade (1988)
5. The Pear-Shaped Man (1991)
6. Blood of the Dragon (in Quartet) (1996)
7. The Hedge Knight (1998)
8. The Mystery Knight (2010)

Short Story Collections Series

1. A Song for Lya (1976)
2. Songs of Stars and Shadows (1977)
3. Sandkings (1981)
4. Portraits of His Children (1985)
5. Quartet (1996)
6. Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective (2003)
7. Old Venus (2015)
8. NightflyersOther Stories (2018)
9. Y la muerte, su legado (2019)

Graphic Novels Series

1. Sandkings (1987)
2. Skin Trade (1988)
   (With Daniel Abraham)
3. Wild Cards (1990)
4. In the House of the Worm (2005)
5. Doorways (2011)
6. The Meathouse Man (2014)
   (With Raya Golden)
7. Starport (2019)

Hedge Knight Graphic Novel Series
with Ben Avery

1. The Hedge Knight (1998)
   (With Ben Avery)
2. The Hedge Knight II: Sworn Sword (2008)
   (With Ben Avery)
3. The Mystery Knight (2017)
   (By Ben Avery)

Wild Cards Graphic Novel Series
with Daniel Abraham

1. George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards (2009)
   (By Daniel Abraham)
2. The Hard Call (2009)
   (With Daniel Abraham)

Dangerous Women Anthologies Series

1. Dangerous Women 1 (2014)
2. Dangerous Women 2 (2014)
3. Dangerous Women 3 (2014)

Dreamsongs Series

1. Dreamsongs, Volume I (2003)
2. Dreamsongs, Volume II (2003)

Night Visions Series

1. Night Visions: In the Blood (1984)
2. Night Visions (1985)
3. Night Visions 2 (1985)
4. Night Visions 3 (1986)
5. Night Visions: The Hellbound Heart (1986)
6. Night Visions 6 (1988)
7. Night Visions 8 (1990)
8. Night Visions 9 (1991)
9. Night Visions 10 (2001)
10. Night Visions 11 (2004)
11. Night Visions 12 (2006)

Wild Cards Mosaic: New Cycle Anthologies Series
with Melinda M. Snodgrass

1. Card Sharks (1993)
   (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
2. Marked Cards (1994)
   (By Melinda M. Snodgrass)
3. Black Trump / Showdown (1995)

Daniel Abraham Short Stories/Novellas Series
with Daniel Abraham

1. The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairytale of Economics (2007)
   (By Daniel Abraham)
2. Hunter’s Run (2007)
   (With Gardner Dozois, Daniel Abraham)
3. When We Were Heroes (2013)
   (By Daniel Abraham)

Legends Series

1. Legends (1998)
   (By Stephen King, Anne McCaffrey, Robert Silverberg)
2. Legends II: Dragon, Sword, and King (1998)
   (With Diana Gabaldon, Orson Scott Card, Terry Brooks, Robert Silverberg, Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth Haydon)
3. Legends 3 (1999)
   (By Terry Pratchett, Tad Williams, Robert Jordan, Robert Silverberg, Ursula K. Le Guin)

Year’s Best Fantasy Series

1. Year’s Best Fantasy (2001)
2. Year’s Best Fantasy 2 (2002)
3. Year’s Best Fantasy 3 (2003)
4. Year’s Best Fantasy 4 (2004)
5. Year’s Best Fantasy 5 (2005)
6. Year’s Best Fantasy 6 (2006)
7. Year’s Best Fantasy 7 (2007)
8. Year’s Best Fantasy 8 (2008)
9. Year’s Best Fantasy 9 (2009)

Raya Golden Graphic Novels Series
with Raya Golden

1. The Meathouse Man (2014)
   (With Raya Golden)
2. Voyaging, Volume One: The Plague Star (2023)
   (With Raya Golden)

Unidentified Funny Objects Annual Anthology Series

1. Unidentified Funny Objects (2012)
2. Unidentified Funny Objects 2 (2013)
3. Unidentified Funny Objects 3 (2014)
4. Funny Science Fiction (2015)
5. Unidentified Funny Objects 4 (2015)
6. Funny Fantasy (2016)
7. Unidentified Funny Objects 5 (2016)
8. Funny Horror (2017)
9. Unidentified Funny Objects 6 (2017)
10. Unidentified Funny Objects 7 (2018)
11. Unidentified Funny Objects 8 (2020)
12. Unidentified Funny Objects 9 (2022)

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror Series

1. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2010 Edition (2010)
2. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2011 Edition (2011)
3. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, 2012 Edition (2012)
4. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2013 Edition (2013)
5. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2014 Edition (2014)
6. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2015 Edition (2015)
7. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2016 Edition (2016)
8. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2017 Edition (2017)
9. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2018 Edition (2018)
10. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2019 Edition (2020)
11. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume 1 (2020)
12. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume 2 (2021)
13. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, Volume 3 (2022)
14. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume 4 (2023)
15. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume 5 (2024)

About George R. R. Martin

George R. R. Martin is an American author best known for creating the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, the literary foundation for the television phenomenon Game of Thrones. His novels are widely recognized for their intricate political plots, morally complex characters, and expansive world-building, qualities that helped reshape modern fantasy literature.

Martin was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, in 1948. Growing up in a working-class family, he developed an early love of storytelling. As a child he wrote and sold handwritten monster stories to neighborhood kids, an early sign of the imaginative world-building that would later define his career. Science fiction and fantasy magazines also played a major role in shaping his interests during these formative years.

He attended Northwestern University, where he studied journalism and became deeply involved in science fiction fandom. During his college years Martin began writing short stories more seriously, eventually selling his first professional piece in the early 1970s. His early work often appeared in science fiction magazines and anthologies, helping him establish a reputation within the speculative fiction community.

Before achieving widespread fame as a novelist, Martin spent years working across different forms of storytelling. His early novels, including science fiction works such as Dying of the Light, demonstrated his ability to combine imaginative settings with character-driven narratives. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he also built a strong reputation as a short story writer, producing award-winning works that explored themes of isolation, moral ambiguity, and the human cost of power.

In the 1980s Martin transitioned into television writing, contributing scripts and story development for shows including Beauty and the Beast and other projects in Hollywood. While the experience broadened his storytelling skills, Martin eventually grew frustrated with the creative limitations of television production. The constraints of budgets and studio decisions made it difficult to realize the large-scale stories he wanted to tell.

This frustration ultimately pushed him back toward writing novels, where he could explore expansive narratives without restriction. In the early 1990s he began work on what would become A Song of Ice and Fire. The first book, A Game of Thrones, was published in 1996 and introduced readers to the continents of Westeros and Essos, a richly detailed world filled with rival noble houses, political intrigue, and looming supernatural threats.

Reading George R. R. Martin’s books in publication order reveals how his storytelling gradually expanded in ambition and complexity. While his early career focused largely on science fiction and shorter works, the later epic fantasy novels represent a culmination of decades spent refining his approach to character, conflict, and narrative structure.

One of Martin’s most distinctive contributions to fantasy literature is his emphasis on realism within a fictional setting. Instead of clear divisions between heroes and villains, his characters often operate within moral gray areas shaped by personal ambition, family loyalty, and survival. Political alliances shift constantly, and the consequences of decisions can be devastating.

His work also places strong emphasis on history and culture within fictional worlds. The societies of Westeros feel layered and lived-in, with centuries of past conflicts influencing the events of the present. This depth of world-building has been one of the defining features that draws readers into his stories.

The global popularity of A Song of Ice and Fire expanded dramatically after the success of the television adaptation Game of Thrones. The show introduced Martin’s fictional universe to a much wider audience and helped establish the series as one of the most influential works in modern fantasy.

Beyond the main series, Martin has remained active in the broader speculative fiction community as an editor, collaborator, and supporter of emerging writers. His career spans multiple genres and formats, reflecting a lifelong commitment to storytelling.

Following George R. R. Martin’s books in publication order highlights the evolution of a writer whose work has shaped contemporary fantasy. From early science fiction stories to the vast narrative scope of A Song of Ice and Fire, his writing reflects decades of exploration into power, loyalty, and the unpredictable nature of human ambition.