The career of american novelist George R.R. Martin is proof, if proof is needed, that an author can be best selling, wildly popular and still underappreciated. Martin has been called the ‘American Tolkien’ by Time magazine and his mammoth series-in-progress A Song of Ice and Fire has been adapted as the television series Game of Thrones. The popularity of this series has elevated Martin’s public persona to heights usually unfamiliar to any fantasy authors not named J.K. Rowling.

His books are now a multimedia phenomenon, but the attention he has garnered overshadows his accomplishments as a writer. This could be because Martin has spent his career writing genre fiction, which is not typically a popular field for critical engagement, but it also seems due to the distinctive nature of his talent.