George Raymond Richard Martin (September 20, 1948)
The life cycle 6 3
Important years of life
1950 6
1956 3
1959 6
1965 3
1968 6
1974 3
1977 6
1983 3
1986 6
1992 3
1995 6
2001 3
2004 6
2010 3
2013 6
2019 3
2022 6
2028 3
2031 6
2037 3
2040 6
2046 3
In 1965, Martin won comic fandom’s Alley Award for Best fan fiction for his prose superhero story “Powerman vs. The Blue Barrier” Eligible for the draft during the Vietnam War, to which he objected, Martin applied for and obtained conscientious objector status;he instead did alternative service work for two years (1972–1974) as a VISTA volunteer, attached to the Cook County Legal
Assistance Foundation.
“A Song for Lya” 1974 Novella Hugo Award for Best Novella 1975 While he enjoyed teaching, the sudden death of friend and fellow author Tom Reamy in late 1977 made Martin reevaluate his own life, and he eventually decided to try to become a full-time writer. He resigned from his job, and being tired of the hard winters in Dubuque, he moved to Santa Fe in 1979 Martin began selling science fiction short stories professionally in 1970, at age 21. His first sale was “The Hero”, sold to Galaxy magazine and published in its February 1971 issue; other sales soon followed. His first story to be nominated for the Hugo Award and Nebula Awards was “With Morning Comes Mistfall”, published in 1973 in Analog magazine. In 1975 his story “…for a single yesterday” about a post-apocalyptic timetripper was selected for inclusion in Epoch, a science fiction anthology edited by Roger Elwood and Robert Silverberg. His first novel, Dying of the Light, was published in 1977.
Martin is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), Martin became the organization’s Southwest Regional Director from 1977 to 1979; he served as its vice-president from 1996 to 1998
In 1983, Martin published a vampire novel titled Fevre Dream set inthe 19th century on the Mississippi River. Unlike traditional vampire novels, in Fevre Dream vampires are not supernatural creatures, but are rather a different species related to humans created by evolution with superhuman powers. Critic Don D’Amassa has praised Fevre Dream for its strong 19th century atmosphere and wrote: “This is without question one of the greatest vampire novels of all time”
…An important element in the creation of the multiple author series was a campaign of Chaosium’s role-playing game Superworld (1983) that Martin ran in Albuquerque
…Since the early 1970s, he has also attended regional science fiction conventions, and since 1986 Martin has participated annually in Albuquerque’s smaller regional convention Bubonicon, near his New Mexico home.
Television
The Twilight Zone
“The Last Defender of Camelot” (1986) – writer (teleplay)
“The Once and Future King” (1986) – writer (teleplay), story editor
“A Saucer of Loneliness” (1986) – story editor
“Lost and Found” (1986) – writer (teleplay), from a published shortstory by Phyllis Eisenstein “The Toys of Caliban” (1986) – writer (teleplay), from an unpublished short story by Terry Matz
“The Road Less Traveled” (1986) – writer (story and teleplay), story editor
Although Martin often writes fantasy or horror, a number of his earlier works are science fiction tales occurring in a loosely defined future history, known informally as “The Thousand Worlds” or “The Manrealm”. He has also written at least one piece of political-military fiction, “Night of the Vampyres”, collected in Harry Turtledove’s anthology The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century (2001)
2004 Premio Ignotus for Best Foreign Novel for A Clash of Kings
In 2017, Martin confirmed he will serve as an executive producer of the HBO television series adaptation of the 2010 novel Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
Martin has been criticized by some of his readers for the long periods between books in the Ice and Fire series, notably the six-year gap between the fourth volume, A Feast for Crows (2005), and the fifth volume, A Dance with Dragons (2011). The previous year, in 2010, Martin had responded to fan criticisms by saying he was unwilling to write only his Ice and Fire series, noting that working on other prose and compiling and editing different book projects have always been part of his working process
In early 2013, he purchased Santa Fe’s Jean Cocteau Cinema and Coffee House, which had been closed since 2006. He had the property completely restored, including both its original 35 mm capability to which was added digital projection and sound; the Cocteau officially reopened for business on August 9, 2013