George RR Martin

Martin spent 20 years as a TV writer before “A Game of Thrones” published in 1996. His fantasy series subverts genre tropes: heroes die unexpectedly, honor gets you killed, politics matters more than prophecy. The HBO adaptation dominated 2010s culture, making fantasy mainstream television. Martin writes slowly—fans waited 11 years for the fifth book—because his world is intricate: hundreds of characters, multiple continents, history reaching back thousands of years. “Winter is coming” became cultural shorthand. He proved fantasy could be morally complex, politically sophisticated, and brutally realistic about power’s corrupting nature.