Game of Thrones Books in Order

Game of Thrones - A Song of Ice and Fire on the spine, the title the world knows from HBO - is the fantasy series that ended television's golden age and has not ended its own: five novels of a planned seven, published 1996 to 2011, sixty-three million copies, and a sixth book, The Winds of Winter, that has been in progress longer than some of its readers have been alive. Around the unfinished core sits a finished ring of prequel material that the television era made essential: the Dunk & Egg novellas (now their own HBO series, premiered January 2026) and Fire & Blood, the Targaryen history House of the Dragon adapts. This page sequences the core, slots the prequels, and tells the truth about Winds (1996–present).

Where to start

A Game of Thrones (1996), the first novel of the main sequence - the HBO series adapted it almost scene for scene, and no other entry point exists. Readers wanting a short trial: the Dunk & Egg novellas, collected as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, are self-contained stories 90 years earlier with no spoilers for the main plot.

Does the reading order matter?

The main sequence is strict: A Game of Thrones (1996), A Clash of Kings (1998), A Storm of Swords (2000), A Feast for Crows (2005), A Dance with Dragons (2011). Two structural notes: books four and five run in parallel - half the characters each, timelines overlapping - and book six will re-sync everyone; and the HBO series adapted the published material through season five, then went beyond it, so the show's ending is not the books' ending - the books have not written one yet. The prequels slot around the edges: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2015) collects the three Dunk & Egg novellas, ~90 years before the novels, readable any time after A Storm of Swords; Fire & Blood (2018) is the Targaryen history 300 years back, dip freely, it is the House of the Dragon source. The Winds of Winter remains unfinished with no publication date; A Dream of Spring, the planned seventh volume, is farther still.

Which one is the best?

A Storm of Swords (2000), the peak of the genre this century; A Game of Thrones (1996), the door; Fire & Blood (2018), the fake-history that shouldn't work and does.

Related guides

Readers finishing this shelf usually want the map next door: George R.R. Martin books in order, Wheel of Time books in order, The Witcher books in order. Every guide follows the same format — the shelf, the entry point, the honest answer about order.

Make it a project

Pick a session size and let the days accumulate — at the pace our reading speed test measures, most shelves above clear in a few weeks of half-hours. Every guide on the books in order shelf follows this same format, and when a book lands, its 8-question quiz is waiting on the original book quiz.