George R.R. Martin Books in Order

George R.R. Martin spent twenty years as a journeyman science-fiction writer - Hugo nominations, a decade in Hollywood on The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast, and a career-saving pivot into shared-universe editing - before A Game of Thrones (1996) turned him into the most famous fantasist alive. The order question around his shelf splits three ways: the main ASOIAF sequence (five books of a planned seven, 1996-2011), the Dunk & Egg prequel novellas - collected as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and now an HBO series that premiered January 18, 2026, with season two due in the first half of 2027 - and Fire & Blood, the Targaryen history that House of the Dragon adapts. And underneath everything sits the publishing world's longest-running question: The Winds of Winter, unfinished, undated, in progress. This page sequences all of it honestly (1977–present).

Where to start

A Game of Thrones (1996), chapter one of the main sequence - there is no other door. Readers who want a taste of the world at a tenth of the length can start with the Dunk & Egg novellas (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, collected 2015): self-contained knight-errantry 90 years before the novels, no spoilers for the main plot.

Does the reading order matter?

The novels 1-5 strictly in order: 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) - parallel-timeline in books 4-5, published split. The three Dunk & Egg novellas (The Hedge Knight, 1998; The Sworn Sword, 2003; The Mystery Knight, 2010) run in their own chronological order 90 years earlier and are collected as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2015); read them anywhere after A Storm of Swords. Fire & Blood (2018) is a Targaryen history, not a novel - dip freely, it is the House of the Dragon source. The Wild Cards line he edits (from 1987) is a shared universe with dozens of authors, its own mosaic order. The Winds of Winter (book six of seven) remains unfinished with no publication date.

Which one is the best?

A Storm of Swords (2000), the consensus peak of the genre this century; A Game of Thrones (1996), the door; Fevre Dream (1982), the vampire-riverboat novel that proves he never needed dragons.

Related guides

Readers finishing this shelf usually want the map next door: J.R.R. Tolkien books in order, Brandon Sanderson books in order, Robert Jordan 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.