In 2015, George R.R. Martin confessed to having two worries that would define his future and forever change the world of fantasy entertainment.
We were having breakfast in San Francisco before HBO’s premiere event for Game of Thrones season five. Martin had been professionally writing sci-fi and fantasy fiction since his acclaimed debut novel, 1977’s Dying of the Light, and had attempted a stint as a staff writer on TV shows in Los Angeles in the 1980s before launching his bestselling A Song of Ice and Fire novels, which served as the basis for Thrones. His books took high fantasy tropes and combined them with a tale inspired by the brutal, R-rated history of politics and warfare in medieval Europe.
Photographed by Daniel Prakopcyk
Along the way, Martin had become a celebrity figure with a distinctive look, with his bushy white beard, fisherman’s cap, glasses and suspenders — like some 1920s steampunk Santa. Between bites of eggs Benedict, Martin said he couldn’t believe he was being parodied on South Park and Saturday Night Live. In just a few short years, Martin had become the country’s most recognizable author aside from Stephen King. It was an extraordinary accomplishment for the son of a New Jersey longshoreman who got his start by selling monster stories to schoolmates for a dime apiece.
