#37 in Fantasy
A Game of Thrones
- 801
- Pages
- about 15 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 58 weeks on the list, peaked at #2
- Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel
- Ignotus Award for Best Foreign Novel
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
Our view
The first volume of the series is fantasy driven by politics: rival families, shifting loyalties and consequences that carry weight. Some readers praise how rich and immersive it is, while warning in the same breath about the sheer number of names to keep straight. At eight hundred pages it is a commitment, and it opens a long series, but patience is repaid.
Worth knowing George R. R. Martin wrote for television in the 1980s and first planned this as a trilogy; it grew into a planned seven books, five of them published, the latest in 2011. Every chapter follows one character, named at its head, which keeps the many viewpoints easy to tell apart. The first season of HBO’s Game of Thrones (2011) follows this book closely.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
A Game of Thrones is an epic fantasy novel by American author George R. R. Martin. It was published in August 1996 as the first entry in his series A Song of Ice and Fire. It was Martin's fourth novel and his return to writing prose fiction after a long period working in television. He had the initial idea in 1991 while writing science fiction; he wrote a hundred pages and submitted them to his agent, originally planning the novel as a trilogy.
Reading order · A Song of Ice and Fire
Full order & progress →- A Game of ThronesThis book
8.78.7 / 10 - A Clash of Kings
8.78.7 / 10 - A Storm of Swords
9.09.0 / 10 - A Feast for Crows
8.18.1 / 10 - A Dance with Dragons
8.58.5 / 10 - The Winds of Winter
–Not ranked yet - A Dream of SpringA Dream of Spring–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.7 across 6,459 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 98% of the weight and the score stays at 8.7 — the Fantasy average of 8.0 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.4 | 759 | 12% |
| Google Books | 8.0 | 145 | 2% |
| Hardcover | 8.8 | 5.6K | 86% |
Frequently asked
How long is A Game of Thrones?
It has 801 pages — longer than 82% of the ranked books in Fantasy.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Fantasy — with scores between 8.6 and 8.8, closest to this book.
