Winter Is Coming

The debate and discussion around Game of Thrones has covered questions of climate issues industrialization and questions of power sex and gender. But in this essential companion to both George R.R. Martin's novels and the HBO show Carolyne Larrington explores how this remarkable universe was constructed from the actual Middle Ages. The book examines sigils giants dragons and direwolves in medieval texts; ravens old gods and the Weirwood in Norse myth; and a gothic exotic orient in the eastern continent Essos. From the White Walkers to the Red Woman from Casterly Rock to the Shivering Sea this is an indispensable guide to the 21st-century's most important fantasy creation.