1. Born George Raymond Martin, he would add the name Richard when he was 13 years old, after his confirmation (he was raised Catholic). So in the end we had George R.R. Martin. Even if some say it was thought as a tribute to J.R.R. Tolkien the reason behind the double "R" is officially the one above. 2. He is a collector and reader of comic books, and has been for several decades. In fact, he was one of the very few participants at the first edition of Comic-Con, in 1964, back when comic books and superheroes were certainly "geek only" interests. Martin has in his impressive collection several rare magazines, such as the one in which Spider-Man made his first appearance (Amazing Fantasy number 15, from 1962) or the first issue of Fantastic Four. And if you think about buying them from him, forget about it. First, Martin would never ever sell them. But even if by some miracle he did, he prize for just these two comic books would be well over half a million dollars.
3. Martin still writes his books on an old computer, practically an antique (over three decades old) and still uses Wordstar 4.0, a simple and reliable MS Dos word processor. No MS Office or special modern software for him, it seems. And to be sure he isn't distracted the computer is and will never be connected to the internet. Or as the writer might say "if it works, why fix it?"
4. Who is his favourite character from A Song Of Ice and Fire? No other than one of the most popular characters from the books and the HBO hit series - Tyrion Lannister.
5. After the success of the Lord of the Rings movies, George R.R. Martin was offered a chance of turning his saga into another trilogy. Maybe it could have been a hit, but Martin, who had a lot of experience in writing scripts for various TV series in the 1980s, thought that three movies would not be enough for the vast and intricate plot. So he refused and waited until the series were developped by HBO. So far he seems to have been right.
Photo: georgerrmartin.com
