George R. R. Martin, Writer of Magical Worlds Quiz

Answer: Raymond Richard

George Raymond Richard Martin was born in 1948. His father was a simple longshoreman and had no idea that his son would become a best-selling author, so he gave George two fairly prosaic middle names (to distinguish him from the many other George Martins).

Answer: Bayonne

Martin was born and grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey, and as a result is a diehard Giants and Jets fan. The Bayonne Bridge is one of four bridges for motor vehicles that connect Staten Island to the mainland. Of the four, only the Bayonne Bridge is named after the city it connects to.

Answer: The Alley

Like the Hugos of SF, the Alley was awarded by fans for their favorite comic books of the previous year. Martin won the award for Best Fan Fiction for his story "Powerman vs. the Blue Barrier". Despite this, Martin is now an opponent of fan fiction, arguing that it promotes bad writing habits and violates copyright.

The Edgar is an award given to outstanding detective fiction, the Reuben is a professional cartoons award, and the Shazam was a short-lived professional comic book award in the 70s.

Answer: Journalism

Unlike many other famous authors, Martin was very successful at college, graduating summa cum laude in 1970. However, after graduation, he didn't go into the field, but taught writing and journalism at local colleges.

Answer: He registered as a conscientious objector

Martin applied for and successfully earned CO (conscientious objector) status. He did this despite being opposed specifically to Vietnam, and not due to a general pacifistic philosophy. Luckily for him, his local draft board gave it to him: in an interview, Martin stated that they "felt that anyone who wanted CO status should have it ... then they'd be branded forever as a yellow-bellied coward and traitor and their life will be ruined".

Answer: Sandkings

All of these answers are shorter-form stories by Martin that won either the Hugo ("A Song for Lya" [1975, Best Novella]; "The Way of Cross and Dragon" [1980, Best Short Story]) or the Nebula ("Portraits of His Children" [1986, Best Novelette], but only "Sandkings" won both.

Sandkings is an unforgettable story about the corrupting nature of power. Millionaire Simon Kress buys some exotic alien pets and learns that he is like a god to them. He starts feeding them more exotic meats and as their hunger grows, so does his twisted, cruel nature. It is an archetypical "sci-fi horror" story.

Answer: Wild Cards

Running for over 25 years, the Wild Cards series features the "Wild Card" virus that kills 90% of the humans it infects, causes hideous deformities in 9%, known as "Jokers", and gives mutant powers to the remaining 1%, known as "Aces". Aces can have powers ranging from the trivial (growing body hair at will) to the awesome (mind control, teleportation, etc.).

Amusingly, the talented writer Neil Gaiman once proposed writing a story for the Wild Cards universe, but was rejected due to his lack of credentials. He then took this concept to DC and created the famous "Sandman" graphic novels series.

Answer: Santa Fe

Santa Fe was founded in 1610 by the Spanish, two decades earlier than the next oldest, Boston. Despite growing up in the urban Northeast, Martin prefers the environment of the rural Southwest.

Answer: Beauty and the Beast

Amazingly, he wrote scripts for all four of these series, but he was only co-producer for "Beauty and the Beast". In it, he featured his trademark willingness to kill off beloved characters by killing the "Beauty" [Linda Hamilton] in season 3, leaving the "Beast" [Ron Perlman] to avenge her death.

Answer: A Song of Ice and Fire

Although the TV series "Game of Thrones" has become immensely popular, the book series is called "A Song of Ice and Fire", with the first book titled "A Game of Thrones". Featuring a cast of thousands, the epic chronicles the political struggles of a kingdom similar to Wars of the Roses-era England, but in a world where magic is real and dragons have been dead for centuries.

The series is notable for its deep, clever plot twists and characters with ambiguous morality. Ironically, Martin wrote the epic as an attempt to write something so grand that it would be unfilmable, but the "unfilmable" TV series has catapulted him and his works to stardom.