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.