There are several gory scenes, ruthlessness and violent acts in George RR Martin’s novels, and lots and lots of sex as well. However, what is phenomenal with the story is that it did not contain any explicit gay sex at all.
In 2014, the question was asked as Martin addressed an audience at the Edinburgh international book festival – why do his "A Song of Ice and Fire” novels only hint at the subject?
Martin, who has two more in the series to publish, said he would put it in if it lent itself to the plot. He said the books are narrated through his "viewpoint" characters. And it is clear from his viewpoint that that he does not see any relevance to the despicable acts of gay sex.
"Frankly, it is the way I prefer to write fiction because that is the way all of us experience life. You're seeing me from your viewpoint, you're not seeing what someone over here is seeing," he said.
Because NONE of the viewpoint characters are gay, there are no explicit gay sex scenes in the books. The television adaptation has tried to digress from the original story line and they encountered several angry comments when they did.
Martin added: "I'm not going to do it just for the sake of doing it. If the plot lends itself to that, if one of my viewpoint characters is in a situation, then I'm not going to shy away from it, but you can't just insert things because everyone wants to see them.
"It is not a democracy. If it was a democracy, then Joffrey [the sadistic boy king] would have died much earlier than he did."
Martin was one of the star names at the book festival, staged in association with the Guardian. His books are global bestsellers and adored by his fans, but he admitted there was still a kind of literary prejudice against his type of fantasy fiction. "I've been aware of this since I was a kid and I take heart with the fact that it is changing.
"When I was 12 or 13, I had teachers take away science fiction books by [Robert A] Heinlein and [Isaac] Asimov and say: 'You're a smart kid, you get good grades. Why are you reading this trash? They rot your mind. You should be reading Silas Marner.' If I'd been reading Silas Marner, I probably would have stopped reading."
The prejudice against sci-fi and fantasy is still there, but is not what it was. "These things are breaking down. It is an artificial distinction anyway – literary fiction in its present form is a genre itself."
The event in Edinburgh sold out quickly and the queue for book signings quickly became one of the longest the festival is likely to see.
But it had not always been the case, Martin said. A writer's real enemy is obscurity, and he had been there, sitting behind huge piles of books in shopping malls waiting for people to come only for them to ask where the cookery books were.
In 2014, the question was asked as Martin addressed an audience at the Edinburgh international book festival – why do his "A Song of Ice and Fire” novels only hint at the subject?
Martin, who has two more in the series to publish, said he would put it in if it lent itself to the plot. He said the books are narrated through his "viewpoint" characters. And it is clear from his viewpoint that that he does not see any relevance to the despicable acts of gay sex.
"Frankly, it is the way I prefer to write fiction because that is the way all of us experience life. You're seeing me from your viewpoint, you're not seeing what someone over here is seeing," he said.
Because NONE of the viewpoint characters are gay, there are no explicit gay sex scenes in the books. The television adaptation has tried to digress from the original story line and they encountered several angry comments when they did.
Martin added: "I'm not going to do it just for the sake of doing it. If the plot lends itself to that, if one of my viewpoint characters is in a situation, then I'm not going to shy away from it, but you can't just insert things because everyone wants to see them.
"It is not a democracy. If it was a democracy, then Joffrey [the sadistic boy king] would have died much earlier than he did."
Martin was one of the star names at the book festival, staged in association with the Guardian. His books are global bestsellers and adored by his fans, but he admitted there was still a kind of literary prejudice against his type of fantasy fiction. "I've been aware of this since I was a kid and I take heart with the fact that it is changing.
"When I was 12 or 13, I had teachers take away science fiction books by [Robert A] Heinlein and [Isaac] Asimov and say: 'You're a smart kid, you get good grades. Why are you reading this trash? They rot your mind. You should be reading Silas Marner.' If I'd been reading Silas Marner, I probably would have stopped reading."
The prejudice against sci-fi and fantasy is still there, but is not what it was. "These things are breaking down. It is an artificial distinction anyway – literary fiction in its present form is a genre itself."
The event in Edinburgh sold out quickly and the queue for book signings quickly became one of the longest the festival is likely to see.
But it had not always been the case, Martin said. A writer's real enemy is obscurity, and he had been there, sitting behind huge piles of books in shopping malls waiting for people to come only for them to ask where the cookery books were.