George R.R. Martin has told fan fiction writers to get their own stories.
The author, whose books have been turned into the incredibly popular Game of Thrones series, has arrived in Brisbane ahead of this weekend's Supanova pop culture expo.
Bayonne, New Jersey, was anything but a wonderland during George R.R. Martin's childhood. The Martins lived in federal housing for low-income families, they owned little, not even a car, and the boy's life was spent mostly between 1st Street (the family home) and 5th Street (his school). Life was pretty much contained in those few blocks on this urban peninsula, he says, although sometimes he'd catch a bus to a movie theatre in 25th Street.
It was an escape.
I spend all day in Westeros and King's Landing. The real world almost seems to fade away.
From their house, he also moved beyond reality by watching container ships arriving through the Kill Van Kull deepwater channel, which looks across to Staten Island. Manhattan – another world entirely, far more glamorous – was just up the river, but the ships Martin studied flew colourful flags and came from far-off places that might have been other planets.
