I read H.P. Lovecraft. I also like Sword and Sorcery stuff, Arthurian legend.
The genius of 'Game of Thrones' is that in this rich imagining of a world redolent of the medieval, the rules of a Middle Ages morality play have been so thoroughly discarded.
'Game of Thrones' has multiple story lines, multiple countries, and it's complete fantasy.
I didn't like fairy tales when I was younger. I found a lot of fairy tales scary. They really didn't sit well with me.
I know that by the time I was in middle school, Andre Norton was definitely my favorite author.
I'm a sponge when it comes to stories. I'd say everything influences me in some way, but for 'Red Queen' in particular, I was really affected by the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series by George R. R. Martin.
I don't think there's any show comparable to 'Game of Thrones' in terms of the way it does the fantasy element to such a high standard: everything is created with so much care and detail. You really feel like you are transported into this entirely other fictional place.
I've read everything that Isaac Asimov ever wrote, for a start. I'm massively into my fantasy genre, anything by R.A. Salvatore or David Gemmell. I've read every single book those writers have written.
If you read Grimm's fairy tales, they're absolutely terrifying.
What I like about 'Game of Thrones' is that there's such a wide range. We have everything from very small, just solo instrument pieces, just the solo violin or solo cello, and then we go all the way to these bigger action moments.
I grew up reading a lot of fantasy/sci-fi. It was really all I read - anything from 'Dragonlance,' when I was 12, to 'The Wheel of Time' and Robert Jordan stuff, to George R.R. Martin, who did 'Game of Thrones.'
