 At the beginning of "A Song of Ice and Fire", Westeros has enjoyed a decade-long summer, and many fear that an even longer and harsher winter will follow.George R. R. Martin set the "Ice and Fire" story in an alternative world of Earth, a "secondary world", such as that which J. R. R. Tolkien pioneered with Middle-earth.Martin has also suggested that world may be larger than the real world planet Earth.