I loved the Game of Thrones series. I have just read the first 2 books in the Watergivers series and cannot wait to read the 3rd book.
Marilyn

It is also a series very much about people who have power. And judging by my reading of real history (princes in the tower, anyone?), people with power are a pretty nasty lot. If they aren't, they don't last long.

In times where constitutions and written legal systems didn't exist, having power meant that you enforced by brutal means, especially if you lived in times where there were threats to your existence: invasion, pretenders to the throne, a growing population and diminishing resources, etc.

Peter, Helen, there is an enormous amount of disinformation about publishing/writers/books etc etc. The correct info is all out there too, scads of it, but some folk who need it don't look it up because they think they already know the answers.

Your story, Helen, illustrates the danger of unwise extrapolation that is so prevalent: "Rowlings is mega rich, therefore ordinary writers must make a lot." "Writer X says she writes stories based on her own experiences, therefore all writers do that too."

And there's always the problem in any field that people only hear about the outliers — the mega successes, the mega rich, the mega famous, the mega strange, the unusually young/old/beautiful/wicked…

It baffles me when a reader attacks an author if the story or a character doesn't comply with their wishes and expectations.

I have read GRRM's books and aside from the elements of magic, I thought that the story and characters were close the life and times of those in medieval England.

And I am a history graduate, so maybe I have a better grounding than many in that aspect. But I think what really makes things clear to me is having lived within different cultures…