Western fantasy novels have a long history. The genre can trace back to Greek mythology and Roman mythology, especially Homer’s Odyssey (1999) and Beowulf (2000) in Norse Mythology. In the Middle Ages, the widespread of chivalric literature and gothic literature established sound foundation of fantasy novels. King Arthur provided another type of fantasy novels which involved elements of knights, horsemanship and clear morality.

At the beginning of 20th  century, many fantasy novels flourished    on

the magazines. In the mid of 20th century, classic fantasy novels had appeared, including The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings. Since then, western fantasy novels received enormous prestige and regained vitality. People began to turn their eyes on fantasy novels and tried to analyze character images in these novels. Another distinct manifestation was that western fantasy novels were successively translated into different languages. A Song of Ice and Fire entered into people’s sight just in such a grand background. However, this book has its own attractions, for example, female characters begun to were give equal status as men and even more intelligent, inestimable plots around three plotlines and exceptional skills. All of these appeal scholars to conduct studies on this series of book from various perspectives.

With the rapid development of technology and mass media, many western fantasy novels came to screen, which brought people’s imagination into life. To put it in another way, film industry had been flourished thanked to the rise of western fantasy novels. They also have gigantic influence on other aspect of life. Another obvious field is the PC games, for whose characters are always developed from western fantasy

novels and are almost full of romantic, bloody and gorgeous plots. It is not difficult for us to notice that films recomposed from western  fantasy novels received considerable resound. There is no exception of A Song of Ice and Fire which attracts a large number of fans. As far as I am concerned, I am a faithful fan of this foreign fantasy novel since it had changed my previous attitudes toward western fantasy novels. Besides, plots in this novel are always beyond my expectation, which inspires me to have a further study on this book.

2.3 Researches on Translations of A Song of Ice and Fire

Researches on translation of A Song of Ice and Fire are very rare since there is only one translation of this novel. In addition to this, there are researchers study the translation of place names in this fantasy novel. These theses are A Study on E-C Translation of Place Names in Literature from the Perspective of Reception of Aesthetic: A Case Study of “A Song of Ice and Fire”(丁萌飞，2014) and  “西方史诗奇幻作品的地名翻译研

究——以《冰与火之歌》原著翻译为例”（舒艾，2017）. The translation of geographical names of western fantasy novels is full of difficulty since many of them are coined words. Translators have to fully bring their subjective initiative into play and combine the reality with imaginary world. To make receptor language readers accept the translation of place names more easily, translators need to acquire knowledge of geography and local culture.