It’s not quite worth inclusion in the List of Iowa References, but Kyle Munson writes that author George R.R. Martin spent time in Iowa: “I think a lot of the stuff in ‘A Game of Thrones,’ ” the author told Vanity Fair, “the snow and ice and freezing, comes from my memories of Dubuque.” (The northern edge of the Seven Kingdoms is a 300-mile-long, 700-foot-tall wall of solid ice; Iowa hasn’t yet provided such fortification at the Minnesota border to protect us from polkas, hot dishes and rabid walleyes.)
(But would a wall of solid ice stand as a defense against a gang of tunneling Gophers? – ed.)