GRRM has now shared that he’s been spending time in the rainwood (that’s a region of the Stormlands), and that the manuscript count is 1205 pages, making it the second longest novel in the series, 300 pages shy of A Storm of Swords.

GRRM shares the news of a group signing event at Barnes & Noble in the Coronado Center of Albuquerque, New Mexico, scheduled for February 20th. Other Wild Cards authors at the event, besides himself, include Daniel Abraham, Melinda Snodgrass, John Jos. Miller, Caroline Specter, Ian Tregillis, Victor Milan, and Carrie Vaughn. More information can be found at Barnes & Noble’s events page.

Fantasy Flight Games has announced the imminent release A King in the North, the next chapter pack in their Defenders of the North cycle for the popular Game of Thrones Living Card Game. They promise new cards for Margaery Tyrell, Osha, Varamyr Sixskins, and many more.

GRRM shares a fresh update on his progress on A Dance with Dragons, which is slightly spoilerish. Suffice it to say, he’s writing about characters in warmer climes, and thinks that with the pace he’s working at one or even two chapters could be completed by the end of the week. In comments he adds that he’s within “spitting distance” of 1200 pages of manuscript (which means roughly 800 pages, using a rough rule-of-thumb 1.5:1 ratio) while stating that it’s not impossible some parts of the novel might move to the next book if, when it’s turned in to editors, it’s longer than A Storm of Swords.

Over at “Not a Blog, GRRM has started a poll for fans to have a say as to what characters the next wave of miniatures from Dark Sword Miniatures will depict. Presently, Daenerys Targaryen-as-queen has a commanding lead, with Benjen Stark and Bran with Hodor neck-and-neck for second place.

Twitter is presently awash with Brazilian fantasy fans excitedly reporting the news that A Game of Thrones will be published in Brazil in the native Brazilian Portuguse dialect. This is a major international sale, with Brazil being a rapidly growing book-buying market. From what I can make of this article, the book will be published by Brazillian publisher Leya, with A Game of Thrones due to be published in translation in the second half of 2010.

It’s not absolutely clear to me, but it’s possible that the Brazilian fantasy author, Raphael Draccon, may have been a key figure in bringing the publisher and GRRM’s representation to the table. Certainly, in the article linked above he is incredibly enthusiastic for the series and its prospects in Brazil.

Ian Tregillis gives us another look into the world of Wild Cards, this time with an account of how he was recruited at the last minute to write a key story in the span of two weeks for Inside Straight (US, UK).

GRRM’s official site has been updated with several new updates on “Not a Blog”. Among them, GRRM clarifies that he had in fact finished a Jon Snow chapter that he was happy with, and that he may be shifting back to the Meereenese point of views. Speaking of snow, he shares an image of a painted Sansa Stark miniature from Dark Sword Miniatures.

Finally, and sadly, he shares the news of the death of fellow writer, Kage Baker, due to cancer. Baker contributed a fine Cugel the Clever story toSongs of the Dying Earth, and wrote a number of award-nominated and otherwise notable short stories and novels besides. She will be missed.

Following up Thursday’s post, GRRM confirms that the snowy weather was inspiring the next day, and that he’s done some good work on A Dance with Dragons that he’s happy with. It seems likely that he switched to writing Jon Snow, as he hinted in the earlier post. Also, in regards to the earlier post, in comments GRRM declined to provide an estimate of when he’d be done, as he admits that he has been very bad at guessing such things so far.

GRRM has provided an update on his current work on the much-anticipated A Dance with Dragons. The “Meereenese knot” has been a central difficulty, and it seems like Martin is making some serious headway, with a completed chapter (although one which has has completed four times before) and switching to a new POV (meaning the addition of a new POV?) to help provide an insider’s perspective to some of the events that make up the “knot”.

Valyrian Steel wants fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire to let them know what replica weapon they should produce next. With Longclaw and Needle already produced and Ice entering production soon, this is a great opportunity for fans to weigh in. Their original plans were to produce a replica of Khal Drogo’s arakh.

What other weapons are possible? Jaime’s gold-plated sword, Robert’s warhammer, the greatsword Dawn, the assassin’s Valyrian steel dagger, or the sword of the Targaryen kings, Blackfyre…. Lots of possibilities, if you think about it.

Daniel Abraham follows up on his previous post discussing collaborating on Wild Cards with a post about his other collaborations, particularly his collaboration with George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois on the SF novella and novel, Shadow Twin.

Ian Tregillis provides more insight into the work needed to create a new Wild Cards book, following up on Daniel Abraham’s first post on the subject. It’s a further interesting look into the brainchild of George R.R. Martin and the Wild Cards Consortium, who’ve shaped what’s arguably the most successful, original shared-world anthology series around.

Dark Sword Miniatures has put up pictures of several of the latest wave of miniatures, painted by their in-house artists. GRRM already shared Brienne of Tarth, but we now also have Robb Stark, Arya Stark, and Ghost painted up. All the figures are painted by the award-winning Marike Reimer, who’s done a fabulous job with Tom Meier‘s and Dave Summers’ sculpts.

The miniatures (unassembled and unpainted) can be purchased via Dark Sword’s online store.

Tor have given the Fantasy Hotlist an exclusive excerpt of “The Mystery Knight”, the third novella in the Dunk & Egg stories set in the past of the Seven Kingdoms. The story will be published in the Warriors anthology, due March 16th.