I've returned from the Book Expo in NYC. What an event! It's like Geek Christmas there. I got about 12 free ARC books (most of the authors I've never heard of) which I will be exploring this summer. It was fun but crowded.
And I met "the man" for the first time! GRRM is extremely accomodating. He was surrounded by 4 or 5 Bantam reps hawking over him, making sure he didn't talk too long, etc, but were generally very amiable themselves. I think George's editor was one of them.
George, to the minor chagrin of his publishers, kindly signed my copy of RRetrospective that I hauled from the East side of Manhattan, all the way through the Javitz Center (picture the airplane hanger where they'd keep, say the entire Air Force for Canada). George grinned broadly when I pulled it out. There weren't many "superfans"" there due it being an industry-only event, so I think he was a bit surprised to see one.
I also picked up the excerpt from A Feast for Crows (got it signed), which is subtitled "An appetizer before the feast..."
And the moment we've all been waiting for...
The publication date has been announced!
November, 2005.
I wasn't able to ask about a UK pubdate, but that is the US one. Who knows how different they will be, if at all. But, this is straight from the horse's (genius') mouth. George said it, his entourage confirmed it.
...
I looked again. It's Dany's first 3 chapters. Thought it was a bit long for being one chapter. They're just broken up by these little section marks, not page breaks.