I was talking with Grogmosh Longspear, Elgereron(sp) the Nightraven and Maltaran before the reading as we were some of the first ones there. We talked about the books and I showed them the questions from the board. Maltaran liked the Davos question and ended up asking it. Coyote's Daughter showed up as well as Fillipa. I met Chataya, Mak and Kalbear.
Then we all went in for the reading once Kevin J. Anderson's crew got out. He commented that he should have brought beer too to get this many people as George outdid him by about 60 or so. George arrived a little late and read Jon 1 after offering us Davos 1 and Tyrion 1. Ran was sitting right next me and raised his hand for Davos 1. I leaned over and said, "Dude, you were the first one to post a summary of that from the hard copy we received."
Question and Answer
I asked why the Targaryens waited so long after the Doom to invade?
GRRM said they were mostly just content on Dragonstone for awhile. Aegon's grandfather and father stayed there. Aegon was the one that chose to invade and conquer Westeros. The Volentenes tried to entice him into a Grand Alliance to conquer Valyria, I think, or all the Valyrian colonies. Conquer the East I'm sure. Aegon was very young when this offer came to him.
Someone asked about he creates novels and he gave his architect and gardener speech. That is covered in detail in the SSM if anyone wants to check it out.
Maltaran asked why Davos smuggled the onions and George said it was for profit. I wasn't sure if this was a joke or not but he said Davos saw a bunch of starving guys who did have some gold and saw an opportunity to make a good profit with some cheap onions.
A person asked if the reader reaction's surprise him. He said some of the reactions to characters surprise him. Sandor is very popular and Theon has some fans too.
Bittersteel was asked about by Chataya. He went over a lot of stuff already covered in the SSM then said that the Golden Company wants or wanted to overthrow the reigning lineage of Targs as they consider them usurpers. Interesting implications for ADWD.
Will the rest of the books have all the characters? Yes, he hopes to have all the characters together in the same book after ADWD. He said he has to kill some off though which garnered laughs.
Anymore art books?
Look for the World of Ice and Fire. And I think it was Linda that was saying we will get to post questions and do some sort of poll as to which get asked of George for the book. That will be done on the board.
Sorry I didn't get to ask more questions but George only called on me once and I won't ask him at parties as he said he doesn't like that so much.
The most interesting stuff however, and IMO, was in the Q&A. JT asked George why the Targaryens waited so long to invade Westeros, and he said that mostly they had just been happy to sit on their rock. It was Aegon who had the ambition ... and there had been temptations to go east, rather than west, with various Free Cities trying to lure him to their side on their interminable wars (JT has copious notes, and he'll do a better job -- my PDA went on the fritz and I couldn't copy anything down, but I did video it on the camera and with any luck the sound quality should be sufficient to transcribe any other interesting details). A grand alliance was involved in some fashion.
Oh ... and George doesn't seem to have known that Darkstar isn't very popular. ;) He thought that a "bad boy" character would go over well, since people seem to love the Hound and even Theon Greyjoy so very much. We will probably have to have a discussion about this at the BwB party. ;)
I need to know what the leaves look like to a Weirwood as the only description I have is that they are red and look like hands. Some Oaks have smooth edged leaves while other Oaks have jagged edges. I was thinking them looking like a Maple leaf but having that smooth oak leaf edge. Can you help me please? I just need to put the leaves on and I'm done.
Well, when I used the "hands" metaphor, I was thinking that each leaf was divided into five "fingers," smaller ones on the ends, three longer ones toward the middle. Spread your hand on a piece of paper and trace around it, and there's your shape.
Never gave much thought as to whether the edges would be smooth of jagged. Whatever works best,