[Note: The following chat is made available through the Internet Archive.]
http://web.archive.org/web/20070206145733/http://www.scifi.com/transcripts/2004/asimovs.1.25.html
[Note: he following interview is made available through the Internet Archive.]
http://web.archive.org/web/20061112134543/http://www.brokenfrontier.com/columns/details.php?id=152
[Note: The precise date, beyond December 2003, is unknown.]
http://mezmera.posluh.hr/bazaar/interview_george_r_r_martin.asp
[Note: The following interview is made available through the Internet Archive. The precise date, beyond December 2003, is unknown.]
http://web.archive.org/web/20051103091500/nrctc.edu/fhq/vol1iss3/00103009.htm
Hi, short question. Will we find out more about the Dance of the Dragons in future books?
The first dance or the second?
The second will be the subject of a book. The first will be mentioned from time to time, I'm sure.
Did you ever read the classic book The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka? In the book the main character is a 'monster' by the name of Gregor.
Yes, I've read Kafka.
I was wondering if that book had any effect on when you named Gregor Clegane who is a monster in his own right.
Sorry, no.
Keep up the great work. I love books 1-3 and i cant wait for AFfC. :)
I'm still at work on A FEAST FOR CROWS. However, I have recently added a sample chapter to my website. That's the place to look for updates on completion and publication.
Keep reading.
Just wanted to share some great news. GRRM, my big retrospective collection from Subterreanean Press, got a terrific review today in the WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD. "... the most ambitious volume ever to come from an American specialty press" and "... one of the most important -- and generous -- single-author collections of recent years" are my favorite bits, but there's lots of other good stuff as well.
The entire review can be found online here.
I don't know if this would be of any interest to ICE & FIRE readers, but there's a BEAUTY AND THE BEAST fan site that has recently collected a bunch of posts that I made to the old GEnie B&B topic back in the early 90s, discussing various aspects of the TV show and my work for it. Lot of behind-the-scenes stuff there, and a few thoughts about violence, action, television, etc.
It's at this page if you're curious. You might find some there that reflects on ASOIAF.
[Note: This report fleshes out details given in Rhelle's report.]
OK, some more info:
That convo that was referred to above went like this:
Q: "Do you know how the books will end?"
GRRM: "YES" (emphatically)
Q: "So do you have it written down somewhere... just in case?"
GRRM: "Nope. It's all in my head. So if I die, you all are shit out of luck"
LOL, I wonder if Parris knows...
On POVs
George said that at first he was just going to use the original POVs from AGoT for the entire series, then he realized that he needed to see what Stannis was doing, but did'nt want to use Stannis as a POV. So he created Davos. Davos was his first added POV. The rest followed.
On writing his POVs, as Rhelle mentioned above, he uses their motivations and desires. What do they want? What do they want to achieve? What drives them? What SHOULD they do? Ethics, morals, ambitions, etc... all part of the mix.
On the 5 year gap this has probably already been discussed before, but here goes. George said that he was writing ADwD and was writing the flashbacks (he confirmed that they would have been flashbacks) and then he realized that he couldn't just skip things like Myrcella being crowned and the resulting dornish problems, for example. Originally he had wanted to skip the 5 years to make the kids older. But he said he realized that he was being impatient, and that those 5 years had too much important stuff to skim over. And as banditski noted above, Rickon will not be in AFfC. George's exact words: "no, he's not old enough yet." Hmmmmm. YET.
On Jaime
at a panel:
Q: "Did you know from the beginning that you would flesh Jaime out and make him a pov?"
GRRM: "I knew I would flesh him out, but no, I did not know he would be a pov."
Some pronunciations:
Lyanna = lye-anna
Catelyn = cat-linn
Maester = may-ster (that one's pretty obvious)
Moat Cailin = Moat Cah-lan
Sansa = Saun-sa
Khaleesi = Khal-eee-see
Missandei = mees-anday
Tommen = Toam-in
Davos = Dah-vos
Varys = Var-us
Many of you probably knew those, but they were new to me! So I thought I'd share
Something weird: I THINK he indicated that the dragons are NOT all the same sex. My question was intercepted, but I believe that was the answer. Cool. Reign of fire baby! One of my favorite things that George said: he was talking about how he uses ancient software on his computer and he said something like "no fucking dancing paperclip for me." LOL. we were dying.
I too picked up a few things in talking with him...
In no particular order:
We won't see any (or very little) of Rickon in AFfC.
I was talking with george and the dude from FFG [Fantasy Flight Games] who does the card game, and George asked the FFG guy how he was going to balance the power of the families (Stark, Lannister, Greyjoy, etc) once the dragons are full grown. He said something like "once dany lands in westeros with full grown dragons, they are gonna kickass all over the place" (paraphrasing - it was something more like "they will be tougher than anything we've seen since Aegon the Conquorer.")
We probably won't get the POV from an Other, but we will find out more about them (history, motives, etc.)
Oh, I also asked George if he could say what new map(s) there will be in AFfC. He answered the Free Cities.
[Note: This report fleshes out details given in this report.]
Fleshing out some of the notes Rhelle took on the Q&A:
"George was asked if he would change anything and he says nothing major."
The person asking the question noted that, when Tolkien wrote LotR, he had the advantage of completing the entire trilogy prior to publication, and therefore could revise portions of, say, the first book while he was writing the second. The person asked whether, since George's works are serial, were there any changes he would make? George said that there are a few minor details he's noticed that are inconsistent between books, and these are the only things he would change (and *has* changed in later editions).
"We are completely 'shit out of luck' if George dies." And "George gave out props to Ran and says he checks with Ran for mistakes. (GO RAN!!! Yes, we cheered you)."
I recall these being all part of one answer, but my memory could be faulty. I believe the question was: Did George have an idea how the books are going to end? Is it written down somewhere? How does he keep all the details straight? And what happens if he dies? George gave his, 'sorry, SOL' answer. He said that he does keep some details written down on his computer, but mostly it's all "up here" in his head. "Also, there's a man called Elio in Sweden, and he knows all the details, knows everything better than I do. I can just ask Elio."
I don't recall what the question was, but our Tolkien fans would be interested in a snippet George mentioned. He said one of the beauties of LotR is how the book starts out with a small world, and gradually expands. You start with this huge sprawling map, and it's just of the Hobbit lands, and this is all our hobbits really know of. There's no talk of, say, Minias Tirith [and no LotR fans better come excoriate me for spelling that wrong] at the beginning. Then, when the journey begins, the hobbits -- and the readers -- get this incredible sense of an ever-expanding world, and how they are just a small part of it.
The guy who asked whether Westeros was in the southern hemisphere was really quite certain George was gonna say yes to that one, and seemed shocked when George said, "Ummmm. No."
Tommen rhymes with "omen."
Chataya is shuh-TIE-yuh.
George mentioned over and over this weekend how he doesn't feel that there's really a boundary between fantasy and sci fi. My new prediction is that the Others are actually space aliens, that the "dragons" asleep below Dragonstone and Winterfell are actually space ships, and that we'll end with Dany's dragons in a fight with aliens shooting space lasers. You heard it here first, folks!
[Note: Proofread for clarity. This is in response to a question regarding whether Brandon's duel with Littlefinger was before or after Harrenhal.]
And when I asked him your question, Ran, about Brandon, he said he couldn't be 100% sure without checking his notes but he thought it was after Harrenhal.
Frey rhymes with "Day"
Jonquil is pronounced John-Kill.
Dolorous is pronounced Dollar-Us
Tobho rhymes with Bobo