GRRM said the series will probably total seven volumes. But it sounds as if he is being flexible about that, in case he keeps getting more new ideas that will result in additional volumes, as has already been the case with A Feast for Crows. He also said that the strange phenomenon of the fantasy world's long seasons will be explained in the final volume of the series.
GRRM said that he doesn't have a "Big Board" or a special computer program to keep all the events and characters straight. He says he does it all in his head, by means of using the brain cells that most people use to cope with everyday life!
GRRM said that his favorite character is Tyrion Lannister, and he identifies a lot with Tyrion. GRRM said the Tyrion chapters are very easy to write, and they seem to write themselves without any effort from him.
With regard to characterization and point of view, GRRM said that for any character who is a POV character he has to find something that he and readers can sympathize with even if the character in question does reprehensible things. He said there is always something he can find, or if not then it just won't be a POV character. Gregor Clegane, for example, could never be a POV character, but Jaime Lannister can be despite his bad actions, because there's more to Jaime than that. GRRM mentioned that Cersei will be a major POV character in A Feast for Crows. I was outraged by this and commented ""You just won't ever leave us any character we can purely hate, will you?". GRRM smiled at that, and that's when he gave the counter-example of Gregor Clegane.
I asked a lot of questions about the world-building involved in A Song of Ice and Fire--why the fantasy world is so earthlike in certain ways, with Caucasians in the northwest, Mongol-like Dothraki in the east, black people and zebras in the south, etc., and why some of the characters even have names from terrestrial languages such as Robert and Richard (Germanic) and Philip and Jason (Greek); his answers were that the earthlike characteristics of the flora, fauna, and ethnic groups were just something he wanted--in other words, no real answer at all--and that he viewed names such as Robert, Richard, Philip, and Jason as "neutral" names with no real ties to any language, whereas he would never give one of his characters a name such as Pierre because to him that isn't a "neutral" name. When I demurred about this, GRRM became rather testy and told me my problem was that I knew too much about languages.
...
The last question I asked him was about religion in his fantasy world.
I thought the religious tolerance in Westeros between tree-worshipers and worshipers of the Seven was remarkable. GRRM said there hadn't always been tolerance, and the situation as seen at the beginning of A Game of Thrones was a compromise that had been worked out after much conflict in the past. But this is a situation now changing with the introduction of Melisandre and her fanaticism regarding Rh'llor--essentially, religious tolerance is becoming a thing of the past in Westeros. When Robert Baratheon overcame the Targaryens, he opened up Westeros to all sorts of changes in tradition--thus, Cersei's unprecedented move in dismissing Ser Barristan Selmy from the Kingsguard, etc. Westeros is now in a state of flux.
Just talked to George, who is very very tired after a couple of days of hard work and schmoozing with book publishers, retailers and readers at the Expo.
He's had a great time though, and the response from everyone has been so positive and encouraging, he's raring to go on the polish and proofing he's got to do in the next 2 months.
The pub dates in the US and the UK are still not completely set. They can change depending on variables too obscure and insider to go into here. But as of yesterday, here's what he has been told by his publishers:
Bantam will be publishing the hardcover edition on November 8. At least, that when they told him yesterday. Let me once again emphasize that this date may change, we'll know more in a month or so, once every one sorts out their schedules for printing, publicity, and all the rest entailed in getting this novel out to the readers.
HarperCollinsUK has not yet determined their publication date.
I repeat, HarperCollinsUK has not yet set the UK edition publication date. Got that? Good. George hopes that we'll know that date in 2-4 weeks.
George was not able to talk to his producer in the audiobook division, so we don't know when the audiobook will be released. First they have to find Roy Dotrice who might be off acting in New Zealand or on stage at the West End for all we know, and get on his schedule. But my hope is that since Bantam is going for a later pub date, that production of the audiobooks will be complete and will be released about the same time as the hardcover.
Haven't heard from the Australian publisher yet, so we have no idea what their plans are.
As for non-English editions, once we hear from those folks, we'll let you know on GRRM's web site. He is trying to shorten the time it takes to get foreign langauge editions in print by providing the publishers/translators with the proofed gallies directly when possible.
Right now, the Bantam publicity department is beginning to plan George's US tour based on a November 8 pub date. It will be at least 2 weeks long, and will most likely include cities like LA, the SF Bay area, Vancouver BC, a couple of cities in Ohio, and even New York City at a Barnes and Noble. If you work in a book store, or have the ear of a book retailer, and want George to come to your store, then NOW is the time to contact the Bantam publicity department and ask what the criteria are for arranging a visit by George. As you might know, George really likes to sign in independent and speciality SF stores, so if you are a regular customer at your friendly local SF shop, you might want to give them a heads up. Beyond the basics I've just given you, we don't know where and when he'll be appearing at US bookstores, and won't until just before the tour begins in November. I'm just hoping that he'll be home in time to carve the turkey on Thanksgiving.
So, let's recap, just make sure everyone understands what I'm telling you and there's no room for rumours and speculation.
US Bantam edition release date is currently set for November 8, 2005. George will do a US tour in November, lasting at least 2 weeks. We do not have information on the tour dates or cities yet.
HarperCollinsUK has not yet set their release date. We hope to have that date in 2-4 weeks from now. Again, HarperCollinsUK has not yet set their release date.
As far as publication dates for the rest of the world, the release of the audibooks or any other tours in the UK, Australia or Europe, we do not have any information we can share with you at this time.
As always, the best places to check for updates with solid information about what's going on with GRRM are on his web site, Ran's most excellent Westeros.org, and here amongst the Bros.
So thanks to everyone for your patience and understanding, this has been a long hard five years for George, and I hope you'll understand that we both are looking forward to a break once he hands over the completed and proofed gallies to his publishers in a couple of months. But we'll always appreciate the support and enthusiasm of his readers, and thank you for the many kindnesses and gifts of friendship you give us.
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.
I just got home from a GRRM book signing at a Kansas City Brentano's and had a great time. He signed for about 45 minutes, read a Samwell Tarly chapter, and answered several questions. About 40 people were there. He was in town for an area SF convention.
I'll try to relate what I remember, and if I miss anything I apologize, because I didn't write any of this down until after I left. And if I repeat anything from the post two down, well, this is first-hand info.
Questions:
1) Will FfC and aDwD cover the five-year span that you initially planned to skip?
He said the five-year hiatus is as dead as his plan to finish the series in a trilogy. While he would like to skip ahead to age the children (esp. Bran and Arya), he feels the back-story is too interesting and important. He needs to focus on their development. While he would like to find a time to skip ahead 6 months in the story, it's unlikely.
2. When/how do you decide a new character point-of-view is necessary?
He compared this to LotR. You get a full page map of the Shire. You think it's big, because it takes up so much space, but you realize it's a small part of a big world. He started out with a few PoV and gradually expanded to include more, just as the hobbits in LotR learned there was more to the world than the Shire. He has reached a maximum number of PoV and feels that he needs to narrow the focus, and start eliminating them, which he says, we know he can do by killing off people.
He introduces a PoV to give a different perspective, and also when a character's story needs to be told.
3. Will we see Sandor again, especially in replacing Sansa's lost wolf?
Yes, we will see Sandor (in the next book I think he said) and Gregor. After that, he said he can't comment on the rest...
His Rretrospective is still available, and he says the publisher will consider a reprint when the initial copies sell through. It is too big to publish in paperback format.
Some of the other questions...
Seven books, not six. (Looks like Parris was right)
Book four will be 1100 pages, the size of GoT. As such, he has the 500 pages of book five already written.
He does not do outlines before writing the books, but he will take notes. He feels like the outlines boggle him down. He may write a chapter where, when it ends, he paints himself into a corner, and may back-track as a result.
He discussed RPGs, card games, miniatures. He is not a game designer and has no plans to help develop the games, even though he does like to have input.
He doesn't feel that it's fair to call his work gratuitous. He wants the reader to live vicariously though his books (a function of fantasy writing), feel the characters emotions. If a character is at a feast, he wants the reader to smell the food, experience Dany's discomfort at being served an unappetizing dish. The same with the sex scenes-he wants his readers to feel like they are there.
This is why he kills off his characters. He wants the suspense to be real. When the 'hero' is in a risky situation, you really don't know if he'll survive, whereas in a typical fantasy, you just wonder what will happen to the hero next, because he's never in any real danger anyway.
He has two editors: one in the UK and one in the US. The entire book is in their and the copy-editors hands. He seemed somewhat worried that with the book being published this fall (sep/oct) that they would have enough time to proof-read. He would prefer more time, but if he had finished in 2002, as expected, they would have had plenty of time to edit
What he intended to be one book will be split into two parts: aFfC and aDwD. The book was too long, longer than SoS, which was the upper-limit in size as far as his publishers were concerned.
Crows will deal with Kings Landing area, Lannisters, and Dorne, the South. The Samwell chapter should be the only one from the North.
Dragons will deal with Daenerys and the North. He decided to split by character, rather than in the middle of the story, as he wanted a complete book, rather than FfC part I and II.
We will hear snippets about Lyanna Stark.
He knows more about his created world than the real world
And for you midwesterners, he said the book signing he did in St. Louis for GoT was the worst he ever had, because no one showed up. I meant to ask him more detail but forgot.
I got four books signed, GoT, CoK, SoS, and Fevre Dream. He allowed people to go through the line multiple times if they had more than three books.
I had my picture taken with him and will post it in my profile once the film is developed and coverted to cd.
He was super nice, looked you in the eye when answering questions, answered with much detail, very polite. He was very apologetic about the book taking so long, but as much as he tours, and as much as he does for the fans, he has good reason. He's very personable and I recommend meeting him if you have the chance.
Another thing that interested me is that he pronounced Elia as "Elly-uh" (not "Eh Leah") and Doran with the stress on the second syllable (as in the band Duran Duran) (Doh Ran) rather than "Door Ann" which is how I had always thought it.
Pub Dates not yet fixed and don't believe anything you read about pub dates except from George's site or by Ran or my postings here. Right now, the publishers are looking at possible release in mid-fall.
Everything else is just conjecture and speculation.
Bantam and HarperCollins UK are in the first throes of sorting out the issues surrounding the actual FEAST that George is delivering.
The chapters in the booklet being given out at the ABE were chosen and planned back in February. The changes to the structure of FEAST were not even in George's mind a month ago, and there's still a lot of production planning that needs to be done. Bantam and HCUK had already agreed to share the same set of proofs and corrected gallies from George, and that is not a common practise. My impression is that the release dates in the UK and the USA will be very close.
Don't believe anything about publication dates you read any where else. Once George has firm dates they will be posted on his web site, and I'll come by to give the heads up to the Bros.
The publishers want to see FEAST hit the stands as much as you want to see it there, once George comes back from the ABE, he'll devote himself to the final polish of the MS. If you would like that to go faster, please don't send him an email about your personal feelings about the decisions he has made as a writer. There's more than 1,000 emails sitting in his box right now. He'd have to take a year off just to answer all of those emails that are awaiting him then he returns.
Friends, quit angst-ing so much, it's June and summer beckons, there's a thousand great books out there for you to discover, you'll barely notice the next few months roll by.
And as my one of my favorite SF characters once taught:
Waiting Is.
The best part of the reading for me was at the end.
I came in near the end of the reading, because I knew what George was going to announce that FEAST was finished.
Most of the Bros were listening to the story with intensity. When George started his explanation of the status of FEAST, folks seemed to look a little resigned, as if they were expecting another explanation on why this book was not finished.
As George started explaining the various choices presnted to him as a writer, and the needs and demands of the publishers, people started sitting up a little straighter, leaning forward, and then as it slowly dawned on them that George was telling them the book was finished, well, the smiles stared blooming, and that was a thing of beauty.
And I could finally call the travel agent and tell her to start checking on the availability of hotels and flights for the vacation we've been waiting to take for 4 years.
ConQuest is my favorite convention, almost like home to me, this year was made even more special with George and Joe as guests, with the announcement that the FEAST is ready to serve, and with so many Bros present, so many good times experienced, I am delighted that Bros and KC fans are deepening our relationships, mutually beneficial on so many levels, because there are so many things we hold in common, our friendliness, our openess to new people and experiences, our understanding that what matter most is the fun and joy we create when we gather together.
It was one damn fine time, one fine time.
Thanks everybody, thanks a lot.
Another bit of information that I found interesting- we *WILL* hear about the POVs who will not have front stage as it were, but will have it in ADwD. The reports of those chars will be somewhat garbled and messy as can be expected from any news that has travelled that distance and is that important. ex) Varys' manipulation of the Dany information, or Theon's skinning of the miller's information (we didn't know it wasn't Bran and Rickon until later). *THOSE* are the kind of reports we will see in AFFC about the missing POVs. We will get information on them, but have no idea which parts, if any, are correct.
I have some more things to add about things I asked, but I will probably trickle out things as I sober up and recall them. :p
Bran will have one or two chapters in ADwD, where otherwise he would have been left out of the what would have been the fourth book entirely. He remains one of the most difficult POVs to write due to his youth, crippled status and the magic.
[Note: Description of a spoilerish question regarding unreliable narrators removed. GRRM laughed at the question and gave no answer.]
He did skillfully change the convo to conversation about what would be one of the most fun unreliable narrarators in history- Aegon IV The Unworthy's POV. He sounded very interested and determinded to do a novel about that VERY interesting char. I would beat you all down with a stick to be able to read it.
I'm glad that people are delighted that the next book is on the way overall. GRRM and Parris themselves were worried about the reaction on the board. GRRM even mentioned yesterday that he heard that people weren't happy here. But flicking through a couple of threads I think that, ignoring a few, people are just glad that the new book is finally on the way. :D
GRRM will tell you himself its not an ideal situation. But its definitely the best way to go IMHO. (The ideal situation is that he spends years working on the whole series until it is completed. And not be pressured by publisher and fans' demands. Because of course he feels a certain obligation to his fans. :)
Just to cover a few things that I saw mentioned...
The focus in FEAST will be on Westeros, King's Landing, the riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands.
GRRM said he is unsure why he has kept the Mystery POV hidden all these years but he isn't going to reveal it now. ;) But i'm thinking we don't have a POV directly set in the Riverlands so the quote above may be a hint. Of course, Sansa, Jaime and [Note: Redacted spoiler POV] can give us info on those areas. But we can assume that it is a southern POV anyhow (It isn't Theon for example but definitely could be Brienne or Sandor).
AFAICT the only Iron Islands chapters in aFfC will be the Arms of the Kraken story. Asha will feature in at least one chapter in aDwD (which is already written).
Arya will have 3 or 4 chapters (I can't remember exactly) in aFfC. But she will be one of the characters that will also feature in aDwD. We don't know how many chapters because he hasn't written them.
He says he has currently 600 pages written for aDwD. He is expecting a 1100 page book. (All in manuscript pages.) Which is just over the size of aGoT. He probably is underestimating again. But that gives you an idea. Tyrion's story arc required 4 chapters but he thinks with another 3 chapters he can have a far more satisfying story. In other words, he is just continuing the existing story.
Other POVs characters may also feature in both books. I get the impression he doesn't want to give away too much info about aDwD or he will end up feeling straitjacketed again. That he wants to avoid feeling he has to do something because he has already commented on it. Thus he is mainly commenting on what is already written.
This is actually one of the potential benefits of the books being done this way, but because it wasn't planned this way from the beginning, I'm not sure how much he can take advantage of it
GRRM himself stated this is an advantage of this book. That we will get some hints of what is going on in the North and East but we wouldn't know what is true and what not. We may learn that Stannis is killed for example but that could easily be a red herring. :p Look how Varys often manipulated the truth.
I asked GRRM about the title no longer referring to the Nights Watch and as people explained already, the title always had multiple meanings. So it merely loses one level of significance. And when I think about it, the Crows on the Nights Watch are unlikely to have much of a feast. Except of death. :p
GRRM did mention late September/October as a publishing date but nothing has been finalised. He has to meet his publishers. I think he is doing so this week in NYC. It sounds like they are trying to publish asap. His editor has read the new version of aFfC and has not come across anything obviously wrong with the new format but is currently rereading to make sure nothing is missed. GRRM did admit that a few lines may require tweaking to ensure he doesn't give away too much.
...
He has suggested there will be 3 or so extra Tyrion chapters, a couple of Bran chapters (he originally wasnt going to appear in the old version of aFfC) and a few more Arya chapters (to go alongside those that will appear in the new version of aFfC). They are not going to add up to 500 pages. He could be expanding a few other POVs that we know will be appearing in aDwD. Or perhaps others from aFfC will be appearing. I wouldnҒt be surprised if GRRM isnt sure himself yet. He probably has a few ideas but isnҒt ready to commit publicly.
Was Baratheon the house name of the last Storm King?
NO. Baratheon is Orys' surname.
Where was Lord Rickard when the news arrived that Brandon had raced off to King's Landing?
GRRM did not say. He gave us very little information on this.
5) Is there a Lord Selmy, or are they just landed knights?
They are landed knights. Would not go into detail.
...
Arya WILL be in Feast. I asked GRRM specifically and he said, yes.
Just returned from the con. At the reading, George said that he realized that this decision would be upsetting to some of his readers, but it's really the only option that didn't make him writhe in misery. And the more he worked with it, the more he liked it. Switching between POVs is fun and all, but there's only so many unrelated POVs that a reader can keep track of. This way he gets to put in a lot of the details he was having to leave out (like 3 extra Tyrion chapters), and have books that are more cohesive.
I think it's cool because you will probably be able to ultimately read books 4 and 5 in either order and get the same tale, since they take place over the same time period.
And to sum up George's advice to those who are really, really, really upset by this: Buy both books, take an exacto knife, and dismantle the books into individual chapters. Shuffle.
I'm almost certain that at soom point last night George stated something to the effect that the Baratheon name was Orys' family name. He did not take the name of the Storm Kings.
Ok, I was woken up in the middle of the night to post this hot off the presses summary/ answer to questions. Any omissions are purely due to my sleep addled brain :b
1) Does the Baratheon name come from Orys, or did he take up the name from the Storm Kings?
Ro informed me that the Baratheon name has always been there (not sure that is an answer, but it's the one I got)
3) Catelyn recalls that at Riverrun, Brandon told her that he would return soon for their wedding. Where was he going?
GRRM refused to answer where Brandon was going.4) What happened to the last King of Mountain and Vale?
Nothing happened to them, they continue to be the lords of Arryn.6) When, specifically, did Benjen join the NW? Was it a couple of years after Ned returned, or immediately?
It was within a few months of Ned's returning. The reason being that there always was a Stark at Winterfell, so he had to stay there until Ned returned. GRRM refused to say the reason why Benjen had to join the NW.
Now as to the questions of which POV's show up in which book, the following will show up in AFFC:
Jamie, [Note: Spoiler POV redacted], Arya, Sansa, Sam (Jon will be in the first Sam chapter), the Iron Isles, Dorne, mystery POV (we don't know who the mystery POV is yet!). Asha will be in AFFC, in fact, all the chapters in Arms of the Kraken will show up in AFFC.
The following will show up in ADwD:
Arya, Bran, Jon, Dany, Tyrion, and Asha (she will be in both books, as she gets involved in affairs of the North)
Other tidbits: [Note: Spoiler POV redacted] has the most number of chapters in AFFC, while Dany has the most in ADwD. Also, the number of Tyrion chapters is going up from 4 to 7 in ADwD (his storyline is basically beinbg expanded).
[Note: Next is a clarification from a later post.]
Davos is in ADwD, according to Pod and Ro from last night. Also, I didn't mean to imply that Benjen "had to " join the NW. We don't know because GRRM wouldn't elaborate on the reasons for Benjen joining the NW.
Well GRRM explained it as follows.
The book was still incomplete and it was 80 (book) pages longer than aSoS. He thought it would take an extra 100 manuscript pages to finish it fully. His publishers were really anxious to get it published this fall so he was left with 3 choices.
1) Find a quick way to wrap up the remaining chapters and try to sweat the stuff he has already done to reduce the size of the book. Even though it was unfinished, it was already too big for them.
2) Cut the book in half by timeline, publishing the first half this fall.
3) Cut the book in half by POV.
The first option was a bad one in my opinion. You don't want the author to cut chapters, or characters because of the publishers. GRRM didn't like that either.
The second one has advantages in that it updates us with all the POVs but OTOH it leaves the stories all unfinished. Everything just suddenly ends.
Option 3 means a tighter book. We get 7 or 8 POVs like aGoT, rather than 15. We don't get lost by the huge number of plotlines.
GRRM said Dany and the Wall is excluded. That removes Dany and probably Tyrion plus the Wall which presumably means Jon and Davos. Probably Sam too although he may be going south. This leaves the Dorne chapters, Jaime, [Note: Spoiler POV redacted], Sansa in aFfC. Arya is hard to say. Similarly the Iron Islands. The latter seems more like the North to me. But I haven't read them. And who knows where the mystery POV falls into.
So aFfC gets published this fall. In October or September. Its likely that the books will be published in the US and the UK at the same time. Although the UK may get a couple of weeks headstart.
The next book will still be called aDwD. (Dany will be in it after all). This is where things get oblique again. Even though he was 100 pages away from finishing aFfC originally, he says he has 600 of an expected 1100 pages yet to write in aDwD. So clearly he feels he is putting stuff into it that he originally earmarked for the old version of aDwD.
This might refer to something he mentioned earlier in May about finding a way to deal with some characters been too young and he wants to skip ahead, while others are too active. He will just drop them.
He has offically announced that the book will take 7 books. I think aDwD will take 1 to 2 years to come out after aFfC. Getting aFfC will relieve a lot of pressure and make things easier to progress.
I think Davos will be in aDwD instead. Sam is the question.
He didn't mention changing the title of the book, so I don't believe it will change.
We all would have liked him to publish when he feels happy, but the publishers were very anxious and he has put them off long enough already. And they said the book was too big to publish as one volume anyhow (since it was still getting bigger). (I don't care if other hardbacks were published that were bigger. That is what GRRM publishers told him. And that is all that matters. Not what other publishers did). I'm happy with that. And making a tight book has a lot of advantages.
[Note: This is a response to a query regarding the publication date of the book, in terms of whether it'd come out first in the U.S. or the U.K.]
Sorry all we are having net problems. We will not have to order from the UK this time, thank god. The dates are supposed to be the same this time.
[Note: The next is from cyranovice, who spoke with Rhelle on the phone and got the following from her.]
Expected release date is Sep-Oct, around the same time in US and UK (maybe slightly earlier in UK but not significantly so).