I have just a wee little question that I hope you can help me work out. If not, that's fine, I realize you're a busy man. In your series of A Song of Ice and Fire, what is the difference between a sellsword and a freerider?
Sellswords are mercenaries. They may or may not be mounted, but whether ahorse or afoot they fight for wages. Most tend to be experienced professional soldiers. You don't have a lot of green young sellswords -- some, sure, but not many. It's a profession a man tends to chose after he's tasted a few battles and learned that he's good at fighting.
You get more sellswords on the eastern side of the narrow sea than you do in Westeros. The Free Cities have made heavy use of mercenaries for centuries, to fight their endless wars in the Stepstones and the Disputed Lands. Over there many of the mercenary soldiers are organized into long-established sellsword companies, or free companies -- the Brave Companions are an example of such, though an especially unsavory one. You'll meet two more sellsword companies in A STORM OF SWORDS, the Stormcrows and the Second Sons. And there are others. The Golden Company is the largest and most famous, founded by one of Aegon the Unworthy's bastards. You won't meet them until A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.
Freeriders... well, that term is both broader and narrower. Narrower in that it excludes foot soldiers. You need a horse to be a freerider. Otherwise broader.
Freeriders are mounted fighters who are not part of a lord's retinue or feudal levy. Some are veterans, sure, but also green and untrained recruits, farm boys on ploughhorses, men dispossessed by the fighting, a very mixed bag. They don't as a rule collect wages. Some fight for plunder, of course. Other to perhaps to impress a lord or a knight , in hopes of being taken permanently into his service. For many it is simply a means to survive. If the war sweeps over your village, your house is burned, and your crops stolen or destroyed, you can hide in the ruins and starve, flee to the nearest city for refuge, take to the woods as an outlaw (the ones who do that are oft called "broken men")... or you can saddle your horse, if you're lucky enough to have one, and join one army or the other. If you do, you're a freerider. Being part of an army at least gives you a better chance of being fed.
There are all sorts of freeriders, ranging from wandering adventurers who are virtually hedge knights (lacking only the knighthood) to the aforementioned farm boys on drays. Most are used as scouts, outriders, foragers, and light cavalry.
Obviously, there is some overlap between the two terms. A mounted man who fights for pay could be called either a freerider or a sellsword.
Both terms carry a certain stigma in Westeros. Sellswords are said to have no loyalty, and freeriders no discipline.
I was wondering if you could tell who is the primary POV in ASOS? For example, Ned was the primary one in AGOT and Tyrion in ACOK.
Arya has the most chapters, but some are short. Tyrion or Jon may actually have more pages, I haven't counted. I don't think in terms of "primary POV."
Why is Oberyn Martell named the Red Viper? For being a warrior of renown? It's a cool nickname though.
The whole story is related in ASOS, but in brief, he fought a duel over a woman when he was young, his opponent died of his wounds, and thereafter it was claimed that he had poisoned his sword.
And lastly, why didn't Lord Tywin ever remarry after his wife died? Surely he would have had ample opportunities to do so? Thanks.
Maybe he didn't want to.
I heard through Ran that A Storm of Swords is finished. That has to be a great feeling, and we're all really looking forward to it, particularly after the four "teaser" chapters some of us received. Anyway, here's hoping you have a well-deserved vacation scheduled.
Vacation? What's that? HAH. No, now I've got the editing, the copyediting, the proofreading, plus my taxes to do (I took an extension to finish the book), plus a couple of other LONG overdue projects that have been squeaking, plus... sigh... it's a sad sad story.
I am going to Hawaii in July for Westercon. I will vacation then. Meanwhile, I do appreciate the congratulations. It did feel at times as if King Kong were on my back, and he's only just climbed down.
You should know that even after all this time, we're still debating things like who was behind the assassination attempt on Bran. Not to mention trying to figure out the four weddings, four trials, and two funeral.
The problem with all this speculating is that some of you are bound to guess the answers before I reveal 'em... and others may even come up with better answers than I do. Well, those are the risks one takes with such a project.
I will tell you that ASOS will resolve the question of Bran and the dagger, and also that of Jon Arryn's killer. Some other questions will =not= be resolved... and hopefully I will give you a few new puzzles to worry at.
I should caution that the four trials aren't necessarily the sort of thing a 20th century American would call a trial. Don't expect Perry of House Mason to be showing up to argue fine points of law.
Thanks again for providing all of us with a truly first-class tale and for telling it so well.
You are most welcome. Thanks for the continued interest and enthusiasm.
I assume that the Night's Watch does not pay the Black Brothers any wages in coin for their service - they get their provisions for free, after all.
What I was wondering...how do the Brothers pay the whores in Moletown? Since they're not using coin, do they pay in naturalia filched from Night Watch' stores?
I guess some women so far north would choose such a life (given that life is relatively harsher than farther south), even if they are not paid in coin...
A lot of the Mole's Town transactions are paid by barter, certaintly, but there is coin at the Wall... not much, though, especially these days... (see following answer). Some coin comes north with the highborn brothers... someone like Ser Waymar Royce undoubtedly arrived well heeled, and I imagine families send gifts and such as well... and there's trade that goes in and out of Eastwatch...
Second; do the Night's Watch receive funding and resources from Winterfell, the crown, or both?
Some from both, certainly... but traditionally the main support of the Watch has come from the Gift, a broad belt of land immediately south of the Wall, which the Watch owns. There is more about this in ASOS. The northernmost half of this was "Brandon's Gift," the southern half "the New Gift." Historically the Watch farmed the former (the stewards) and taxed the latter.
Of course, the decline in the size of the NW and the depopulation of the Gift have both have huge impacts... again, there's stuff about this is SOS.
Third; How are the would-be septas and septons of the Faith trained for their calling? Is there some academy/religious center they can go to (perhaps the Great Sept in KL), or are they trained by local septas and septons?
Both, I imagine. Some local septons are not very well educated (like priestsin medieval Europe), but there are great centers of religious training, and the Great Sept of Baelor would certainly be preeminent among them.
Fourth; where (vis-a-vis Westeros) is the Port of Ibben?
The Port of Ibben is on Ibben, a large island nation in the Shivering Sea, the polar sea that lies north of the big continent where you find the Free Cities, the Dothraki Sea, Qarth, the fleshmarts of Slaver's Bay, etc. Yes, I will do a map one day... but not in SOS. If you visualize Westeros as a big Britain and the eastern continent as mainland Europe, Ibben is kind of up where Finland would be... except there's no Scandinavia, nothing north of the Baltic except ocean.
You cannot imagine how much it thrills me to be able to tell you all that A STORM OF SWORDS is finally finished.
The manuscript is being xeroxed at Kinko's even as I type, and should be winging its way to my various editors, publishers, and agents by tomorrow.
I do feel as though as I have given birth to a wooly mammoth -- this is a BIG beast, with a nasty disposition, and pretty damned hairy too. It weighs in at 1521 manuscript pages, some 350 pages longer than A CLASH OF KINGS. There are 79 chapters, a prologue, =and= a epilogue.
I fear I lied about the four weddings and the funeral. Now that I am done, I see there are four weddings, =two= funerals, and a wake. Four trials as well. And three dragons, four bears, many mammoths, an unkindness of ravens, and a turtle of unusual size. More battles, swordfights, and deaths than I can count, but two births as well, just to remind us all that life goes on.
There's plenty more work after this, of course; editorial revisions, copediting, proofreading,correcting galleys, notice to mention the maps and the appendices, to which I must now turn my attention. But the mammoth is at least on its feet; the rest is just a matter of polishing up its tusks.
Thank you all for your patience, and your continued enthusiasm. I hope you'll feel the book was worth the wait.
How much time passed between Lord Tywin's "retreat" from the Red Fork and the "Battle of the Blackwater"? At what point between these events did Catelyn's last chapter occur?
Sigh. Obviously you are not a fan of my policy of deliberate vagueness about things like times and distances. I do hate to be pinned down...I will say, however, that Catelyn's final chapter takes place =before= the Battle of the Blackwater. As do the first few chapters in A STORM OF SWORDS...
The ironborn come from a culture with a very strong warrior tradition -- much more so than mainland Westeros. The rest of the Seven Kingdoms have a warrior caste (the knights) on top of a larger base of peasants, farmers, craftsmen, merchants, etc. The "Old Way" of the islands encouraged almost all men (and some women, like Asha) to take up raiding, at least if they were young and healthy.
A bit of news that may interest some of you -- my editors at Bantam have decided that they =will= include a preview chapter from A STORM OF SWORDS in the U.S. paperback edition of A CLASH OF KINGS, presently scheduled for publication in September.
The chapter they have chosen in the first Sansa section in A STORM OF SWORDS, where Sansa dines with Margaery Tyrell, meets her grandmother, and hears a fat fool sing "The Bear and the Maiden Fair."
Mr. Martin, I'll venture to ask a few questions on behalf of your other mad, information-starved fans:
Okay.
Do you intend to provide the more important characters with birth years? (i.e. controversies about Renly's and Edric Storm's, Benjen's and Tyrion's ages, etc). A bunch of children have their ages noted in Appendix to ACOK... But none of the adult characters, alas.
With such a large cast, it would be impossible to provide ages for everyone, and even doing just the major players would be difficult. I do try and nail it down in my own private notes where the ages are important, but in most cases it really doesn't matter whether someone is thirty three or thirty eight.
How did Ned manage to become such a paragon Northener and a close friend of Lyanna's if he spent his time in the Vale from age 8 to 18? Or did he return home at some point(when?) and was just visiting Jon Arryn prior to and after the tourney at Harrenhal?
He was fostered, not exiled. Yes, certainly he returned home. Less frequently the first few years, when he would have been performing the duties of a page and then a squire, more often and for longer periods later. During his "squire" years (he wasn't a squire in the strict sense, since he wasn't training for knighthood, but he was acting as one), he would also have accompanied Jon Arryn on many travels out of the Vale. And once he reached the age of sixteen he was a man grown, free to come to go as he liked... which would have included both time at home and in the Vale, since Jon Arryn had become a second father. The same was true of Robert, who divided his time between Storm's End and the Vale after reaching manhood, not to mention dropping in on tourneys and whatever choice fights he could find.
"I was his lord...My right, to make his match" says Lord Hoster about Brynden. Does it mean that the lord can force anyone under his rule to marry whomever he wishes? Can the people in question legally break the commitments made for them by the lord (i.e. promises, betrothals) and what penalty can the lord visit on them for this? What if they just refuse to exchange the marriage vows, etc?
They can indeed refuse to take the vows, as the Blackfish did, but there are often severe consequences to this. The lord is certainly expected to arrange the matches for his own children and unmarried younger siblings. He does not necessarily arrange marriages for his vassal lords or household knights... but they would be wise to consult with him and respect his feelings. It would not be prudent for a vassal to marry one of his liege lord's enemies, for instance.
I expect I'll come to San Jose for the worldcon there in a few years, and maybe before that... but you can keep the dollar, thanks. Use it to buy my books.
In high school, I was reading J.R.R. Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Jack Vance, along with some writers I'd gotten hooked on in grade school, like Robert A. Heinlein, Andre Norton, Eric Frank Russell, and Poul Anderson. Also lots of Ace doubles and comic books. (The first thing of mine ever published was a letter in the FANTASTIC FOUR).
I was also writing for fanzines in high school.
I read a lot of history, and mine it for good stuff, but I also like to mix and match. That is to say, I don't do straight one-for-one transplants, as some authors do, so you can't really say that X in Westeros equals Y in real life. More often X in Westeros equals Y and Z in real life, with squidges of Q, L, and A.
In the case of Dorne, yes, Wales was definitely an influence, for all the reasons you cite. But there's also some distinctly unWelsh elements down there. South of the wall of mountains you have a hot, dry country more like Spain or Palestine than the cool green valleys of Wales, with most of the settlements along the seacoast and in few great river basins. And you also have the flavor given the culture by the great Rhoynar influx led by Nymeria. I suppose the closest real life equivilent to that would be the Moorish influence in parts of Spain. So you could say Dorne is Wales mixed with Spain and Palestine with some entirely imaginary influences mixed in. Or you could just say it's Dorne....
Well, my books are edited by my editors -- Anne Lesley Groell at Bantam (US) and Jane Johnson and Joy Chamberlain at HarperCollins Voyager (UK). I do send them sections as I go along -- not individual chapters but sizeable chunks -- but the editing does not really begin until I deliver the finished novel. At which point they read the book and give me notes, and I revise. Then the manuscript goes to a copyeditor, who checks it for grammar, syntax, spelling, internal consistancy, and the like, and flags any mistakes. Which I then fix. Then the book goes to the typesetters, and I receive a set of galley proofs to check and correct. The typesetting process introduces new mistakes that have to be found and corrected.
All this takes time, obviously.
I have heard the same tales as you of writers who submit chapter one while still writing chapter two, but I could never work that way. I revise constantly as I go along, always honing and polishing. I may get a new idea while writing chapter fifty two which requires me to go back and change chapters three, nine, and twenty-one. If you lose the ability to do that, because the earlier chapters are already set in type before the later ones are finished, you're binding yourself in chains.
I am delighted to report that A CLASH OF KINGS has been nominated for a Nebula Award by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). The final ballot in the novel category is:
George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings (Bantam, Feb99)
Vernor Vinge, A Deepness in the Sky (St. Martins Press, Feb99; Tor, Jan00)
Maureen McHugh, Mission Child (Avon Eos, Dec98; Eos, Nov99)
Sean Stewart, Mockingbird (Ace, Aug98; Ace, Mar00)
Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents (Seven Stories Press, Nov98; Warner Books, Jan00)
Ken Macleod, The Cassini Division (Tor, Jul99)
The book's still not done, but I'm getting awfully close. Another couple of weeks should do it, I hope.
It looks as though it will be the longest volume to date.
[Summary: This is the text of an AOL Instant Messanger chat between Flayed Man and Mr. Martin, concerning both reputed mountain clans in the North and the attitudes of the valelords towards the Starks]
Flayed Man: mr martin please answer this for me.. in north while it is being invaded by ironborn and possibly by BOB, there are resistant factions and you once said that there are "mountain clans". and in north there are mountain clans yes?
GeoRR: in the mountains northwest of Winterfell, yes
Flayed Man: and they remain loyal to starks? since they fight for their land and north? like scottish clans loyal to their kings?
GeoRR: yes, they are loyal to Winterfell... at least they have been loyal in the past
Flayed Man: finally (i know you are busy and all) as of your personally thinking the lords of vale they are friendly to starks and tullys as if they are brothers and there are lords who are "itching" to get pieace of lannisters and want to help robb. Also tell me how friendly are they with robb right now (how the lords of vale feel about robb).
GeoRR: The lords of the Vale are numerous. As with any large group, their views vary.
GeoRR: "Brothers" overstates the case, but certainly Ned made friends during his years in the Eyrie... so did Robert, however, so some of the Vale houses would be just as well disposed toward Baratheon as toward Stark.
GeoRR: Do some of the them want to join Robb? Certainly. Most notably Bronze Yohn Royce. Others, however, want no part of the war, and some may even favor the other contenders.