[Summary: Dan Kenny noted 'the two brothers' (Josua and Elias, sons of Lord Willum of Renly's court) was an obvious nod to Tad Williams. At first he was concerned that it wasa rip-off, but then thought it was more likely a friendly nod.]
Definitely. I was a huge fan of Tad's MEMORY, SORROW, AND THORN -- in fact, I doubt I would ever have written my own series without the inspiration his provided.
There are a number of other "nods" to my favorite fantasy authors buried in the books as well.
As for answering too much questions... ... well, I know what you mean. I'm about to leave on my book tour for CLASH OF KINGS, however, so I'll be pretty much gone from here for the next month.
I will post the dates and times of my signing tour in the "touring" thread uptopic. Thanks for asking.
As for your other questions (boy, you folks are relentless), I don't have the precise population of King's Landing on the exact area of Westeros immediately on hand.
In very general terms, however... King's Landing is more populous than medieval London or Paris, but not so populous as medieval Constantinople or ancient Rome.
Some readers have likened Westeros to England because they see some general similarities in its shape, and in its location off the west coast of a larger landmass. The latter is true enough (I don't see the former, myself), but Westeros is much much MUCH bigger than Britain. More the size (though not the shape, obviosuly) of South America, I'd say.
The other continent is bigger, Eurasia size.
Yes, a league is three miles.
Are those purple amethysts in Sansa's hairnet the same type of purple amethyst in Cressen's chamber?
No comment.
When the Shadow emerges from Melisandres womb, it is described as looking like "the man who'd cast it." Does this mean "who would" (Cortnay) or "who did" (Stannis).
"who had"
On the Legends Bulletin Board, in response to my question regarding the stretch of time of "A Song of Fire and Ice," you have a small typo in your answer. You reply "there will be a stretch of five or year" between ASoS and ADwD. Please clarify.
Five or six years
Also, if I swear on my honor (admittedly I'm not Ned) could I persuade you to tell me who the new viewpoint will be in ASOS?
Nope.
Davos will be included, yes.
[Note: Some of these links and sites mentioned are no longer active.]
I don't maintain a web page myself, but fans and friends have been kind enough to put up some for me.
There's a lot of bibliograpic and biographic info at the SFWA website at: http://www.georgerrmartin.com/
And there's a list of some of my out of print books for sale at: http://www.horrornet.com/georgerr.htm
A number of Seven Kingdoms websites (more every day, it seems) have been established to discuss A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE and "The Hedge Knight." The oldest of them is Dragonstone, which can be found at: [url=http://www.users.bigpond.com/dragonstone/]http://www.users.bigpond.com/dragonstone/[/url]
If you follow the links from Dragonstone, they will take you to the rest of the sites.
All that being said, I'm afraid I don't answer questions on most of these sites. Some of them can get very busy, and I'd rather spend my time =writing= the books instead of answering questions about them. Also, I prefer to let my readers kick around their own theories and viewpoints about the books, and the author's presence would inevitably inhibit such free-wheeling discussion.
Tolkien always indignantly denied that LOTR was an allegory.
Yes, there are sometimes things to be found in a book of which even the author is unaware. This is particularly true for those writers whose stories sometimes seem to come bubbling up from the subconscious (which is by no means all writers, let me add). We all have monsters from the Id, and sometimes they escape into our stories with us being none the wiser.
I don't, however, believe that anything of the sort happened here, and in this case I am strongly disposed to believe Tolkien. He despised allegory, by the way.
[Summary: A reader asked if more of Ser Loras shall be seen in _A Storm of Swords_]
Not only will you see more of Ser Loras, but you'll see his mother, his father, his brother, his cousins, and you'll hear about his other brother, his uncles, and more cousins. A full bouquet of golden roses.
Highgarden and Casterly Rock are the two richest and most powerful of the Great Houses. The Lannisters have greater wealth, but the Tyrells can put more men in the field.
[Summary from Kay-Arne Hansen: I asked him if he had read 'Norwegian Kingssagas' by Snorre Sturlasson, and explained that I thought so on the basis of Sansa's story about Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk seeming to be the equivalent of the brother kings Alrik and Eirik, and went on to make suggestions about other possible 'inspirators' from the 'Kingssagas'.]
Ah... well... a fascinating theory, but...
I did take a semester of Scandinavian history back my sophomore year in college, which was.... hmmmm... around about 1967-8. I read a couple of Icelandic sagas during the course, and found them thoroughly compelling, but after the passage of thirty years I confess I no longer recall the titles or the names of any of the characters. It may be that chunks of them, buried in my subconscious, somehow surfaced during A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE... but it seems a long shot.
Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk were inspired by the twin knights of Arthurian myth, Sir Balon and Sir Balin, who appear in Mallory.
Sorry.
Nice try, though.
[Summary: Pamela asks what would happen if two bastards of different areas (she uses Snow and Rivers as an example) married: what name would a child take?]
Interesting question.
The child would most likely take the father's surname.
[Summary from Kay-Arne Hansen: I asked about a timeline for Robert's rebellion.]
I have rough notes on all of this, but it's nothing I want to publish just yet.
I may include a Timeline as an appendix in a future book, but I need to work on it some more and fill in some details before it would ready to publish.
Oh, and would you be willing to reveal who will be the characters in ASOS? I remember we knew who the characters of ACOK would be well before the book came out.
Well, mostly the same viewpoints as in CLASH, but I will be dropping Theon Greyjoy and adding Sam Tarly and <DELETED>
However, I'd rather you did not tell 'em about <DELETED>...
[EXPLANATION DELETED]
[Summary: ALANMAC asked if any of Dunk's descendants appear in _A Song of Ice and Fire_]
Oh maybe
One of the things I wanted to do with A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE was to make it a little more "real" than most high fantasy. I drew much of my inspiration from history and historical fiction, and immersed myself in the Middle Ages before I began writing. Patriarchy was as much as part of medieval society as feudalism, faith, or swords.
I have created other fictional worlds that are more sexually egalitarian -- try my novel WINDHAVEN, written with Lisa Tuttle.
With ICE AND FIRE, however, I preferred to stay closer to my historical models.
A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE will eventually run to six books, so I still have three and a half to write. That will keep me busy for quite a few years.
After that, there's no telling what I'll do. If I do eventually write a prequel to ICE AND FIRE, however, it will not concern the overthrow of Aerys II. I'd go back earlier than that, and follow up with Dunk and Egg from "The Hedge Knight."
Publishers work in mysterious ways. I delivered A CLASH OF KING to my British publisher (HarperCollins) and my American publisher (Bantam) simultaneously.
Harper's version came out first... well, because they found an earlier slot for it, and moved it through production and printing a little bit faster.