I hope you're a little kinder to Tyrion in the future! He's my favorite character, but he somehow seems to (undeservedly) get the shortend of the stick on a regular basis. Fortunately his wits compensate for all the ill luck you seem to throw his way. Sorry... I just hadto speak my mind.
Well, I'm fond of Tyrion as well... but I am afraid his travails have just begun. Of course, that's true for all of them. Things will get a lot worse before they get better, I fear.
The Good News: A CLASH OF KINGS has received enough nominations to appear on the Nebula Award preliminary ballot. The members of SFWA (the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) are now voting to decide which five or six books will make it onto the final ballot and become Nebula nominees. You are all welcomed to keep your fingers crossed.
The Bad News: I have not yet delivered A STORM OF SWORDS to my publishers. However, I am getting very close now, and I hope it will not be much longer.
There is an aspect of a SOI&F (and all high/medieval fanatasy) which has me puzzled. Why is there so little technological procees? The Starks have been medieval lords and kings for millenia, and it seems that there is very little chance of Westeros ever progessing beyond a medieval society. Is this becuase the existence of magic inhibits or precludes linear technological progress?
Oh, I wouldn't go that far.
I don't know that "linear technological progress" is necessarily inevitable in a society. In fact, if you look at our real world, it only happened once. Other cultures and societies existed for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years without ever experiencing major technological change.
In the specific case of Westeros, the unpredictable nature of the seasonal changes and the harshness of the winters must play a role.
I do think that magic perhaps makes development of the scientific method less likely. If men can fly by means of a spell, do you ever get the Wright Brothers? Or even daVinci? An interesting question, and I'm not sure I know the answer.
Is it true that you based A Song of Ice and Fire off the War of Roses?
No, not really. Certainly I wanted to give my series a strong grounding in real medieval history, rather than in other fantasy novels, but I drew on a whole number of sources and periods. The Wars of the Roses, yes, but also the Hundred Years War, the Crusades, the Norman Conquest... you name it.
First off, I want to congratulate you on how...what's a good word...anxious you've made everyone by not revealing the newest character addition for A Storm of Swords. One question (no, I won't ask who it is as much as I want to know), do you plan on revealing the character's identity before the book is released, or are you going to stay quiet and let the first blabber-mouth announce it when they get it?
I'll be staying quiet, so I guess the reveal will go to the aforementioned blabber mouth.
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Robin Hobb is very good. Her Assassin's Apprentice series was excellent, but I think the current Liveship Traders is even better. And if you haven'r tried him, there is always Jack Vance, whom I regard as the greatest living fantasist. Try any of the Dying Earth series, or the Lyonesse trilogy. Superb stuff.
Thanks for all the kind words. I hope you'll like the forthcoming books as much as you did the first two.
As for signings in California... on the first two volumes, Bantam scheduled signings in San Diego (Mysterious Galaxy), Los Angeles (Dangerous Visions), and the Bay Area (Kepler's in Menlo Park and Dark Carnival in Berkley). I imagine I will be returning to some of the same places once again when A STORM OF SWORDS comes out.
I thought I might pass on the word that the U.S. paperback release of A CLASH OF KINGS has been pushed back to September. It was originally scheduled for February, a year after the hardcover release, but the hardcover edition is still selling very strongly, so Bantam decided to keep it on the racks a while longer.
Readers who can't afford the hardcover edition might check out some of the British bookstores on the web. The British mass market paperback has been out for several months.
I am still working on A STORM OF SWORDS. I am on the home stretch, I'd like to think, and hope to finish and deliver it soon. My publishers are ready and waiting. (Today I got a phone call from my American editor and an email from my Dutch editor, so the readers aren't the only ones asking.) The publication wheels are rolling; on both sides of the Atlantic, my publishers have started work on the covers, and the artists (Jim Burns in the UK and Stephen Youll in the USA) are at work on paintings. They tell me that the Burns painting will feature a swordfight, and the Youll a funeral; both based on scenes from the book.
I will drop another note to all the webmasters when the book is done, just to keep you up to date. In the meantime, I would appreciate if you could ask the fans to stop sending me so many emails asking when the book will be released. I appreciate the interest and all the kind words, but the last thing I need just now is a lot of email to answer. Please understand -- I am not asking the fans to stop writing, just to lay off for a short time while I finish the novel. Once the beast is penned, some of the stress will be off, and I will enjoy getting and answering email again... although I will no doubt continue to be as dilatory as ever in responding to it.
Thanks for your help.
I have also been getting questions about personal appearances during the next year. Bantam will likely be sending me on a promotional tour for A STORM OF SWORDS, but I don't know what dates or cities that will involve. I will be travelling to Germany in October; I plan to appear at a con in Leipzig, to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair, and to do a signing at a shop in Berlin. I will also be in Chicago over Labor Day for the World SF Convention. Rivercon in Louisville, Kentucky in July is a strong possibility, and Westercon in Honolulu over July 4th is a definite. I will be doing readings at most of these cons.
I hope 2000 is a great year for all of us. (It's 300 in the Seven Kingdoms. I thought maybe all the magic should stop working on account of the Y3C spell bug, but then I thought, nah).
[Note: The precise date, beyond 2000, is unknown.]
[The response to this mail concerns a question about a statement Renly makes (quoted by myself and included in Martin's response) about justification for the Baratheon claim to the throne after the rebellion.]
"Oh, there was talk of the blood ties between Baratheon and Targaryen, of weddings a hundred years past, _of second sons and elder daughters._"
Ummmm... I think you are putting a lot more weight on this slender branch than it can bear. Renly was a carefree and careless soul, and he was speaking in broad generalizations here. He cared almost nothing about the legal basis of his brother's claim, as the context makes clear; so far as he was concerned, the only thing that mattered was the size of your army.
HarperCollins UK just sent me some copies of an advertising supplement they did in the GUARDIAN newspaper. It includes a "Timeline" of landmarks of SF and fantasy through history, and they included A GAME OF THRONES (they had better, they publish it over there).
The best part, though, is the capsule description, wherein they call ASOIAF "the 12 CAESARS of fantasy literature, with characters so venomous they could eat the Borgias."
I must say, being compared to Suetonius certainly beats being compared to David Eddings, but my various part is "CHARACTERS SO VENOMOUS THEY COULD EAT THE BORGIAS!" With ketchup or hot sauce, I wonder?
I am under impression, that unlike in historical middle ages, the land estates in Westeros are neither splitted among several children, nor combined. Basically, the heir inherits all and if another title comes their way, it goes to a hetherto landless sibling. Am I right?
More or less. Holdings are seldom divided. Nor are they combined, as a rule, although one person could concievably hold more than one title. The other major factor is the current lord -- if one decided to do something unusual with his estates, that would carry weight. (Might also cause disputes, though)
Yet being a landless son of a noble family doesn't prevent one from marriage (as it did in the middle ages). So, is a lord in Westeros bound by law and custom to support his relatives with a designated portion of his income?
No. Some do (the Freys, the Lannisters). Some don't (Gregor Clegane with Sandor). Some put their excess relatives to work (the Freys again) in the castle, or give them vassal holdfasts (the Starks and Targaryens).
And if so, why aren't excessive relatives shunted into the Faith, Citadel, etc. in order to concerve the family fortune?
Some are. The Freys again. The Tyrells as well.
Also, what about dowries?
What about them?
And what's the difference between landed knights (Ser Gregor Clegane) and very small lords (i.e. Lord Baelish the Elder)?
The title. A lord has greater powers of rulership over his domain (the power of pits and gallows, it was called in some medieval cultures) Lord would generally be considered the more prestigious title. A knight is (or was) a fighting man, however; that title has its own specific martial and religious meanings -- and in a culture that reveres the warrior, its own prestige. Not all lords are knights.
A landed knight could concievably have greater holdings than a small lord.
First; did Ser Forley Prester send any part of his 4000 men at the Golden Tooth to Ser Stafford Lannister at Oxcross, in order to augment his host? Or were they all kept at the Tooth by Prester?
That's much too big a garrison for a small castle like the Tooth, so I expect that he sent many of them down to Ser Stafford. Blooded veterans to help train the raw green levies... of course, that didn't work out too well...
Second; what did Robb do with the Tyroshi sellsword who dipped his banners at Riverrun?
I don't know what Robb did with him... but =I= forgot all about him, I blush to admit.
Now that you've reminded me... I imagine he kept most of them with him when he went west. Having just marched through the westerlands when they were on the other side, they would have had a certain value.
I also would expect that he suffered some desertions... these men were not bound to him by oath or ancient loyalty, and there was plenty of plunder to be had...
There's at least one Tyroshi outlaw in the riverlands in SOS... good chance he was a deserter, although whether it was Jaime or Robb that he deserted, I couldn't tell you right now...
Who was the Queen of Thorns betrothed to? Her age is kind of indeterminate, but if she's 85, I figure it could be Aerion Targaryen himself. Her comment about him is what makes me think that. On the other hand, if she's younger, I suppose it was one of Egg's sons.
She's not that old. Remember, she's Mace Tyrell's mother, not his grandmother. She's in her sixties, I'd say. Did I say she was older in the manuscript? If so, I need to go back and fix that. As to her betrothal... that's a story yet to be told.
"A fanfare of trumpets greeted each of the heroes as he stepped between the great oaken doors. Heralds cried his name and deeds for all to hear..."
The Tyrells are given pride of place. Are the heralds recounting deeds on the battlefield of the Blackwater or something more general ('knighted at 15, defeated the Kingslayer in the final tilt on Joffrey's nameday, etc.')? This has to do with the whole Renly's ghost thing, I admit, but if Loras and Garlan both have an arm-long list of deeds from the battle recited as they enter the hall...
The Knight of Flowers fought gloriously on the Blackwater, and I have no doubt that the heralds mentioned that, but his other martial accompishments were also mentioned, no doubt.
In 'The Hedge Knight' ancient dragons are mentioned, thousands of years olds. Were there Dragons in Westeros before the Targaryens brought them, or did the Targaryens bring the skeletons of the old Dragons with them?
There were dragons all over, once.
The follow up question, which I realise may be something you keep for the books, is what happened to the Dragons out of Westeros? If I understood correctly, the Alchemists say that there were no more Dragons anywhere. Was that so?
There are no more dragons known to exist... but this is a medieval period, and large parts of the world are still terra incognita, so there are always tales of dragon sightings in far off mysterious places. The maesters tend to discount those.
I am a huge fan of Tad Williams. Although I loved Tolkien for many years, I had pretty much stopped reading modern fantasy, since so much of it was awful derivative stuff. Then I tried Tad's DRAGONBONE CHAIR, and sat up and said to myself, "Yes! This genre can be terrific, in the hands of a good writer."
I would likely never have written A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE without that inspiration.
So, yes, "Josua and Elyas" are definitely a tip o' the hat to one of my favorite fantasy writers. And here's a hint... there are numerous similar homages to other favorites buried in the text, if you can find 'em.