Westeros

This year’s European science fiction and fantasy convention is Titancon, based in Belfast, Northern Ireland; it runs from August 22nd to August 25th. Founded as the world’s first Game of Thrones-focused convention, it has for years now provided fans a chance to meet notable authors and actors. As a full-on Eurocon, however, this year’s Titancon will be the largest ever, and will feature scores of authors, artists, and creators. And to mark such an occasion, Titancon has just announced—after a long silence—that they have secured George R.R. Martin as their guest of honor.

Suffice it to say, Titancon’s organizers have for years been interested in bringing George to Belfast. This will be a rare opportunity for fans to take part in a European convention where George is in attendance, and in a location that has won global attention as the home of Game of Thrones. We’ve had the pleasure of having visited several times (including attending a previous Titancon), and think there’ll be a lot of interest for fans of George, of fantasy and science fiction, and of course of Game of Thrones. For one thing, the touring exhibition will be in Belfast, and for another just a week prior Dublin will be hosting the 77th Worldcon (which George will also be attending—as will we!).

There’s quite a lot to see in Northern Ireland for those interested in Game of Thrones tourism, as we’ve covered before. George at Titancon just makes this August all the more tempting a time to visit.

 

 

After having revealed a few months ago that a Fire and Blood limited edition was in the offing, Subterranean Press has now made pre-orders available for this exclusive edition of George R.R. Martin’s history of House Targaryen (part 1).

This limited edition—52 lettered (all sold out) and 750 numbered—includes some bonuses over the standard edition that was published last month. It contains all the same art from the talented Doug Wheatley, but augments it with full-color artwork (such as the piece above) by the legendary Gary Gianni. Well-worth grabbing if you are a collector, or simply a fan of Gianni’s renderings of Westeros. His illustrations for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms show just how amazing his work can be.

Though the initial, ambitious exhibition fundraiser did not quite pan out, the organizers behind the amazing Unseen Westeros project have bounced back with a new initiative that’s done very well indeed!

The new Kickstarter has already beaten its goal as it provides funders the opportunity to support the artbook, with any funds raised beyond what’s needed to produce the books to be put towards realizing the exhibition in some form (perhaps in a new location, or for fewer days) with a prospective exhibition date still set for January.

There’s just one week left before the Kickstarter closes out, and it looks like it will be the only way to get a hold of the professionally-printed, 150 page art book featuring all the artworks by professional artists.

 

Fire and Blood is now out in the wild! Fans at our forum are already wading into it.

Two days ago, George R.R. Martin and John Hodgman appeared on stage to talk about the book and other matters (such as The Winds of Winter), and Random House has now posted the video:

Also timed with the launch of the book, a last promotional video from George discusses how useful Fire and Blood could be for Daenerys, but alas, she has no access to it. The video was posted exclusively at Esquire.

Linda and I are planning at least a couple of videos about the book, and we’re even considering doing a livestream to interact with viewers directly, answering questions or discussing ideas they may have. Keep an eye on the site as well as Twitter and Facebook for news on that!

A trio of new Fire and Blood excerpts have been released since our last post, as well as a new #TargaryenThursday video from George R.R. Martin, one that bears commenting on.

The first of the new excerpts actually comes from the Russian publisher, published on the website of the Russian edition of the magazine Maxim, and of course is all in Russian. But Google Translate can help make it understandable, even if there are some quirks. One thing I will note is that it’s clear that the translator had to work off an earlier draft of that particular material, as there’s at least one detail that was changed by the final version of the book.

The second excerpt comes from Entertainment Weekly, and covers material already published for the most part in “The Princess and the Queen” and The World of Ice and Fire, but contains some new details that had been edited out.

And finally, the Times of London has another excerpt, although it is behind a paywall. The text makes it sound like it, too, will largely contain material already previously seen, but again some new details may slip out.

Below, you’ll find George’s Targaryen Thursday video, and our comment on it:

The Hollywood Reporter has released an exclusive excerpt from the forthcoming Fire and Blood. This excerpt is from a piece originally written for The World of Ice and Fire, providing some details regarding Aegon I’s reign after the Conquest, including the development of King’s Landing as the royal capital and the founding of the Kingsguard.

The book will be released on November 20th. If you missed it, we have an exclusive interview, as well as exclusive art, from Doug Wheatley who provides the book’s interior illustrations.

On this #TargaryenThursday, we’re publishing an exclusive interview with Doug Wheatley, the artist whose work is featured throughout the forthcoming Fire and Blood. A veteran artist long associated with Star Wars comics, Wheatley has a wide portfolio, including having provided illustrations for our own The World of Ice & Fire (a fact we reference in our first remark).

There’s a number of images illustrating the piece, including an exclusive revealing the hapless Aenys I! Here’s the interview:

The full chapter list Fire & Blood (on shelves from November 20th)  has been posted at GRRM’s official Facebook page for the forthcoming. The book, the first of two planned volumes covering the history of the Targaryen dynasty from its beginning to its end, is over 709 pages long.

Some of the material herein was originally written for The World of Ice and Fire, but most of it has only ever been seen in abridged form, sometimes very heavily abridged as with the material concerning the regency of Aegon III (we had to cut it down to about two thousand words). The exceptions are the history of Aegon’s conquest, which we published in full in TWoIaF, and the “Sons of the Dragon” which was published in full… but which George has since (slightly) expanded. And then there’s the new material, namely almost the entirety of the material concerning King Jaehaerys I and his sister/wife Good Queen Alysanne. We’ve seen it, and there’s a lot of meaty new details about their reign, their children… and, perhaps, a few things that might be of interest to those more concerned with their more recent descendants.

A fan on our forum has turned up a great find: Random House has quietly revealed that next year’s 2020 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar will be illustrated by the legendary John Howe.

From the Random House listing, which reveals that this edition of the calendar is themed:

Howe, most famous for his outstanding art set in Tolkien’s Middle-earth and his contribution to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, is no stranger to Westeros: he illustrated Meisha Merlin’s limited edition of A Clash of Kings, a few samples of which fans can find on his website.

The calendar will be on sale on July 16, 2019.

The Unseen Westeros art project is still raising funds, and with the help of the organizers we’ve gotten the opportunity to look at the art they’ve collected from the forty talented, professional artists (many who have worked on Game of Thrones!) for their planned art exhibition in Berlin. In the video below, we selected five of the many locales the artists have depicted to give some information and share our thoughts.

If you click through to Youtube, you’ll see timestamps to each of the particular places we talk about, but they are a Rhoynish town, Lorath, the Rhoynish festival city of Chroyane (before its ruin), the Summer Isles, and the mysterious Stygai within the Vale of Shadows. Let us know what you think in the comments, and remember to check out the Kickstarter!

We knew something was up awhile back when a fact-checker for the New York Times contacted us with some questions for an article that was in the works by Charles Yu. That piece has now been published, a lengthy profile and interview with George R.R. Martin about his work with a special focus on A Song of Ice and Fire and the world Martin has built in the process of writing the novels. Westeros gets mentioned, as does the Wiki of Ice and Fire and the Brotherhood without Banners fan group, which is terrific.

As a companion to the piece, the NY Times also published a Q&A with GRRM with questions from fans. Some questions are silly, but some interesting ones as well, including one on dieties and the conflict with the Others that led George to immediately pass on answering before the question was even out.

The Unseen Westeros project is still fundraising, and the organizers have done something quite cool: they’ve teamed up with Adobe (the world’s leading maker of graphics software, particularly Photoshop) to provide a number of “making of” videos showing timelapses of several pieces being created from start to finish.

As an added feature,, there’s a pretty cool set of tutorial videos by Philipp Scherer using his depiction of Norvos toward the bottom of Adobe’s feature. Well-worth checking out if you’ve any interest in digital art!

If you like what you see, considering supporing the Kickstarter to help make the exhibition a reality!

The good folks at the Shire Post Mint have launched a brand new Kickstarter campaign, this time for one of the most expansive coin sets yet featuring coins of the Seven Kingdoms from before the Targaryen conquest.

The concept art is exciting, and the fact that the top tier Kickstarter reward is a limited edition of 50 wooden-and-resin maps signed by GRRM makes it clear that this is a particularly important entry in the Shire Post’s history with the A Song of Ice and Fire series that stretches back 15 years.

The WORD bookstores and George R.R. Martin have announced a special event to promote Fire & Blood: George’s only ticketed event to promote the book, with John Hodgman interviewing him with a Q&A following. The event will take place on November 19 in Jersey City, at the Landmark Loew’s Jersey Theatre. Tickets will admit two people, and will include a signed copy of the book.

Besides that, a limited number of pre-signed books can be purchased without a ticket.

This is not the first time Hodgman has interviewed George—back in 2011, he interviewed GRRM for The Sound of Young America podcast.

An excerpt from Fire and Blood volume 1, a history of the Targaryen kings from Aegon I to Aegon III, has now been posted at George R.R. Martin’s “Not a Blog”. Along with it, there’s a video from George discussing the book’s “author”, Maester Gyldayn, whom GRRM describes as a very distinguished scholar, but idiosyncratic with views that Martin doesn’t vouch for.

Also included is a portrait of King Jaehaerys I the Conciliator and his sister and wife, Good Queen Alysanne, by Doug Wheatley to go along with the excerpt recounting their famous progress to the North… a progress which did not go quite as planned, as the excerpt reveals. Among other things, it introduces the taciturn and “notoriously prickly” Alaric Stark, the Lord of Winterfell. Suffice it to say, F&B will provide a lot of surprises and nuances to the picture of Targaryen history that the A Song of Ice and Fire novels and even The World of Ice and Fire (which is “based”, in part, on “Gyldayn’s” writings).