GRRM has now shared that he’s been spending time in the rainwood (that’s a region of the Stormlands), and that the manuscript count is 1205 pages, making it the second longest novel in the series, 300 pages shy of A Storm of Swords.
GRRM shares a fresh update on his progress on A Dance with Dragons, which is slightly spoilerish. Suffice it to say, he’s writing about characters in warmer climes, and thinks that with the pace he’s working at one or even two chapters could be completed by the end of the week. In comments he adds that he’s within “spitting distance” of 1200 pages of manuscript (which means roughly 800 pages, using a rough rule-of-thumb 1.5:1 ratio) while stating that it’s not impossible some parts of the novel might move to the next book if, when it’s turned in to editors, it’s longer than A Storm of Swords.
Over at “Not a Blog, GRRM has started a poll for fans to have a say as to what characters the next wave of miniatures from Dark Sword Miniatures will depict. Presently, Daenerys Targaryen-as-queen has a commanding lead, with Benjen Stark and Bran with Hodor neck-and-neck for second place.
Twitter is presently awash with Brazilian fantasy fans excitedly reporting the news that A Game of Thrones will be published in Brazil in the native Brazilian Portuguse dialect. This is a major international sale, with Brazil being a rapidly growing book-buying market. From what I can make of this article, the book will be published by Brazillian publisher Leya, with A Game of Thrones due to be published in translation in the second half of 2010.
It’s not absolutely clear to me, but it’s possible that the Brazilian fantasy author, Raphael Draccon, may have been a key figure in bringing the publisher and GRRM’s representation to the table. Certainly, in the article linked above he is incredibly enthusiastic for the series and its prospects in Brazil.
GRRM’s official site has been updated with several new updates on “Not a Blog”. Among them, GRRM clarifies that he had in fact finished a Jon Snow chapter that he was happy with, and that he may be shifting back to the Meereenese point of views. Speaking of snow, he shares an image of a painted Sansa Stark miniature from Dark Sword Miniatures.
Finally, and sadly, he shares the news of the death of fellow writer, Kage Baker, due to cancer. Baker contributed a fine Cugel the Clever story toSongs of the Dying Earth, and wrote a number of award-nominated and otherwise notable short stories and novels besides. She will be missed.
Following up Thursday’s post, GRRM confirms that the snowy weather was inspiring the next day, and that he’s done some good work on A Dance with Dragons that he’s happy with. It seems likely that he switched to writing Jon Snow, as he hinted in the earlier post. Also, in regards to the earlier post, in comments GRRM declined to provide an estimate of when he’d be done, as he admits that he has been very bad at guessing such things so far.
GRRM has provided an update on his current work on the much-anticipated A Dance with Dragons. The “Meereenese knot” has been a central difficulty, and it seems like Martin is making some serious headway, with a completed chapter (although one which has has completed four times before) and switching to a new POV (meaning the addition of a new POV?) to help provide an insider’s perspective to some of the events that make up the “knot”.
Dark Sword Miniatures has put up pictures of several of the latest wave of miniatures, painted by their in-house artists. GRRM already shared Brienne of Tarth, but we now also have Robb Stark, Arya Stark, and Ghost painted up. All the figures are painted by the award-winning Marike Reimer, who’s done a fabulous job with Tom Meier‘s and Dave Summers’ sculpts.
The miniatures (unassembled and unpainted) can be purchased via Dark Sword’s online store.
Tor have given the Fantasy Hotlist an exclusive excerpt of “The Mystery Knight”, the third novella in the Dunk & Egg stories set in the past of the Seven Kingdoms. The story will be published in the Warriors anthology, due March 16th.
Dark Sword Miniatures now have the latest wave of George R.R. Martin Masterworks miniatures available for sale on their online store. The figures include Catelyn, Sansa, Sansa with snow castle, Arya, Brienne of Tarth, and Robb all sculpted by Tom Meier. It also includes Jon Snow’s direwolf, Ghost, sculpted by Dave Summers.
George R.R. Martin posts about getting his own copies of Valyrian Steel‘s replica of Needle, Arya Stark’s sword patterned after the fashion of the swords that the bravos of the Free Cities use. In describing it, he points out that they are a limited edition of 2500. Valyrian Steel has also made Jon Snow’s sword, Longclaw, already available for sale. Next up? Ice, the design of which they’ve previewed.
Fantasy Flight Games has announced details for the fourth chapter pack in the current Defenders of the North series, The Wildling Horde. It’s a 40 card pack offering twenty brand new cards to use in the game, and will be made available this spring.
The upcoming Warriors cross-genre anthology (US, UK), co-edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, is slated for a March 16th release according to the publisher’s site . Unlike the recently delivered Songs of Love and Death, among the bestselling authors contibuting a story is GRRM himself, the third in his series of “Dunk & Egg” prequels.
“The Mystery Knight” is described as a long novella, and GRRM’s read an excerpt from it a conventions revealing that the story is one full of intrigue with a wedding tourney serving as background. Larry of the Read and Find Out forum has recently had a chance to read it, and shares some remarks here and indicating that he quite enjoyed it.
According to ICV2, three GRRM-related roleplaying game titles will be published by Green Ronin in the first three months of the year: the A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide in February, the A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, Pocket Edition in March, and the Wild Cards: Aces & Jokers sourcebook in March.
Random House (the parent of Bantam) has a trade publication (note: large PDF file) on-line, looking forward to their plans for this year. Down at page page 107 is an entry for the 2011 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar, illustrated by John Picacio. It’s given a $16 price point ($19 in Canada), which is the first time we’ve had a recommended retailer price.
It’s projected that this will only be the first such calendar via Bantam, as they cite the popularity of the Tolkien calendars. Notably, they matter-of-factly state that if the HBO production goes forward, this will have a positive impact on the sales of the series as well as on related merchandise.Finally, they have adjusted their sales figures upwards for the series. Previously, the books were said to have had 2.2 million copies in print, and now it’s pegged at over 3.5 million.
Many thanks to Adam Whitehead of The Wertzone for pointing this document (which has other interesting things to say about out.