Westeros

Just 29 days to go before the publication of The World of Ice and Fire (Pre-order: Amazon US, Amazon UK), and we admit, we’re getting excited as well by the flurry of activity that’ll follow on the forum and elsewhere concerning all the new setting information (and a few little details relevant to various mysteries in A Song of Ice and Fire).

Contrary to what Amazon UK says at the moment, by the by, it will be out on October 28th in the UK—HarperCollins Voyager is sorting that error out with Amazon. We can say that a number of publishers around the world will be bringing out translated editions, including our native Sweden, as well as Brazil, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Russia, and more—but those will be released at various points in time as they complete their translations and print their editions. In total, a dozen countries will be publishing it so far, with negotiations ongoing in a number of others.









Not really sure what The World of Ice and Fire is? Earlier this year, Linda and I did a video about it that can help with that:

Back in March, Linda and I were invited to the grand opening of the Power Games (Maktspel) exhibit in Stockholm’s Royal Armory, featuring a replica of the Iron Throne as well as numerous costumes from Game of Thrones alongside with historical costumes from Sweden’s royal history as well as costumes from the award-winning Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. It was a fine occasion, and the quality of the exhibit itself was exceptional.

Now, we’ve been invited back on October 4th for a special event built around the exhibit. Beginning at 11AM, with a chance to have a photo taken by a professional photographer as attendees sit on the Iron Throne, the event will include guided tours of the exhibit, as well as a couple of seminars which begin at 3:00PM. One will focus on on the burgeoning popularity of fantasy, featuring the founder of Sweden’s excellent SF Bokhandlen SF/F bookstore… and the other will be all about The World of Ice and Fire (Pre-order:US, UK), Westeros.org, and history in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, featuring Linda andme as well as genre experts from SF Bokhandlen.

Tickets for the seminars can be booked by mailing .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or calling 08-402 30 30 (Monday-Friday between 9-12). The seminar ticket cost is 100 kr, including entry to the museum, and our panel, at least, will be in English.

Hope to see some fellow A Song of Ice and Fire fans there!

Right after Loncon 3—this year’s World Science Fiction Convention—wraps up, George R.R. Martin and fellow fantasist Robin Hobb will be making a special appearance in central London on August 19th. The news, from Martin’s UK publisher Harper Collins Voyager, notes that seating will be limited so tickets are running at £45… but in partnership with sponsor Blinkbox, the event will be streamed on Blinkbox’s Facebook page for all of those who couldn’t get tickets (or live on the wrong continent to consider getting them!)

On a related note, Voyager has recently revealed the UK cover for the forthcoming The World of Ice and Fire, which Linda and I have co-written with George. It’s a variation on the American cover, with a black background and some distinctive flames as well other things like font choices to bring it in line with the U.K’s editions of the A Song of Ice and Fire series.

A new social reading app for iOs, Booke, is in the works, and an Indiegogo campaign aims to both help promote the app and generate some exclusive content for the George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois edited Rogues, containing Martin’s “The Rogue Prince”, a historical account of the reign of Viserys I and of his troublesome brother Prince Daemon Targaryen.

Rather than being an e-book reader, Booke is an adjunct to the printed word, a way for publishers, creators, and fellow readers to curate content around books and magazine articles. A book may have had the publisher highlighting quotes and linking to images or videos, or it could have fans providing short annotations and commentaries. Booke has received the support of Random House, publisher of Rogues, to use that book as a particular test case—if the Indiegogo goal is met, they’ll bring aboard artists such as Dagmara Matuszak,Ted Nasmith, Marc Fishman and Marc Simonetti so that they can provide exclusive art to illustrate excerpts from the stories contained in the volume; not just Martin’s own contribution, but also works by Patrick Rothfuss, Neil Gaiman, Scott Lynch, Joe Abercrombie, Connie Willis, Daniel Abraham, and more.

See below for a video describing Booke, and what it can do for you, in more detail!

As promised, Linda and I are very pleased to present a second excerpt from The World of Ice and Fire  (Pre-order: Amazon US, Amazon UK), following George’s excerpt from last month. Our own excerpt features the beginning of “The Ten Thousand Ships”, the section devoted to the events leading to the arrival of the Rhoynar in Westeros, beginning with the relationship—and eventual conflict—between the people of the Rhoyne and the Valyrians. Those of you who’ve looked at the other available glimpses of the book know, the book’s richly illustrated with beautiful artwork from many artists. Below, you’ll find one of those pieces of art, a depiction of Princess Nymeria by artist J.K. Drummond.

And as an added bonus, at the end of the extract is a video Linda and I recoreded from our Youtube channel, discussing the origins of the book, the writing process, and going over some of its content. Enjoy!

The Ten Thousand Ships

The last of the great migrations into Westeros happened long after the coming of the First Men and the Andals. For once the Ghiscari wars had ended, the dragonlords of Valyria turned their gaze toward the west, where the growth of Valyrian power brought the Freehold and its colonies into conflict with the peoples of the Rhoyne.

The mightiest river in the world, the Rhoyne’s many tributaries stretched across much of western Essos. Along their banks had arisen a civilization and culture as storied and ancient as the Old Empire of Ghis. The Rhoynar had grown rich off the bounty of their river; Mother Rhoyne, they named her.

It’s been in the work for a few months, and at last, those of you with iOS or Android devices have a good chance (regional availability aside) to get a hold of the latest update to the World of Ice and Fire app (not the same thing as the forthcoming The World of Ice and Fire book), also known as the Game of Throens Guide for Android devices (Order: iTunes, Google Play). It’s a very substantial update, including dozens of new character entries, and scores of entries for many of the locations in the Lands of Ice and Fire maps. Especially all those new, never-before-mentioned locations found on the map of Essos, all taken straight from notes and details GRRM shared with us.

And for more casual fans who aren’t so interested in entries and the accompanying art? A Tyrion chapter from The Wind of Winter is included in the app, which is free to download (info packs—detailed entries that carry the app through the various books of the series—must be paid for as in-app purchases, but are unnecessary to get the excerpt).

Now, there’s lots of questions surrounding the app and its availability, so we’ll try and answer them below.

Although George announced his completion of work on The World of Ice and Fire (Pre-order: Amazon US, Amazon UK) in a post on Not a Blog last week, Linda and I have held off a similar post because our side of things wasn’t yet quite done: a sidebar we felt was important needed adding, an afterword needed tweaking, and GRRM’s Iron Islands material needed trimming…

But now all that is done, and outside of art approvals, final copy edits, and the like, Linda and I are essentially done as well. From 2004, when the subject of such a book was first broached while having dinner with George and Parris in Santa Fe, to 2006 when bidding among publishers finally led to our signing a contract with Bantam in 2006, it’s been a long effort—not a continuous one, mind, after the initial discussion, outlining, and the very first draft, as the bulk of the work waited until A Dance with Dragons was more or less done and George had more time to consult. Consult he did, and he made a number of contributions which, as Tolkien before him said, “grew in the telling”. Some of these narratives have since been published in partially abridged form—“The Princess and the Queen” in Dangerous Women (Order: Amazon UK), “The Rogue Prince” in the forthcoming Rogues (Pre-order: Amazon UK).

While New York may get a lot of the interesting events around Game of Thrones—the “Epic Fan Experience” at the Barclays Center being a case in point—it’s not the only thing going on out there. Of particular note for fans of A Song of Ice and Fire is Seattle’s LTD Art Gallery current exhibition: “Winter is Coming”, a presentation of artwork influenced by the novels, presented by George R.R. Martin and put together with his direct input. All the works on display in the gallery are available for sale, in some cases as originals, in many cases as prints. There’s an amazing trove of treasures, including original works of art by Ted Nasmith and Donato Giancola, and prints from the likes of Amok (with an awesome depiction of Aegon and his sisters), Marc Simonetti, Jim Burns, Jen Zee, and many more.

An excellent preview of the exhibit, including interviews with the gallery’s owner and participating artists, can be found over at Wired.com. The exhibit runs through March 23rd.

Earlier this month, we noted the upcoming fundraising drive for the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, sponsored by none other than George R.R. Martin and Parris McBride. As promised, we’d note when it went live… and it now has. A massive amount of A Song of Ice and Fire-related books and memorabilia, as well as Wild Cards books and other works by Martin, is in the offering, with various packages available at different funding levels.

The proceeds will go to support the Westeros Pack—named after characters from the novels—by providing them a larger habitat, which sounds excellent. All funding levels include signed “adoption” certificates, showing your sponorship of a particular wolf (or wolves) in the pack.

Dark Sword Miniatures, official license holders of A Song of Ice and Fire miniature figures, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help them get more figures out, more quickly. The new expansion—featuring figures such as an armored Barristan Selmy, mounted versions of Loras Tyrell and Khal Drogo, Arianne Martell, Prince Joffrey, and many more—are all sculpted by the truly amazing Tom Meier, one of the very finest miniature sculptors now or, indeed, ever.

And to gild the lily, as Dark Sword Miniatures founder Jim Ludwig notes, every one of Meier’s sculpts is created with the direct involvement and approval of Martin, so in many ways these figures are probably as close as anyone will ever get to seeing Martin’s own vision of his characters and the way they should be clothed, armed, or armored (case in point: Drogo’s arakh is indeed more or less a saber, which fits Martin’s remarks on the subject.)

Launching yesterday with a $10,000 goal, the Kickstarter was fully founded in just over two hours. Since then, it’s nearly hit $25,000, and two stretch goals have been reached. More stretch goals are likely to come, and given the length of time which remains, it could go very far indeed.

This is still not 100% confirmed, but according to CVG, the earlier reports that Telltale Games was preparing a Game of Thrones game appear to be true. CVG’s reporter was among those watching the rehearsal broadcast of Spike’s VGX Awards, and in the course of it it was revealed that Telltale was going to discuss the new game. Other announcements meant for tomorrow’s live broadcast also slipped through into the rehearsals, until the award show’s producers pulled the plug on the rehearsal stream.

The VGX awards will be streaming tonight, so we’ll be keeping an eye on it to see if the report holds true.

IGN has reported that “multiple sources” have informed them that Telltale Games is “developing a game based on George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones.” While still a rumor—one that Telltale refuses to confirm at this juncture—the notion of Telltale, who has recently won a great deal of acclaim for their The Walking Dead adventure game (Order: Amazon US), creating a game based on the setting will certainly set many gamers to eager expectation.

Interestingly, IGN emphasizes that it’s not clear whether this rumored title would be based on the television show, or if in fact it’s based on A Song of Ice and Fire. However, given our understanding of the licensing arrangements between Martin and HBO, it seems extremely likely that the basis will be the television adaptation; the two previous computer games made by Cyanide were licensed prior to the HBO deal, and “grandfathered” in (and even then, the RPG worked out a license with the TV show to use its visuals and include vocals from actors), but going forward we believe HBO has exclusive rights to computer games.

It is, of course, a rumor, even if it comes from multiple sources. But IGN makes a case—if one reads between the lines—that Game of Thrones could well be the “dream IP” that Telltale executives have hinted at.

(Many thanks to @realcozur for the tip.)

This week has seen two books hit shelves that fans have been waiting for. Notably, the U.S. mass market paperback x of A Dance with Dragons (Order: Amazon US) was at least released after the hardcover had an astounding 88 week run on the NY Times Bestseller list.

For those of you who’ve been waiting for the paperback to read the book, now’s your chance. And for those of you who’ve already read it? You’ll find at the back of it a never-before-published chapter from The Winds of Winter. For those who bought e-book editions, there are some reports that the iBooks edition has been updated with the excerpt, so fire up your iOs device and check that out (no word yet as to whether the Kindle edition has been similarly updated).

Besides that, fans in the US will be able to get their hands on The Wit and Wisdom of Tyrion Lannister (Order: US, UK), a slim volume of Tyrion’s aphorisms illustrated by noted British cartoonist Jonty Clark. It will be available next week in the UK, as well.

In yet more app-related news, a big update has taken place for the official A World of Ice and Fire app (Download: iTunes, Google Play), which Linda and I have worked on.

The latest update brings Jonathan Roberts‘s The Lands of Ice and Fire (Order: Amazon US, Amazon UK) maps to the app, including the map of the Known World which depicted the world in unprecedented detail for the very first time. All of these maps are based on George’s hand-drawn maps, and were made with his direct oversight.

This summer, Amazon announced the formation of a new imprint dedicated to the publication of graphic novels: Jet City Comics.

With this news came the announcement of the initial slate of comics that would be published by Jet City, a slate which featured the works of George R.R. Martin quite heavily. First up among them is Meathouse Man, adapted by artist Raya Golden from Martin’s disturbing science fiction tale in an imagined future where corpses are reanimated as the servants, and playthings, of men. That’s due in October…

... but for fans of A Song of Ice and Fire, it gets better: Jet City will be republishing The Hedge Knight graphic novel (adapted by Ben Avery and Mike S. Miller) in November, and following that up with the republication of The Sworn Sword by the same team in January.

And then, to cap it off? The third Dunk & Egg story, “The Mystery Knight”, is due to finally be adapted to comics—once more by the team of Avery and Miller—for Random House, publishers of the A Song of Ice and Fire series and—with Dynamite—of the comic book adaptation of the same.