Westeros

Tor.com has been busily posting excerpts from the George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois anthology, Dangerous Women (Pre-order: Amazon US, Amazon UK), and today they have released the excerpt of Martin’s own entry, “The Princess and the Queen”.

The novella—which distills details Martin revealed for The World of Ice and Fire—recounts much of the Dance of the Dragons, the destructive civil war that tore the Seven Kingdoms apart from 129 to 131, and should provide some very interesting insights into the ancestors of Daenerys Targaryen. The excerpt is also accompanied by a longer, not too spoilerish review of the entire novella.

Dangerous Women will be published on December 3.

... to give Paul and Storm a little lesson:

All in a bit of fun, of course! The source of GRRM’s “ire” would be this popular song from the comedy music duo, “Write Like the Wind (George R.R. Martin)”:

Not long after we posted our video discussing all Dorne, its people, and its history, George R.R. Martin weighed in on the topic of the Dornishmen as a people, in relation to the casting of actor Pedro Pascal in the role of the Red Viper, Prince Oberyn Martell. Here is Martin on his vision of the “salty Dornishmen”, with our thoughts afterward:

As we reported yesterday, George R.R. Martin appeared on the Conan O’Brien show last night. In the course of his appearance, he discussed writing the novels and keeping facts straight, and (to our delight) mentioned us over here at Westeros.org:

There are other clips of his appearance on the site, and the full episode should be available for streaming some time tonight.

The latest anthology from George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, Dangerous Women, can now be pre-ordered in the US (Amazon: Hardcover, Kindle). Among noteworthy contributors are Sharon Kay Penman, Brandon Sanderson, Lev Grossman, Diana Gabaldon… and GRRM himself, with a novella set in the Seven Kingdoms titled “The Princess and the Queen”. It will recount events leading up to and including the civil war called the Dance of the Dragons, when Rhaenyra Targaryen fought her brother Aegon over the Iron Throne.

It’s adapted from material written for The World of Ice and Fire, distilled down to a narrowed focus on the titular characters… but the world book, we promise, will provide a wider picture of the conflict, and the historical figures involved in it.

According to George R.R. Martin at “Not a Blog”, he and co-editor Gardner Dozois have finalized and delivered Rogues, a cross-genre anthology featuring quite the list of contributors. The anthology, tied together by the titular concept, will be published by Bantam Spectra.

Martin provides a list of contributors and their stories, which include Joe Abercrombie, Daniel Abraham, Garth Nix, Neil Gaiman, Connie Willis, Scott Lynch, Carrie Vaughn, and many, many more. A full listing can be found below the cut.

Some rather unclear news came out of a HarperCollins show case, in which it was revealed that George R.R. Martin has licensed to them the publication of a small gift book collecting some of Tyrion Lannister’s more insightful and amusing quotes from the A Song of Ice and Fire series. As some might note, HarperCollins is not the publisher of the series in the US… but as it happens, they are in the UK, and it appears that the idea may have originated there. Now Thanks to HarperCollins UK, we now have the official press release:

Thanks to Bleeding Cool, we’ve learned that Avatar Press executive Jim Kuhoric spoke at a panel at C2E2 about various Avatar Press projects, and in the course of it he discussed some of what’s coming from George R.R. Martin. First and foremost, of course, is the comic book adaptation of GRRM’s World Fantasy Award-winning novella The Skin Trade, to go along with their earlier adaptation of Fevre Dream. Thanks to that, Kuhoric revealed that GRRM will be at San Diego’s Comic-Con (which GRRM has previously announced), where he’ll make an appearance at Avatar’s booth and sign books.

The most intersting item, however, was Kuhoric revealing that there’s a “George R.R. Martin original” in the works, which “may” be superhero related. Kuhoric suggests this is a departure, as previously the works they’ve published have simply been adaptations. They’ll reveal more later, but what I suspect this is is a brand new Wild Cards original comic book story, which will almost certainly be scripted by someone other than GRRM (possibly Daniel Abraham, responsible for the adaptation of Fevre Dream and the Dynamic Entertainment comic Wild Cards: Hard Call?).

To see Kuhoric’s sremarks, watch below beginning at the 2:50 mark:

Kansas City’s annual, venerable ConQuest convention is about to have its 44th(!) con from May 24th through the 26th, and as it happens, George R.R. Martin will be a guest there. He and Parris have long been supporters of this convention, which we’ve been told is one of the best fandom-organized conventions around. Many other guests will be on hand, including guests of honor Patrick Rothfuss and John Picacio (award-winning illustrator of the 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar.

Here’s the press release from the convention itself:

We previously reported that Texas A&M’s Cushing Memorial Library had arranged for “Deeper than Swords”, an exhibition of material from their collection of material from GRRM that they have been archiving for many years. Martin himself was present for a couple of days of the event, and now those who missed out on the opportunity to attend can get a taste thanks to the university recording and placing on Youtube’s Martin’s speech and interview which was a centerpiece of the whole event:

For more from the event, see this post from author Martha Wells, who attended the events and took many photos of the exhibit and events.

For those who drop by Georgerrmartin.com—Martin’s official site on the web—will have discovered that it has now gotten something of a facelift. It contains all the great features—the essays, the photos, the miniatures, and more—that make it stand out as uniquely Martin’s personal site, but it’s been given a much more modern design. 

You know, we knew about plans for this for… well, a long while, we won’t mention how long exactly. ;) But glad to see it’s finally come to fruition.

An excellent new interview with George R.R. Martin has been published by the UK newspaper The Telegraph. Conducted and written by Jessica Salter, the article takes us into Martin’s home—some very nice pictures of his collection of ASoIaF-related art, and (for us) a rather thrilling look at one of the stained glass windows he commissioned for his “Library Tower” (thrilling, because the design is very familiar)—as he discusses his life and his work.

It’s definitely worth reading.

George R.R. Martin may be one of the panelists at the Emmy webcast tomorrow, but if you’re eager to read an in-depth interview with him, you can’t go wrong with this very interesting interview from the New Jersey Monthly, which goes hand-in-hand with their profile of “the King of Fantasy”.

Great to hear a bit more about Martin’s early life, a bit more about the origins of the series, and some of his thoughts on the television show. Here’s a quote:

Amazon.com’s Omnivoracious blog has a brand new interview with George R.R. Martin, discussing aspects of his work as the writer of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, as well as the Game of Thrones TV series. Note that it’s vaguely spoilerish, so if you’ve not read through at least the first three novels and your extremely paranoid regarding even the vaguest of potential spoilers, best avoid.

Last night, we posted about the Game of Thrones-themed Sports Illustrated Power Issue. We now have the podcast—hosted by Richard Deitsch—with GRRM, which you can find here along with a partial transcript of some of Martin’s remarks.

It’s very much sports-oriented, but there’s some remarks that touch on the characters and the setting (such as Martin’s comparison of knights to athletes).

We’ve placed this interview in the So Spake Martin collection, where you’ll find a great deal of links to interviews, correspondence, and reports from readings, panels, and conventions.