Westeros

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).

Unseen Westeros is an ambitious project by a group of matte painters and visual effects artists who have all worked on HBO’s Game of Thrones. With the approval and support of George R.R. Martin, German publisher Penhaligon, and Westeros.org, the artists have produced scores of paintings depicting locales from The World of Ice and Fire, many of them first introduced in that book.

Suffice it to say, it’s very flattering to have been a part of something that has inspired so many artists. Linda and/or I are likely to attend one or more of the days of the exhibition, and we may have some more to announce in that regards down the road. We’ve seen quite a bit of the art, and suffice it to say these artists are all extremely talented, and it’s remarkable to see how they bring some of the many fascinating, strange, or epic locales described in the world book to life.

The exhibition is targeting January 23rd to January 27th, with an impressive venue—a former powerplant in Berlin—for the art to be displayed in. Of course, all these things cost, and the project has a Kickstarter to help cover the costs (which they itemize). Supporters to the Kickstarter can get anything from a credit on the backers’ wall at the exhibition to an album from official exhibition music composers Wolf & Moon and on through a limited edition art catalog or even (at the 2500+ euro level—two of those are gone, already!) an original painting.

To learn more about the project and support it, visit the Kickstarter. To apply for free tickets in advance, go to Eventbrite.

Keep an eye out on our Youtube channel, as we’ll be making a video or two responding to some as-yet-unseen artwork to give everyone a taste of what’s to come!

Starport, a massive 270 page graphic novel adaptation of an unproduced pilot script from George R.R. Martin, has just been announced.

Adapted and illustrated by Hugo Award-nominee Raya Golden, who was nominated for her adaptation of Martin’s Meathouse Man, this new graphic novel is a science fiction police procedural set in Chicago. Martin pitched the script in 1994 for the Fox Network; that year was particularly auspicious, despite the pilot not going anywhere, because it was the very same year that he began working in earnest on A Game of Thrones.

Here’s the blurb for the graphic novel:

Last night, George R.R. Martin and John Picacio took the stage at the historic Fox Theatre in Redwood City for what turned out to be two and half hours of conversation and Q&A. We believe the SF in SF organization, along with co-sponsor of the event Locus Magazine, will be posting the audio (and perhaps video) of the full event at their site, but in the meantime there have been reports, and even a bit of video.

One of the detailed reports from the Q&A comes from Twitter user clintw, which we’ve threaded and posted to the So Spake Martin collection. In the course of the interview and Q&A, Martin remarks on the name of the latest Princess of Dorne, the whereabouts of the Valyrian steel sword Dark Sister, hints about the various ideas HBO is still exploring for successor shows, and more.

This year’s World Fantasy Award finalists have been announced, and The Book of Swords anthology edited by George R.R. Martin and the late Gardner Dozois is nominated in the anthology category. The award winners, which are juried (but include a popular component in that two finalists in each category are chosen by popular vote), will be announced during the World Fantasy Convention taking place on November 1st through 4th in Baltimore, Maryland.

For the full list of finalists in all categories, see this post over at Tor.com.

San Diego Comic-Con remains a place for launching trailers for series and films, as SyFy reveals its first trailer for

Nightflyers, a science fiction horror series “from the mind of George R. R. Martin” thanks to its being a loose adaptation of his award-winning novella of the same name.

You can see the trailer below:

Cast definitely seems larger than what’s in the novella, and there’s some very different motivations for the Nightflyer’s mission, but you can pick out moments that are drawn from the original story as well. As Martin has recently stated in an interview with Publisher’s Weekly, the show is not part of the broader Thousand Worlds far-future history in which the story was set, and in fact will take place within our solar system.

UPDATE: We have the Netflix trailer for the series below, and it makes some things a fair bit clearer while including a number of additional glimpses of the show.

While Linda and I were in Spain for Celsius 232, George R.R. Martin was in New York City for ThrillerFest, where among other things there was an interview and Q&A (we’ve embedded the video!) with editor Anne Groell. Topics discussed include the new Nightflyers TV show from SyFY, the history of The World of Ice and Fire and Fire and Blood, and more.

At the close of the festival, Martin was named that year’s Thriller Master, the lifetime achievement award from the International Thriller Writers association. Here’s a press release, and the video of the awards ceremony below!

Sadly, it has just been reported by author Michael Swanwick that Gardner Dozois—a close friend of George R.R. Martin, and frequent editorial collaborator—has passed away unexpectedly following a minor illness. Dozois, winner of multiple genre awards as a writer, was best known for his work as an editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine (which he co-founded) and of numerous anthologies.

It’s with these collections, in particular, that he returned to collaborating with GRRM as they worked together to produce a number of anthologies including Old Mars, Old Venus, Rogues, Dangerous Women, and quite a few others. In 2017, Dozois’s continuing and influential contributions to the genre led to his receiving the 2017 Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award, awarded by the Science Fiction Writers of America.

Our sincere condolences to his friends and family. We know he’ll be much missed.

In an exclusive, Deadline Hollywood reveals that Warner Animation Group (part of the Time-Warner multimedia conglomerate which also happens to own HBO) has struck a deal with George R.R. Martin to produce an animated version of The Ice Dragon, his 1980 fantasy novella.

Despite marketing claims otherwise, The Ice Dragon is not part of the A Song of Ice and Fire universe, although Martin has obviously made references to it in his more recent writings, much as he’s made nods to others of his past stories and characters.

Martin is noted to have a producer credit, which is fairly standard for such adaptations.

Worldcon 76 is coming to San Jose in August, but a couple of days prior to this the SF in SF organization has put together a special event: an evening with George R.R. Martin and award-winning artist John Picacio.

Organized as a benefit for Locus Magazine, the chief trade magazine of SF/F publishing, the event promises to feature “a discussion on literature, art, and life” between the famed writer and artist. Signed copies of their works will be available for purchase.

The event takes place at the Fox Theatre in Redwood City on August 14, the Tuesday before Worldcon. For more information, see the event site.

SyFy has released the first look video for their forthcoming Nightflyers science-fiction horror series, based on George R.R. Martin’s novella “Nightflyers”. Watch it below, including comments from GRRM himself about the story:

Certainly seems like the producers have gone for a very cinematic look, and have spared no expense in terms of the sets they’ve built to represent the ship.

As previously reported, SyFy has moved forward on a series order for Nightflyers, based on George R.R. Martin’s award-winning science fiction horror novel focused on a scientific mission to explore a mysterious, space-faring object. Last week, Irish press shard the news that production had begun at Troy Studios in Limerick shortly. Casting calls for extras—an interesting detail in and of itself, as the original novella only features a limited number of characters—went out late last month.

Thanks to the forthcoming show, the Nightflyers novella that started it all is being republished—not once, but twice. On May 29th, Tor will be publishing the Nightlyers & Other Stories collection that was first published in 1985. The five other stories are “Override” (the second of “Corpse Handler trilogy” of stories), “Weekend in a War Zone”, “Nor the Many-Colored Fires of a Star Ring” (the 2nd of two “Star Ring” stories), “And Seven Times Never Kill Man”, and “A Song for Lya” (these last, with “Nightflyers”, fall within the Thousand Worlds setting, the most substantial future history Martin created).

And then, most surprisingly, Bantam will be publishing Nightflyers: The Illustrated Edition on May 29th as well, which (per GRRM) will be expanded version of the novella (which has a complicated history) with 15 interior illustrations and 2 endpapers from artist David Palumbo. Palumbo has recently come into Martin’s orbit as an artist, providing the cover for the reprint of the Wild Cards book One-Eyed Jacks.

We’re sad to share the news that actor Roy Dotrice, whose collaborations with George R.R. Martin began with Beauty and the Beast and continued right through providing his voice to the audiobook of The World of Ice and Fire, has passed away at the age of 94. Dotrice was well known on stage and screen, and genre fans will have seen him in a host of notable shows such as Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and (of course) as the pyromancer Hallyne in Game of Thrones.

Linda and I corresponded with him briefly, years ago, and remember him as a perfectly gracious, charming person who seemed amazed and pleased with the enthusiasm for his recordings of the novels. He’ll be much missed.

Great news for fans of George R.R. Martin’s science fiction: Nightflyers will be going to series at SyFy, although the official announcement has not been made as the deals are still being worked out regarding broadcast rights both in the U.S. and overseas.

This follows news from back in May that SyFy was noted himself, this show is based on the rights he sold many years earlier that led to a low-budget film that did not find much success (you can see the poster for that film above). GRRM has no role in the production, as he is exclusively under contract with HBO, but he’s hoping for the best and in particular hopes that the show will look as good as SyFy’s The Expanse.