Westeros

As they have teased, fan site Winter is Coming had the opportunity to interview GRRM during the Glasgow Worldcon. Although discussion of HBO’s shows and The Winds of Winter were off the table, the latter got a passing reference initiated by George himself. More generally, however, the interview—conducted by Daniel Roman, and also including comments from Raya Golden, the artist behind the Hugo nominated The Meathouse Man and the Locus shortlisted Voyaging Part 1 is a fun and interesting discussion of George’s history in fandom, his friendship with the late Gardner Dozois, and more.

The last question Roman asks is a fun one, inviting GRRM to muse on which fictional characters not from his own works would he suggest to run the small council of the realm. George has some immediate responses, nodding to Tolkien’s wise characters such as Aragorn, Gandalf, and Galadriel… but for fun, George picks Cugel the Clever from Jack Vance’s Dying Earth series, 10X more fun than Littlefinger except with the caveat that his own plots never succeed. He and Raya ponder Merlin and Lancelot and Arthur as well. Wwe admit to some surprise that the answer to who would be the master of the realm’s armies did not come immediately to mind, however: Benedict, one of the nine princes in the Amber series by the late, great Roger Zelazny. Why him? You can read for yourself:

“I fear Benedict. He is the Master of Arms for Amber. Can you conceive of a millennium? A thousand years? Several of them? Can you understand a man who, for almost every day of a lifetime like that, has spent some time dwelling with weapons, tactics, strategy? All that there is of military science thunders in his head. He has often journeyed from shadow to shadow, witnessing variation after variation on the same battle, with but slightly altered circumstances, in order to test his theories of warfare. He has commanded armies so vast that you could watch them march by day after day and see no end to the columns. Although he is inconvenienced by the loss of his arm, I would not wish to fight with him either with weapons or barehanded. It is fortunate that he has no designs upon the throne, or he would be occupying it right now. If he were, I believe that I would give up at this moment and pay him homage. I fear Benedict.”