George R.R. Martin's Blog, page 18

Random Updates and Bits o’ News

I look around, and I don’t know where 2021 went.   I blinked and it was gone.   Not a year that I am going to mourn much, any more than 2020.  A global pandemic, so many deaths (including friends of mine, as well as celebrities of all sorts), politics grown increasingly toxic… it was a year best forgotten.   I did, however, get a lot of work done in 2021.  An enormous amount of work, in truth; I seem to have an enormous number of projects.

(I am not complaining.   I like working.   Writing, edit...

World of Fire and Blood Calendar 2023

We have some beautiful art for next years calendar. This time around we’re focusing on a whole World of Ice and Fire theme with amazing new artwork by a collaboration of amazing artists.  Check out some of their outstanding work coming in 2023 and you can pre order now or wait till the release in July of this year.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...

Cover art by Marc Simonetti

 

The Painted Table. by Rene Aigner

Chron...

End of an Era

Our friend Janis Ian was in Santa Fe last week, at the Jean Cocteau Cinema.   It was the first stop of her new tour.  She did three shows for us (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, all sold out), and on Sunday she conducted a Master Class for aspiring songwriters.   Janis, of course, is among the greatest singer/ songwriters of her generation (which also happens to be my generation), and has been for half a century.   She’s been a star since she was fifteen, and her music, new and old, has n...

Grab For The Ring

The wait is over.   Years in the making, ELDEN RING was released last week, and has been taking the gaming world by storm.

But don’t listen to me.   From Software brought me on to do their worldbuilding, so I can hardly pretend to be objective.

Take a look at a few of the reviews:

https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a39204927/elden-ring-review/

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/23/1082603088/elden-ring-review

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/elden-ring-review-in-progress-death-of-the-wild/1900-6417832/

...

Dark Winds Blowing

It was back in 2015, I seem to recall, that my friends Robert Redford and Chris Eyre brought me into their dream project, to help develop and sell a television series based on Tony Hillerman’s novels about Navajo tribal policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee.   It took us quite a few years, with many an up and down along the way, but I am pleased to announce that DARK WINDS is finally done… almost.

AMC will be screening the first season later this year.   Six episodes long, the story is adapated fr...

The Cards Keep Turning

Wild Cards fans have a lot to look forward to in the next couple of years, in addition to the Marvel comics series announced below.

We have three new books in the pipeline.   FULL HOUSE will be a collection of some of the stand-alone stories that been published online on Tor.com in the past few years, but have never before appeared in print.   Contributing writers will include  Daniel Abraham, Victor C. Milan, Caroline Spector, Carrie Vaughn, David D. Levine, Paul Cornell, Melinda M. Snodgrass, ...

The Pens Behind the Swords

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON has a great pair of showrunners in Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik.

And it has an amazing cast as well.   You’ve been reading about them for months.  Matt Smith, Emma d’Arcy, Milly Alcock, Olivia Cooke, Paddy Considine, Emily Carey, Rhys Ifans, Steve Touissant, Fabien Frankel, and more, and more.   You may not know their names now, but I think you will before the year ends.  You will hate some of them, love some of them, mourn for some of them.

There’s another group of contr...

Make Mine Marvel

Me and Marvel Comics go way back.

The first words of mine ever to appear in print (well, not counting my high school newspaper) were “Dear Stan and Jack,” the opening of my letter of comment in FANTASTIC FOUR #20.   That was my first appearance in the lettercols, but not my last.   I became almost a regular in Marvel letter columns over the next few years… which led me to the nascent comics fandom… and my first published stories in the comics fanzines of the early 60s, superhero stories in prose...

WRAPPED!

Exciting news out of London — I am informed that shooting has WRAPPED for the first season of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON.

Yes, all ten episodes.   I have seen rough cuts of a few of them, and I’m loving them.  Of course, a lot more work needs to be done.   Special effects, color timing, score, all the post production work.

But the writing, the directing, the acting all look terrific.   I hope you will like them as much as I do.   My hat is off to Ryan and Miguel and their team, and to our amazing cast....

Farewell to a Friend

I have been struggling with this post for ten days now.   The words come hard.    Sometimes, no matter what you say, it does not seem enough.   How do you sum up a man’s life in just a few paragraphs?  How do you do justice to forty years of friendship?

John Miller died last week at his home in Albuquerque.  John had been in ill health for some years, but even so, his sudden passing in the night was a shock to all of us who knew him.   I had spoken to him just a few days prior, and seen him as r...