George R.R. Martin's Blog, page 189

On the Road Again

... the life I love is signing books for my readers. (Actually, I kind of do, thought of late the crowds have been so big that I get pretty weary by the end).

Anyway, just got the second half of the schedule for my DANCE WITH DRAGONS book tour from Bantam. The tour will begin with Boston, New York City, and Indianapolis, as detailed in my post of May 7, which you'll find somewhere downriver.

Then I'm off to the San Diego Comicon for a week.



After comicon, I will be appearing at:

Tuesday, July 26
7:00pm
Barnes & Noble
189 The Grove Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Wednesday, July 27
7:00pm
Fox Theatre
2215 Broadway Street
Redwood City, CA 94063
http://www.foxrwc.com/
*event hosted by Kepler's

Friday, July 29
7:30pm
Town Hall
1119 8th Ave
Seattle, WA 98101
http://www.townhallseattle.org/index.cfm
*event hosted by University Bookstore

Sunday, July 31
2:00pm
Tattered Cover LoDo
1628 16th Street
Denver, CO 80202

Probably one more stop to be added after that

More details on the signings will be posted here as we get closer to the dates.

Again, though, let me say... if you actually want to meet me and hang and talk some, the place to do that is at a convention. Book signings are great, but in recent years my crowds have been huge, which means each person in the queue gets like twenty seconds. I don't like that part of it... I'd much rather have the time to chat with my readers... but you have to keep the line moving. Anything else is unfair to the people further back.

Come Visit FORT FREAK

Good news for all my Wild Cards readers. FORT FREAK, volume twenty-one in the series, will be out in hardcover on June 21, Tor tells me.

The cover is once again by the amazing Michael Komarck, who just keeps getting better and better. You really should nominate him for a Hugo some year, he's way overdue.



After the wide-ranging global storylines of the Committee triad, FORT FREAK returns to New York City, the epicenter of the Wild Cards universe, to tell the stories of the cops and crooks of the historic 5th precinct of the NYPD — the Jokertown precinct.

The lineup this time around includes stories by Wild Cards veterans Melinda Snodgrass, Stephen Leigh, John Jos. Miller, Kevin Andrew Murphy, and Victor Milan, and introduces newcomers (new to Wild Cards, at least) Cherie Priest, David Anthony Durham, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Ty Franck, and Paul Cornell. You can check out a sample of Cherie's interstitial, the literary mortar that holds all the bricks together, on my website.

So mark June 21 on your calendars, and place your preorder now with Amazon or your favorite local bookstore. Come meet Ramshead, the Rook, Tabby, SlimJim, Abigail the understudy, Sgt. Squinch, Ratboy and Flipper, Tinkerbill, the Infamous Black Tongue, Natya, Maggie Graves, Puff, Beastie, Dr. Dildo, and the other colorful denizens of Fort Freak and environs. Old-timers like Father Squid, the Sleeper, and the Oddity are also expected to turn up to enliven the proceedings.

And while you're reading, we'll be working on LOWBALL.

Littlefinger and the Spider

Judging by the comments I'm hearing, one of the favorite scenes in this week's episode of HBO's GAME OF THRONES was the throne room verbal sparring between Lord Varys and Lord Baelish. (For which all credit goes to David Benioff and Dan Weiss. The scene was not in the novel. Which is not to say it could not have happened, but neither Petyr nor Varys is a viewpoint character, so I had no pov from which to present such a scene).

So for all you miniature collectors out there who would like to recreate such a scene in your own throne room diorama... here are the two latest releases from Dark Sword Miniature.

VARYS THE SPIDER


LORD PETYR BAELISH


Both sculpts are by the talented Jeff Grace, who just keeps getting better.

(And no, they don't look like the actors in the show. They are not meant to. Dark Sword is licensed to produce miniatures based on the novels, not the television series).

You can order these, and the rest of the amazing Ice & Fire line, from the Dark Sword website at http://darkswordminiatures.com/ There's a gorgeous painted version of Varys up there as I write, and a painted Littlefinger will not be far behind.

((Just a reminder. I've mentioned the show here, but that does not mean I am opening up the Not a Blog to discussion of the series. Oh, a passing mention is okay, but serious debates and discussions should be taken to Westeros, Tower of the Hand, Television Without Pity, or Winter Is Coming. Comments are open here... for comments about the miniatures.))

Lament for Lady

... well, sort of.

It has come to my attention that a number of television viewers (mostly those who had not read my books and did not know what was coming)were shocked and upset by what befell Sansa's direwolf Lady at the end of the second episode of HBO's GAME OF THRONES.

Good. I mean, that was kind of the point.

But some people were reportedly so shocked and upset that they wrote angry blogs about it, and even declared that they would not continue watching the show.

Not so good. Obviously, I'm sorry to hear that.

I don't know if any of those people are reading my Not A Blog. But in case they are, perhaps it will make you feel a little better to know that Zunni, the Northern Inuit who played Lady, is alive and well, and has been adopted by Sophie Turner, the lovely young actress who plays Sansa in the show. We didn't really kill her.

(Rhodri Hosking, the young actor who played the butcher's boy Mycah, was not actually killed either, though oddly, no one seems quite so upset about him).

Real wolves and wolf-hybrids are being killed every day in the real world, however. If you love wolves, and were upset at Lady's death, why not try to help some real wolves?

There's some great folks right in Candy Kitchen, New Mexico who do just that (yes, New Mexico has a Candy Kitchen. We also have a Pietown and a Truth Or Consequences. Three reasons I love this state).

They're called the Wild Spirit Wolf Sancturary, and they rescue wolves and wolf-hybrids. You can learn all about them from their website, here:

http://www.wildspiritwolfsanctuary.org/

Years ago, for Christmas, the fans of the Brotherhood Without Banners sponsored a wolf in Parris's name, and made her a "wolf mother."

So shed no tears for Lady... but if you have a spare buck or two, send it to Wild Spirit in her name, and you might help save a real wolf or three.

From Spain

I've received a nice email from Canal+, who are airing GAME OF THRONES in Spain.

They write:

================================
"... We aired yesterday the first episode of Game of Thrones.

It was a great success, it was one of the best series première for us.

We have prepared online material to support the series.

Here, you can find an interactive map of Westeros and the Free Cities: http://www.canalplus.es/conoceponiente.

It will show the changes in the location of the characters with each episode.

Here, you can find a game called Grito de Guerra (in English it would be War Call) The main theme of the game is to be a major Lord, and you have a Maester on your service. Just after each episode, a new challenge appears on the web - the Lord has to direct his Maester to success in the challenge. Also, participants fight each other and follow the developments of the game, as well as create new rules on Twitter, @gritoguerra.

You can see it here: http://www.canalplus.es/gritodeguerra. "

==================================

I hope my Spanish fans are enjoying the show, and it's great to see all that Canal + is doing to support the series over there.

And as long as I'm talking about Spain, this is as good a time as any to mention that Parris and I will be heading back over to Gijon in 2012, for what will doubtless be another wonderful Semana Negra.

22 and Counting

No, not me. (I wish). Wild Cards.

I'm pleased to announce that I've just signed contracts with Tor Books for another volume in our long-running Wild Cards series of shared world anthologies and mosaic novels.

This will be the twenty-second volume in the overall series, which debuted in 1987. Wild Cards has outlasted all of the other shared world series of the 80s and 90s, and given rise to games, comics, television and film options, and other spinoffs. Over the years, our contributors have included such stars of SF, fantasy, comics, and television as Roger Zelazny, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Walter Jon Williams, Howard Waldrop, Chris Claremont, Paul Cornell, Cherie Priest, Carrie Vaughn, Daniel Abraham, Stephen Leigh, S.L. Farrell, and many many more.

Our working title for this one is LOWBALL. It will be a direct sequel to volume twenty-one, FORT FREAK (due out next month), chronicling the further adventures of the cops and criminals of New York City's historic Jokertown precinct, Fort Freak.

If you'd like to know more about the Wild Cards series, check out these to excellent fan sites:

http://www.wildcardsonline.com/

http://captaincomics.ning.com/group/wildcards#

You can also begin at the beginning by picking up Tor's trade paperback reprint of the very first volume in the series, WILD CARDS, available on Amazon or at your favorite local bookshop.



And remember -- we can;t die yet, we haven't seen THE JOLSON STORY.

GOT Titles

Some wonderfully cool stuff about the creation of the GAME OF THRONES title sequence can be found here:

http://www.artofthetitle.com/

Go and enjoy. I know I did.

The title sequence kicks ass.

The Wolf and the Lion...

... is the title of this week's episode of GAME OF THRONES on HBO.

Here's a little taste of it, an exchange between Ned Stark and Ser Barristan the Bold at the Hand's Tourney in King's Landing.





Ser Barristan fans might be interested to know that he has a big part in A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. In fact (drum roll, please), he becomes a viewpoint character.

New Cover for the UK

The good folks at Harper Collins Voyager, my publishers in the United Kingdom and Australia, have informed me that they've changed the cover for the forthcoming DANCE WITH DRAGONS hardcover.

They've decided to go with the same cover art as on the American edition, though the design and background colors will vary.

Here's the old UK cover:


And here's the new one:


I know the long delay with DANCE has frustrated many of you... but hey, it's certainly provided a lot of gainful employment for book designers and cover artists. I wonder if I deserve a line in the Guinness Book of World Records: the unpublished book with the most covers.

This one should stick, though.

July 12. Coming soon.

Talking with Joe

My interview with Joe Abercrombie -- filmed in LA when I flew out last month for a screening -- has been posted on YouTube, in two parts.

If you're not able to watch THE BOOK SHOW on your TV, here 'tis:

part one


part two


It was great fun talking with Joe. Almost as much fun as reading his books.