George R.R. Martin's Blog, page 221

Wolves in the Night

Saw the remake of THE WOLFMAN tonight. Great visuals, and Rick Baker's makeup was spectacular, as always (I much prefer the traditional 'wolfman' look of the old Universal classics, which Baker updates here, to the hydraulic-snout werewolves of AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, THE HOWLING, THE WOLFEN, etc). Overall, though, I'd give the movie a C, maybe a C+. Anthony Hopkins kind of phones in it, and Benicio del Toro is no Lon Chaney, Jr.

Speaking of things that go bump in the night, a new prod...

Last Call for Clarion

Applications for the 2010 Clarion Writer's Workshop in San Diego close on March 1... so if you've been thinking of applying, now's the time to get your act together.

I will be one of the instructors at this year's Clarion.

The good folks at the workshop sayeth:

"Clarion is widely recognized as a premier training ground for aspiring writers of fantasy and science fiction short stories. Many graduates have become well-known writers, and a large number have won major awards. Instructors are among...

Not Done Yet

But I've left the Isle of Cedars behind, at least. 1261 pages and counting.

The timeline of this monster is going to drive me mad. I know perfectly well that as soon as DANCE is published, some of you out there are going to attempt to correlate its chronology with that of A FEAST FOR CROWS, fit all the parts together to suggest an appropriate chapter order for a (hypothetical, and largely impossible) combined book, something like what the "Big Feast" might have been, before the split.

Well, g...

Not Done Yet

But today was a good, productive day. Only problem is that the chapter I finished just now is going to require that I go back and rewrite one of the chapters I finished last week. Minor stuff, though. Shouldn't take more than a day. (Famous last words, I know).

Thoughtcrime

The latest outrage by the TSA.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/11/local/la-me-arabic12-2010feb12

America is a free country. Except at its airports.

Anyone who thinks this is cool should go back and read their Orwell.

Kudos to this kid, for challenging the TSA in court.

WARRIORS Excerpts

With WARRIORS scheduled for hardcover release on March 16, there are a number of places on the web where readers can get a taste or two of what the book will offer.

Diana Gabaldon has posted an excerpt of her brand new Lord John novella, "The Custom of the Army," on her website at http://66.147.244.179/~dianagab/excerpts/lj_army.html

Macmillan offers a sample from Cecelia Holland's Viking tale, "The King of Norway," on its own site at http://us.macmillan.com/warriors

And of course there's an exc...

Love & Death...

... is coming in November.

The good folks at Pocket Books have just informed us that SONGS OF LOVE AND DEATH: Tales of Star-Crossed Love, the latest big crossgenre anthology from me and my partner in crime Gardner Dozois, has been slated for publication on November 16 of this year.

The lineup for this one:

-Jim Butcher, "Love Hurts"
-Jo Beverly, "The Marrying Maid"
-Carrie Vaughn, "Rooftops"
-M.L.N. Hanover, "Hurt Me"
-Cecelia Holland, "Demon Lover"
-Melinda M. Snodgrass, "The Wayfarer's Advice" ...

Not Done Yet

Spent the day in the rainwood. 1205 pages. More to come.

DANCE has now passed A CLASH OF KINGS to become the second longest volume in the series, though still three hundred pages shorter than the monster that was A STORM WITH SWORDS.

Tomorrow's the Big Game

I'm sorry the Jets won't be playing, but hey, it's still the SuperBowl, so I'll be watching.

I kinda sorta like both of these teams, so I have no strong rooting interest. I suppose I'll be pulling for the Saints. New Orleans deserves some good news after all that Katrina and George W. Bush have put them through, the Saints have never won one before, Drew Brees seems a good guy, I liked Jonathan Vilma when he was a Jet and Jeremy Shockey when he was a Giant, and they have that whole underdog ...

SUICIDE KINGS in Albuquerque

By popular demand, we've scheduled another Albuquerque mass signing for the latest Wild Cards hardcover, SUICIDE KINGS (volume twenty in the overall series, and the third and concluding book of the current triad).

This time we will be at the Barnes & Noble in Coronado Center, on the southwest corner of Menaul and Louisiana NE in Albuquerque. The event is scheduled for Saturday, February 20, and will run from 1:30 pm until... well, it says 3:00 here, but really, until we run out of people who ...