George R.R. Martin's Blog, page 23

Meet me at the Hellfire Gala!

Look who gets to join in with the a massive VIP crowd rubbing elbows with the X-Men.  Featured this month in Marvels X-Men #21 myself and my beautiful wife Parris get to be drawn into the the amazing Hellfire Gala event.  What fun,  pick up your issue today.  And a big thanks for including me, what an honor being drawn into a Marvel comic book.  I can’t wait to see what we look like and read the issue!

 

Paying It Forward

Heinlein said it best.   You can never pay back the people who helped you when you were first starting out, so all you can do is pay it forward, and try to help those who come after.

Those words, and the sentiment behind them, have always resonated with me, and I have done my best to Pay It Forward.  One of the ways I’ve tried to do that is with the scholarships I sponsor — to Clarion and Clarion West, Odyssey, and the Taos Toolbox, to IAIA here in Santa Fe, and through the Stagecoach Foundatio...

The Candle Is Burning

The Candle is back, in “Ripple Effects,” Laura J. Mixon’s great new novella on Tor.com… for all the Wild Cards fans out there, and for everyone who does not know they are Wild Cards fans yet.

Check it out.   It’s free.

Ripple Effects

Words For Our Times

Meow, Meow, Meow

Way behind on my Meow Wolf updates, so…

The House of Eternal Return, the original Meow Wolf installation in Santa Fe, reopened on the Five Year anniversary of our debut.   Covid restrictions are in place, so capacity has been limited… and what better time to revisit (or visit for the first time), than now, when the crowds are thinner?   The madmen at Meow Wolf took advantage of the lockdown to repair, restore, and improve the attraction too, adding some amazing new rooms, like the Temple of Tras...

The Candle is Coming

Remember the Candle?

No?  Tsk.  Obviously you are behind on your Wild Card reading.   The Candle was one of the contestants on the first season of American Hero back in 2007, as chronicled in INSIDE STRAIGHT.   You missed INSIDE STRAIGHT?   That’s not a problem either.   You can snag a nice hardcover edition from Beastly Books, my newly-reopened (yay!) bookshop in Santa Fe.   At Beastly Books, ALL the books are signed, and INSIDE STRAIGHT has more signatures than most, with autographs from many ...

May! Yay!

What’s Up, Doc?

Come June, I won’t be able to play cards with Nelson Algren any more, I guess.

I am very pleased and proud to announce that my alma mater, Northwestern University, will be presenting me with an honorary doctorate at this year’s commencement, on June 14.   Here’s the official announcement about the event:

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2021/04/commencement-gwynne-shotwell/?utm_source=nnow_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=commencement

This year’s commencement will be virtual, so the...

Comes A Swordsman

He is the common-born son of the steward to the Lord of Blackhaven.   He has no claim to lands or titles, all he has is his honor and his skill with sword and lance.

He is a challenger, a champion, cheered by the commons, beloved of the ladies.

He is a lover (or is he?), a seducer (or is he?), a betrayer (or is he?), a breaker of hearts and a maker of kings.

FIRE & BLOOD readers know him as Ser Criston Cole.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON viewers will know him as FABIEN FRANKEL.

In some of his other roles...

Not A Blogging

Way back when on LiveJournal, when I started this column or journal or whatever it is, I called it my “Not A Blog,” because I could see that regular blogging was a lot of work, and I didn’t think I had the time to devote to it.   I was late on a book even then, though I do not recall which one.  I figured I would just make posts from time to time, when I had an important announcement, when the mood struck me, whatever.

Somehow, though, over the decades, the Not A Blog became a blog, and what I h...