George R.R. Martin's Blog, page 30

Lose One, Lose One

The NFL season has begun.   The strangest NFL season of my lifetime, maybe of anyone’s lifetime.  Teams playing in empty stadiums, to the sound of piped-in crowd noise.

The empty stadiums are a necessity in the midst of our pandemic, of course.   That needs to continue to keep everyone safe.

I could live without the fake crowd sounds, however.   The whole cool thing about playing before a crowd is the reactions of the fans… the roars that greet a good play by the home team, the groans and curses...

Scary Stuff

Just watched a Netflix documentary about social media called THE SOCIAL DILEMMA that terrified me more than any horror movie I have seen in the past twenty years.

I have never been a fan of Twitter or Facebook or any of the other social apps out there.  My Not A Blog remains my main (and really my only) method of interfacing with the internet.   The accounts I have elsewhere largely just echo stuff I have already posted here.   I do think the social media is having terrible effects on our societ...

More Death

I am late to post about this, but I was very saddened by the news of a couple recent deaths.

The world of television and film lost a titan with the passing of Dame Diana Rigg.   Such an amazing talent.   It was such an honor to have her on GAME OF THRONES as the Queen of Thorns.  I only had the chance to meet her once, when I visited the set the first year she was on the show.   As brief as that meeting was, I count that a rare privilege.  A lovely lady.   As great as she was as Olenna Tyrell, f...

C-C-Claudius, aka I, CLAVDIVS

The BBC made their adaptation of I, CLAUDIUS — based on the classic novels by Robert Graves (I, CLAUDIUS and CLAUDIUS THE GOD), which were in turn based on the histories of Suetonius — in 1976, but I did not encounter them until a few years later, when PBS picked them up and ran them (in a somewhat censored form, to shield Americans from seeing nipples) in the USA.  I remember, I was still living in Dubuque, Iowa at the time, teaching college.   I loved the series then, and I love it now.   I ha...

Emerging From Hyperspace

Those electronic tonalities you hear are the United Planets cruise c-57-D emerging from hyperspace at  to investigate the fate of the Bellerophon expedition.  The Bellerophon was supposed to be exploring the fourth planet of the great main sequence star Altair, but we have it on good authority that they actually ended up at Beastly Books on Montezuma Street in Santa Fe, NM, Land of Enchantment.

We are sure that Dr. Morbius , his lovely daughter Altaira, and Robby the Robot will make them welcome...

The Martians Are Here

The world is in trouble.

As if all our other woes were not enough, a huge smoking meteor came crashing down from space a few days ago and landed in the midst of Santa Fe’s historic Railyard District, between the Jean Cocteau Cinema and the Santa Fe Southern Railroad.   When some of my staff went to investigate the crater it left, waving a white flag and chanting “Welcome to the Land of Enchantment,” a heat ray on a long neck emerged and vaporized them.

And then THIS emerged from the crater, maki...

Stuff to Watch

I write most days, sometimes into the evenings.

At night, after supper, I read, watch television, or screen movies (I used to love going to the movies, since the best place to see a film is in a theatre with an audience around you, but the pandemic has put an end to that for the nonce).

A couple of things I have really enjoyed lately…

Parris and I binged on HBO’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s HIS DARK MATERIALS when I was back in Santa Fe, and loved it.   Gorgeous production, great cast (loved ...

DEALER’S CHOICE Returns

The last days of the Rox are at hand (again).   Bloat’s dream of a joker homeland on Ellis Island faces its ultimate test.

DEALER’S CHOICE was the eleventh volume in the original run of Wild Cards from Bantam Books, and the third and concluding volume in the Rox Triad.   This one is a fully interwoven mosaic novel, written by Stephen Leigh, Walter Jon Williams, John Jos. Miller, the late great Edward Bryant, and George R.R. Martin, action from start to finish. Out of print for more than twenty-f...

Life After Death

Even the greatest of minds may disagree about what to do with those who came before us, fallible fellows all.

The Bard of Avon put the truth in the mouth of Mark Antony.   That was the way the world worked in the late Roman Republic when JULIUS CAESAR was set, that was the way the world worked in Elizabethan England when the play was written, and that, alas, is the way the world seems to work now, despite the passage of centuries.  Shakespeare was a pretty smart fellow.   He told it like it is...

THE EXPANSE Rules

Jimmy Corey — aka James S.A. Corey — aka Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck — is another friend(s) who kicked ass and took names at CoNZealand’s Hugo Awards, taking home the rocket ship for BEST SERIES over some very worthy competitors.

Maybe you’ve seen the TV show.   It’s great.   But the books are even better…

… and we have signed copies of all of them at Beastly Books, beside the Jean Cocteau.

To order yourself a set head over the the Beastly Books website at  https://jeancocteaucinema.com/beastl...