Ice and Fire World Book

[Trey Greyjoy]

Some news from the *other* board I thought would interest you:

http://www.westeros.org/ASoWS/News/Entry/1647/

 

[Werthead]

The awesomeness of this news cannot be contained within this post. Needless to say: yay!

 

[TK-421]

Holly sh&*....I agree, this is wicked. Will wait very anxiously to geek out on it when its published. No word on when it will be published.

 

[Werthead]

Unknown. I'd say about a year absolute minimum, probably longer than that.
The great thing is that by virtue of being on the Westeros forum, people will be able to keep an eye on progress. I might actually be meeting Ran in November, so I can find out then how the project is looking as well.

 

[Raven]

Unknown. I'd say about a year absolute minimum, probably longer than that.
The great thing is that by virtue of being on the Westeros forum, people will be able to keep an eye on progress. I might actually be meeting Ran in November, so I can find out then how the project is looking as well.

Well, since Ran and Linda are going to LACon because of the book, I'm assuming there will be some sort of launch event there that might answer some of these questions. Failing that there will certainly be discussions, which I ought to be able to winkle details of out of some of the interested parties. Alas Ran doesn't drink much, so I can't get him drunk...

As yet, though, nothing has been done - there isn't even a title, nor have artists been commissioned. And remember, Ran and Linda have full-time jobs and also run westeros.org and all its associated stuff - Blood of Dragons, the message board, etc. So I would say a year is optimistic.

 

[Werthead]

Optimistic, but not outside the realm of possibility, but OTOH Ran does have most of the reference stuff from the books already laid out in the Citadel section of the site. I'm guessing it depends on how much new stuff George will be adding to the book (a fair amount, I'm guessing, to make it worthwhile) and how much new art versus old art will be used (again, a fair amount).

So, if you pligh Ran with questions at LACon, and then we corner him again in Amsterdam (if he comes along), we can find out what the score is. Or just ask him on the board

 

[the_faery_queen]

will that be like the robert jordan guide to wheel of time book? that would be cool! i love things like that

 

[AryaUnderfoot]

will that be like the robert jordan guide to wheel of time book? that would be cool! i love things like that

Hopefully the artwork will be better.

 

[Trey Greyjoy]

There are so many great artists doing ASOIAF work right now it should be fantastic.

 

[the_faery_queen]

hahaha, ayra, yeah! the images in the jordan thing were pretty poor!

 

[Rane Longfox]

*yay*

 

[cornelius]

me wants it

 

[Werthead]

For the time being you can check out Wikipedia's ASoIaF pages. There is a strong effort to bring them up to speed at the moment. Just go to www.wikipedia.org and search for:

George RR Martin
A Song of Ice and Fire
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords
A Feast for Crows
A Dance with Dragons
The Hedge Knight
House Arryn/Baratheon/Frey/Greyjoy/Martell/Lannister/Stark/Targaryen/Tully/Tyrell
Wars in A Song of Ice and Fire
Across the Narrow Sea

 

[Ran]

Thanks for the kind words, folks. Linda and I are incredibly excited. To respond to some comments...

Wert,

I'd say about a year absolute minimum, probably longer than that.

Yeah, I've really no idea how long. A year may well be a good figure. Sometimes Linda and I can just write ASoIaF-stuff out quite quickly (the ~10k word synopsis of AGoT, including a couple of back-and-forths with the editor, took maybe a single working day in total to complete), and sometimes not.

We don't even have a ball-park word count, though, so I couldn't even begin to estimate it...

To some degree, I'm guessing Bantam will really want to figure out the best time to release the book in relation to ADwD -- just before, to whet appetites? at the same time, when the buzz and media attention is highest? a few months afterwards, to give eager readers their "fix" while GRRM's pounding away at the next book? -- and that will probably dictate a lot concerning the release date.

Raven,

Well, since Ran and Linda are going to LACon because of the book, I'm assuming there will be some sort of launch event there that might answer some of these questions.

You know, I don't think there's one planned, and I noticed that Random House doesn't seem to be doing one of those 'What's Coming from Us' presentations that a number of the other publishers are doing at the Worldcon. Maybe one will show up on the schedule at some point...

I do think that maybe George had intended to announce it at the con during one of the parties, but Locus beat him to it.

Failing that there will certainly be discussions, which I ought to be able to winkle details of out of some of the interested parties. Alas Ran doesn't drink much, so I can't get him drunk...

This is true. If you find a good 4.5%, nicely flavored cider (cactus-lime, gooseberry, that sort of thing) and give Linda a tipple, that may work. She gets giggly.

Wert,

So, if you pligh Ran with questions at LACon, and then we corner him again in Amsterdam (if he comes along), we can find out what the score is. Or just ask him on the board

Linda and I are now unlikely to get Amsterdam, given this trip. But it's not entirely out of the question, even so. I should probably note that on the appropriate thread....

Arya,

Hopefully the artwork will be better.

I can guarantee it.

It's not planned to be a single-artist book, at least not at this early stage (things could change, I suppose). With current plans, it'll reprint some of the art you've seen in other books and media (like the CCG from Fantasy Flight Games), but there'll also be brand-new, commissioned pieces from some big name artists.

 

[Werthead]

Cool Ran. Nice to see you found your way here as well.

This is going to be ultrageek, but many years ago when I was still heavily into Robert Jordan, I got so frustrated with the lack of information in the appendices to the books I started writing out a Companion book off my own back, then added info to it from when the Big White Book was released. Then I had to copy the whole thing (which by this time was gigantic) from my Amiga to my first PC due to incompatibility between the two machines. Then I updated it until after the ninth book came out and I lost the will to live. The behemoth stands at 349 A4 pages and 167,000 words in length, and that's without a lot of stuff from Book 10 and 11 added to it. [ego]And, frankly, it's probably as good as if not better than the BwB itself[/ego].

I attempted to do something similar for ASoIaF and was making pretty good progress from just AGoT and ACoK by itself until I went on-line, saw The Citadel for the first time, and just threw in the towel. I know when I'm beaten

My Jordan guide still kicks ass though.

 

[Ran]

I'd actually be tempted to look at that world book of yours, just out of vague fannish interest (we skim the latest books, little more than that, but Linda and I still like the setting simply because of the roleplay opportunities it affords on MUSHes; it's pretty much post-medieval, which in itself is rare in published epic fantasy settings).

We used to rely on the old WoT Concordance (from whence the ASoIaF Concordance's name comes from), but the maintainer (Rhonda Peters) pretty much quit around book 6.

 

[Trey Greyjoy]

Totally cool that you found your way here Ran. Good luck with all your endeavors!!!

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

Welcome aboard Ran.
Very much looking forward to your companion anthology. I presume it will contain information from AGoT up to AFfC and possibly some stuff which may crop up in ADwD?
Do you think there will be any possibility of anything from later in the series - new characters, houses which GRRM is mulling over for inclusion later in the series?

I'd be very interested to see the "Children of the Forest" and "Others" sections f'instance as the information presented so far has been scarce.

Who knows, if this piece sells well, you could top George on the bestsellers lists - wouldn't that be something.

 

[genisis2]

Welcome Ran and thank you for posting that much needed information for us fans on this thread. Best of Luck on the book, Im sure to get it once its released.
I have a few questions if you dont mind answering them.

1. Is it possible to keep us up dated on how its going and possible release date when it comes to completion or near completion?

2. How did this project come about? Was there much correspondence with GRRM about this?

3. Will GRRM be doing any editing on this? Im assuming he'll be looking at what your doing and periodically be giving his input.

Thanks.

 

[TK-421]

Werthead: Did I read that right? Amiga? 500 or 1000? I had a 500 back in 1988 or so...Oh, the mesh shirts, neon bracelets, pastels and Cyndi Lauper tunes are coming back to me...