The Tor hardcover edition of Suicide Kings will be published on December 22, just in time for Christmas.

This latest installment in the Wild Cards saga—third and final volume in the "Committee" triad that began with Inside Straight and continued with Busted Flush—is a full mosaic novel, a single continuous narrative featuring six protagonists, whose stories are interwoven throughout the book. It's a form unique to Wild Cards, and a demanding one, but we think the results are worth it. The contributing writers are Ian Tregillis, Caroline Spector, Melinda Snodgrass, Victor Milan, S.L. Farrell, and Daniel Abraham.

Rustbelt, the Amazing Bubbles, Double Helix, the Radical, Gardener, and Jonathan (Bugsy) Hive provide the threads for our tapestry in this tale of love, war, revenge, and madness in the heart of darkness...but other Wild Cards favorites will also appear, including Cameo, Hoodoo Mama, Lohengrin, Dr. Finn, Popinjay, and many more. Not to mention the usual host of new characters, in parts both large and small.

Originally launched in 1987, Wild Cards has outlasted all the other shared worlds of the 80s to become the longest-running such series in the history of our genre. Suicide Kings is the twentieth volume of the overall saga. If you haven't tried Wild Cards yet, check out the sample on this website. Just click on the blue and white shield on my home page.

Make it a Wild Cards Christmas. Everyone needs a joker under their tree.

Valyrian Steel is now taking preorders for their full-size replica of Arya Stark's sword, Needle, forged at Winterfell by Mikken as a gift from Jon Snow. They expect to be shipping the sword in the fall, probably September or October.

Needle was especially made for Arya, as a child's version of a bravo's blade. Our replica will have a 24" inch long blade (30" overall) of high carbon steel with full tang. The hilt will be cast metal with antique nickel plate and leather wrap. A heraldic display plaque featuring the direwolf of House Stark is included, along with a certificate of authenticity signed by me. This is a limited edition of 2500 swords, and the back of each blade will be laser etched in fine print with the edition number.

To place an order or get more details, visit the Valyrian Steel website.

(And if you want the whole armory, the Longclaw replica is still available as well).

And remember—stick 'em with the pointy end.

Tor Books has scheduled its hardcover release of WARRIORS, the huge crossgenre anthology that I co-edited with Gardner Dozois, for March 16, 2010.

A gigantic "event" anthology in the tradition of such landmarks as Robert Silverberg's LEGENDS and Harlan Ellison's classic DANGEROUS VISIONS books, WARRIORS will feature an all-star lineup of award winners and bestsellers from half a dozen different genres. Fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, suspense, western, mainstream, and romance will all be represented, along with a few tales impossible to classify. The lineup includes a new Dunk & Egg novella by yours truly, a FOREVER PEACE sequel from Joe Haldeman, a Lord John novella by Diana Gabaldon, an Emberverse story from S.M. Stirling, a new Roman tale from Steven Saylor, and all sorts of other goodies.

Our table of contents:
Introduction: "Stories from the Spinner Rack," by George R.R. Martin
"The King of Norway," by Cecilia Holland
"Forever Bound," by Joe Haldeman
"The Triumph," by Robin Hobb
"Clean Slate," by Lawrence Block
"And Ministers of Grace," by Tad Williams
"Soldierin'," by Joe Lansdale
"Dirae," by Peter S. Beagle
"The Eagle and the Rabbit," by Steven Saylor
"Seven Years from Home," by Naomi Novik
"The Custom of the Army," by Diana Gabaldon
"The Pit," by James Rollins
"Out of the Dark," by David Weber
"The Girls from Avenger," by Carrie Vaughn
"Ancient Ways," by S.M. Stirling
"Ninieslando" by Howard Waldrop
"Recidivist" by Gardner Dozois
"My Name is Legion," by David Morrell
"Defenders of the Frontier," by Robert Silverberg
"The Scroll," by David Ball
"The Mystery Knight," by George R.R. Martin

Vikings, doughboys, Roman legionaries and French Foreign Legionnaires, knights, Buffalo soldiers, cybernetic infantry, WASPs, Cossacks—you'll find them all in the pages of WARRIORS. So mark down next March on your calendars.

For years now fans of my epic fantasy series A Song of Ice & Fire have been writing and emailing me to suggest... ask... beg for the books to be made into a videogame. I'm thrilled to be able to announce that, at long last, those requests are being answered. Cyanide Studios, an independent videogame developer based in Nanterre, France, has acquired an exclusive option to develop Ice & Fire as both an RTS (Real Time Strategy) and RPG videogame for next generation consoles and PC.

Cyanide will begin development immediately, with an eye toward rolling out the games for release in the summer of 2011. "We are all huge fans of 'A Song of Ice and Fire', so it is a true honour for our teams to be entrusted with creating the first video games inspired by this masterpiece" said Patrick Pligersdorffer, Managing Director of Cyanide. "The twists and turns of the plot will allow us to deliver an experience which can be enjoyed by both long-time fans as well as gamers new to the series. Its rich web of characters, set in a universe where nothing is just black and white, make it an ideal background for both an RTS and an RPG."

Cyanide first approached me about videogame rights five years ago. No agreement was reached at that time, but Patrick and his colleague Joe Ryan have maintained their interest in the series over the years, impressing me with their doggedness and determination. Since that first contact, Cyanide has opened a studio in Montreal and more than doubled its headcount, and now have the resources to produce both RTS and RPG games that will, we hope, satisfy all my fans and readers, and gamers unfamiliar with the books as well. I am pleased to be in business with the Cyanide, and look forward to working with them on the games.

Cyanide was founded in 2000, and has developed and produced games in numerous genres, including sports management, real time strategy, fantasy, and action RPGs. More information is available through the company website : cyanide-studio.com.

Subterranean Press has announced that they've sent the Jack Vance tribute anthology (co-edited by me and Gardner Dozois), SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH to the printers.

This is the illustrated edition, with gorgeous interior artwork by Tom Kidd. The lettered and numbered states are sold out, but copies of the trade remain available at the SubPress website.

Here's the lineup:
- Thank You, Mr. Vance, Dean Koontz
- Preface, Jack Vance
- THE TRUE VINTAGE OF ERZINE THALE, Robert Silverberg
- GROLION OF ALMERY, Matthew Hughes
- THE COPSY DOOR, Terry Dowling
- CAULK THE WITCH-CHASER, Liz Williams
- INESCAPABLE, Mike Resnick
- ABRIZONDE, Walter Jon Williams
- THE TRADITIONS OF KARZH, Paula Volsky
- THE FINAL QUEST OF THE WIZARD SARNOD, Jeff VanderMeer
- THE GREEN BIRD, Kage Baker
- THE LAST GOLDEN THREAD, Phyllis Eisenstein
- AN INCIDENT IN USKVESK, Elizabeth Moon
- SYLGARMO'S PROCLAMATION, Lucius Shepard
- THE LAMENTABLY COMICAL TRAGEDY (OR THE LAUGHABLY TRAGIC COMEDY) OF LIVAL LAQAVEE, Tad Williams
- GUYAL THE CURATOR, John C. Wright
- THE GOOD MAGICIAN, Glen Cook
- RETURN OF THE FIRE WITCH, Elizabeth Hand
- THE COLLEGEUM OF MAUGE, by Byron Tetrick
- EVILLO THE UNCUNNING, Tanith Lee
- THE GUIDING NOSE OF ULFANT BANDEROZ, Dan Simmons
- FROGSKIN CAP, Howard Waldrop
- A NIGHT AT THE TARN HOUSE, George R.R. Martin
- AN INVOCATION OF INCURIOSITY, Neil Gaiman

It's going to be a real Jack Vance extravaganza over at Subterranean, since they are also rolling to press with his autobiography, IT'S ME, JACK VANCE, and the collection WILD THYME, GREEN MAGIC. You might want to pick up copies of those two as well... and hey, my own "Ace Double" book, STARLADY and FAST- FRIEND, remains available as well.

WILD CARDS is headed back to its roots.

The early volumes in our long-running shared-world anthology series largely centered around Manhattan, especially the parts of the Bowery and Lower East Side that became known as Jokertown. More recent entries, however, have been wider in scope, often international. But I've signed the contracts for another brand new, all-original Wild Cards mosaic novel, and I'm pleased to announce that with FORT FREAK the series is coming home again.

Manhattan's 5th precinct has seen it all. Its historic precinct house on Elizabeth Street is the oldest in the New York City, and the cops and detectives based there are charged with keeping the peace in Chinatown, Little Italy, the Bowery, and parts of the Lower East Side.

In our alternate universe, the jokers—deformed, twisted vicctims of the alien virus known as the wild card—began moving into tenementss of the Bowery and Lower East Side in the late 40s and early 50s, driving out the "nats" (naturals) and transforming the area into a colorful, dangerous, and often surreal slum district that soon became known as Jokertown. The 5th precinct became the Jokertown precinct. It did not take long before the city's police began calling the precinct house "Fort Freak."

Fort Freak and its cops and detectives have figured in many of our older Wild Cards stories, albeit usually in the background. But with this new volume, we're finally going to tell the stories of the brave men and women who walk the mean streets and strange alleys of Jokertown, and the unique and dangerous challenges that face.

FORT FREAK is the title, and Tor will once again be our publisher. The lineup of contributors for this one includes Cherie Priest, Melinda M. Snodgrass, David Anthony Durham, Stephen Leigh, Paul Cornell, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Victor Milan, and John Jos. Miller. The featured characters will be a mix of old favorite and new creations.

This will be the twenty-first volume in the Wild Cards series, first launched in 1987.

Look for FORT FREAK in your favorite bookstore in late 2010 or early 2011. We've just started work on this one.

The good folks at Green Ronin Games have been busy of late, with two new releases that should be of interest to my readers.

For all the Wild Cards fanatics out there, they have just released Wild Cards: All-In, A Mutants & Masterminds Adventure Anthology, with four all new ready-to-play adventures in the world of aces, jokers, and aliens. All-In should be on sale now at your favorite gaming store, and is also available as a PDF, direct from Green Ronin. Bill Bodden, Dwayne Butchino, Steve Kenson, John Polojac, and Mark Santillo were the authors. Here's your chance to have your own characters join the exalted ranks of Dr. Tachyon, Modular Man, the Great and Powerful Turtle, and other Wild Card favorites.

Ah, but that's just the appetizer. For the main course, Green Ronin has rolled out its long-awaited and much- anticipated Song of Ice & Fire Role- Playing Game! The hardcover of the core book is now on sale at game stores all over the country, and a PDF is also available from Green Ronin's website.

"Based on George R.R. Martin's fantasy epic, A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying gives you everything you need to play and run games in the Seven Kingdoms using an all new and easy to learn game system specifically designed to evoke the atmosphere of these best-selling novels," Green Ronin declares in their news release. "You and your fellow players take on the roles of key members of a noble house. Opportunities abound under the new king and as old loyalties die and new ones are born, your house is poised to claim its place alongside the Great Houses of Westeros. Should you succeed in your efforts, you might find yourself among the Starks and Lannisters, gaining the favor of the king, and securing your place in history. Should you fail, your rivals will destroy you on their own desperate climb to greatness. Seize your birthright in Green Ronin's A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying!"

For more information on both the Wild Cards and Song of Ice and Fire games, check out Green Ronin's own website. And happy adventuring.

Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a blimp!! No, it's FIVE blimps strung together!!! And here comes Jetboy...

That was how the Wild Cards series began, way way back in 1987 before some of you were born. Here we are in 2009, and the series is still going strong. The new books, INSIDE STRAIGHT and BUSTED FLUSH (and don't forget SUICIDE KINGS, coming this December from Tor) have drawn a lot of new readers to our world of aces and jokers, and many of them have been emailing me to ask where they can find the old books. But with the original series long out of print, the best I could do was suggest that they search on ebay and ABE in hopes of turning up some used copies at a not-too-outrageous price.

Well, all that is about to change. I'm pleased to announce that the response to the new Wild Cards books has been strong enough that our friends at Tor Books are going to start doing new editions of the original series—starting right at the beginning with the first three volumes: WILD CARDS, ACES HIGH, and JOKERS WILD. Our first triad.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but we're talking about bringing the books out as hardcovers (the old editions from Bantam and Titan were paperback originals, though the Science Fiction Book CLub did reprint volumes one through six as hardcovers)and possibly as omnibus editions. Details on that remain to be explored, but I'll be sure and keep you posted.

But that's not even the best part yet.

Longtime fans of the series may recall that the first book, WILD CARDS, was our historical volume, with stories that took us all the way from Dr. Tachyon's arrival on Earth in 1946 right up to the Wild Card "present," which back then was 1986. We had forty years to cover, and I like to think we covered it pretty well... but of course, there were gaps. Years and even decades of Wild Card history that we simply did not have the space to dramatize.

Tor's new edition will help rectify that. We're not just reprinting the original WILD CARDS, as it was first published; we're adding three brand-new, original, never-before-published stories set during some of the "lost years" we couldn't cover last time around. So this edition of WILD CARDS will be the director's cut, if you will, fortified and expanded with original content, extra fiber, and three news tales:

- Michael Cassutt will take us back to 1956 with, "Captain Cathode v the Secret Ace,"

- David D. Levine will visit 1960, to tell us about "Powers," and,

- Carrie Vaughn will show us 1981, as "Ghost Girl Takes Manhattan."

We think these will be three terrific new additions to the Wild Cards saga, and we're excited about the chance to present them to you. Look for the new expanded WILD CARDS some time in 2010. More details when I have 'em.

We can't die yet. We haven't seen THE JOLSON STORY.

WARRIORS, the huge ambitious original anthology that I've been co-editing with my friend Gardner Dozois, has been completed and delivered to our editors at Tor books.

This one is a monster, a gigantic "event" anthology in the tradition of such landmarks as Robert Silverberg's LEGENDS and Harlan Ellison's classic DANGEROUS VISIONS books, with an all-star lineup of writers, almost all of them award winners and bestsellers in their own fields. The theme of the anthology is war and the warrior ethos... but what makes WARRIORS different from all the military SF anthologies that have gone before is that this one is a cross-genre anthology, featuring original stories from top writers in half a dozen categories of fiction. Fantasy, SF, historical fiction, suspense, mainstream, romance, and more, all of it was welcome here.

We want to show the readers that it's the story that matters, not the label.

Our final lineup:

Introduction: "Stories from the Spinner Rack," by George R.R. Martin

"The King of Norway," by Cecilia Holland

"Forever Bound," by Joe Haldeman

"The Triumph," by Robin Hobb

"Clean Slate," by Lawrence Block

"And Ministers of Grace," by Tad Williams

"Soldierin'," by Joe Lansdale

"Dirae," by Peter S. Beagle

"The Eagle and the Rabbit," by Steven Saylor

"Seven Years from Home," by Naomi Novik

"The Custom of the Army," by Diana Gabaldon

"The Pit," by James Rollins

"Out of the Dark," by David Weber

"The Girls from Avenger," by Carrie Vaughn

"Ancient Ways," by S.M. Stirling

"Ninieslando" by Howard Waldrop

"Recidivist" by Gardner Dozois

"My Name is Legion," by David Morrell

"Defenders of the Frontier," by Robert Silverberg

"The Scroll," by David Ball

"The Mystery Knight," by George R.R. Martin

There's twenty stories, all original and never before published, including a Forever Peace sequel from Joe Haldeman, a "Lord John" novella by Diana Gabaldon, an Emberverse tale from Steve Stirling, and a major new Dunk & Egg novella from yours truly. Vikings, doughboys, Roman legionaries, knights, Buffalo soldiers, cybernetic infantry, WASPs, Cossacks—you'll find them all in the pages of WARRIORS.

No publication date has been announced for the book yet, but look for it in late 2010 or early 2011, in hardcover. Watch this space for further announcements.

Suicide Kings, the third and concluding book in our new Wild Cards triad from Tor, has been completed and delivered to editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden. The book has not yet been scheduled, but look for it in late 2009 or early 2010.

This latest installment in the Wild Cards saga concludes the "Committee" arc that began with Inside Straight (now available in paperback at a bookstore near you) and continued with Busted Flush (released in hardcovers in December). As with the climactic volumes of past triads, Suicide Kings is a full mosaic novel, a single continuous narrative featuring six protagonists, whose stories are interwoven throughout the book. It's a form unique to Wild Cards, and a demanding one, but we think the results are worth it. In some ways, it is similar to what I've done with my Ice & Fire fantasies, but with each viewpoint character written by a different author.

This time around the contributing writers are Ian Tregillis, Caroline Spector, Melinda Snodgrass, Victor Milan, S.L. Farrell, and Daniel Abraham. Rustbelt, the Amazing Bubbles, Double Helix, the Radical, Gardener, and Jonathan (Bugsy) Hive provide the threads for our tapestry in this tale of love, war, revenge, and madness in the heart of darkness... but other Wild Cards favorites will also appear, including Cameo, Hoodoo Mama, Lohengrin, Dr. Finn, Popinjay, and many more. Not to mention the usual host of new characters, in parts both large and small.

Originally launched in 1987, Wild Cards has outlasted all the other shared worlds of the 80s to become the longest-running such series in the history of our genre. Suicide Kings is the twentieth volume of the overall saga. If you haven't tried Wild Cards yet, check out the sample on this website, where you'll find an excerpt from Melinda Snodgrass's interstitial for Busted Flush, featuring Noel Matthews, aka Double Helix, shapechanging teleport and assassin for Her Majesty's Most Puissant Order of the Silver Helix. Just click on the blue and white shield on my home page.