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Hugo Deadline At Hand

March 31, 2014 at 7:42 pm
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Just a reminder.  Today is the last day to nominate for the 2014 Hugo Awards, to be awarded this August in London.  You will need to be a memer (attending or supporting) of LonCon to vote… but if you were a member of last year's San Antonio worldcon, or the forthcoming one in Spokane, you can still nominate.

The Hugos are the oldest award in the fields of SF and fantasy, and still far and away the most important.   They are a fan award… a reader award… YOUR award… so do let your voice be heard.

To nominate, start at the official website here: http://www.loncon3.org/nominations.php

You will need your membership number and PIN.

(I don't have time to give a long list of recommendations this year, as I have done in past years.  But I will suggest that you remember GARY GIANNI when nominating for Best Professional Artist, for his incredible work on the 2014 Ice & Fire calendar, and JANE JOHNSON and MALCOLM EDWARDS when nominating Best Professional Editor, Long Form.  This is a British worldcon, after all, and these two titans of SF and fantasy publishing in the UK have NEVER received a single nomination for their contributions to our field, which is shocking and shameful.  Both of them deserve places on the ballot this year).

((And even if you have already sent in your e-ballot, it's not too late.  The LonCon format permits you to go back and add and even change right up to the deadline)).

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Big Day Tomorrow

March 28, 2014 at 10:17 pm
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GAME OF THRONES, season four, comes to Santa Fe tomorrow.

We will have three showings.  A Spanish-language screening in the morning, an English screening in the afternoon, a private invitation-only show in the evening.  Meanwhile, the Iron Throne has already been set up in Sanbusco mall, and will be there all morning and afternoon, till 5 pm, for fans to see, sit in, and take pictures of.  No charge for that.  No charge for any of that.

The two public showings are first come, first seated.  But get there early.  There's already a line half a block long as I type.

Our marathon screenings of seasons one to three concluded on Monday with the showing of "The Rains of Castamere" and "Mhysa," and a costume contest.  We had some amazing costumes turn up.

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See you tomorrow… back in Westeros.

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I Broke the Internet

March 27, 2014 at 3:20 pm
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Sorry about that.

 The upload of the new sample chapter from THE WINDS OF WINTER created so much traffic to my website and blog that the servers crashed.  This is the first time I've been able to get up myself all day.

 Anyway, it seems to be easing off some.  And we are looking at ways to increase capacity.

 The "reviews" of the chapter have been amazingly enthusiastic as well.  Thanks.   I am pleased that so many of you — thousands and maybe tens of thousands, it would seem — enjoyed "Mercy" so much.

 I mentioned that this chapter had quite a history.  It's true.  The first draft was written more than a decade ago.  Originally, it was intended to be the opening Arya chapter after the infamous "five year gap," her first appearance in A DANCE WITH DRAGONS as initially conceived.   Then it was supposed to be a part of A FEAST FOR CROWS, after I abandoned the five year gap and split the books.  Then it was going to be the concluding Arya chapter in A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.  But it seemed more like an opening chapter than a closing one, so shortly before ADWD was published my editor and I agreed to remove it from DANCE and shift it over into WINDS.  Of course, it has been revised, tightened, polished, and tweaked at every step of the way, so the version on my website has some significant differences from the "five year gap" version.

Some of you who enjoyed meeting Mercy may not have found the other sample we've put out there of late, a new Tyrion chapter.  That one is live and available with the ICE & FIRE app, and can be found at

iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/george-r.-r.-martins-world/id570015223?mt=8

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.randomhouse.woiaf

Enjoy the read.

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Game of Thrones Ascent for iPad

March 27, 2014 at 1:00 pm
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An Announcement brought to you by the Minions of Fevre River:

Last year, Disruptor Beam developed Game of Thrones Ascent for the Web, and several million players—comprising thousands of alliances–have joined the conflict in Westeros.

Today, Disruptor Beam just launched a new version of the game for iPad.

If you haven’t tried the game since it first came out, it’s worth checking out again now.  Many features have been added, like forming alliances with other players for large-scale battles—not to mention a huge amount of content, items and artwork.  If you’re brand new, then you’re in for a treat: the iPad version is a big improvement over the Web version, with crisp graphics and an overhauled touchscreen interface.  As Season 4 airs, the game will also feature weekly updates based on the events you watch on HBO.

Disruptor Beam tells me that an Android tablet version will also be available in several weeks.  For those of you with an iPad, you can download it today by following this link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/game-of-thrones-ascent/id799145075?ls=1&mt=8

You can also get more information about all the versions of the game on Disruptor Beam’s website: http://disruptorbeam.com

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An Announcement brought to you by the Minions of Fevre River-

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For Three Days Only…

March 25, 2014 at 7:28 pm
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… Doc Brown and his time machine are back at the Jean Cocteau.

Tuesday (that's today), Wednesday, and Thursday we're screening BACK TO THE FUTURE, PART 2, and Doc had to come check it out.

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So come check it out for yourself at 418 Montezuma Street.  We not only have Doc and DeLorean, but also the best popcorn in town.

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 On Friday, alas, Doc will be taking his machine back to 1985, or maybe 1955, or perhaps the Old West.

But never mind.  This weekend, we'll have something else just as cool to sit in.

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Something Old, Something New

March 25, 2014 at 4:12 pm
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Hiya kids, hiya hiya hiya.

With season 4 of HBO's GAME OF THRONES almost upon us, I thought the time was ripe for me to give my readers another taste of WINDS OF WINTER.  So I will shortly be posting a new sample chapter there.  (If you have not read the Arianne chapter that has been up there lo these many months, better do so soon, because Arianne will be coming down when the new sample goes up).

The new chapter is actually an old chapter.  But no, it's not one I've published or posted before, and I don't even think I've read it at a con (could be wrong there, I've done readings at so many cons, it all tends to blur together).  So it's new in that it is material that no one but my editors (well, and Parris, and David and Dan, and a few others) have ever seen before, but it's old in that it was written a long time ago, predating any of the samples that you have seen.  The first draft was, at any rate.  I've rewritten it a dozen times since then.

Anyway, I've blathered on about it long enough, I will let the text speak for itself.

Chapter title is "Mercy."

(And as with past samples, please don't talk about it here.  There are dozens of great places to talk about the books on the web, but this is not one of them.  If you want to talk about the chapter after you've read it, check out Westeros or Tower of the Hand or one of the many other great Ice & Fire sites).

Watch my website.  Coming soon.

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Oh, My Poor Jets

March 22, 2014 at 7:56 pm
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Life is hard when you're a Jets fan.

I've been pretty busy these past two weeks, too busy to pay much attention to football.  But now I'm home and catching up, and wishing I hadn't.

It is a good thing we still have Doc Brown's time machine around here somewhere.  I need to go back in time and prevent the Jets from… well, from doing pretty much everything they have done of late.

Letting Antonio Cromartie leave was a mistake.  Not going after Darrelle Revis when Tampa Bay cut him loose was a worse mistake.  Letting him get picked up by Evil Little Bill and the Patriots was the worst mistake of all.

Instead the Jets signed Eric Decker from the Broncos.  Well, okay.  Not a bad move.  They desperately needed wide receivers.  Geno Smith was pretty bad last year, but he wasn't helped by having no one to throw to.  So now we add Decker.  Who was a good, solid receiver for Denver, but nothing special… until Peyton Manning came to town.  Then his stats went through the roof.  Unfortunately for Gang Green, he does not get the bring Peyton with him to New York, which means that he is going to go back to being a good, solid receiver again this year, but nothing special.  And maybe a notch below that, since he will have Geno throwing to him.  Oh, and then there are those two games against New England.  Expect Evil Little Bill to assign Revis to cover Decker.  Odds are good that in those two games, Revis will catch more of Geno's balls than Decker does.

Decker improves the offense a bit, yes.  But the defense, which was responsible for most of the Gang Green's Ws last year, has gotten a lot worse.  No Cromartie, no Revis… no shutdown corners.  It will not be pretty.

That was bad enough.  But then…

I expected them to cut Mark Sanchez.  Hell, everybody expected that.  I still think it's a mistake.  Sanchez took the Jets to two straight AFC championship games, and he would have won the starting QB job last year if he hadn't gotten hurt in preseason.  If he's healed, and they gave him a chance this season, I expect he might have won the job back this year, in an even competition.  I have seen nothing from Geno Smith to make me think he's better than Sanchez.  Maybe that's why he got cut: it would have been pretty embarassing for the Jets front office if Mark outperformed Geno in preseason.

But no, he's gone.  And to replace him, we've brought in…

Michael Vick?

Really?  REALLY?

I have been rooting for the Jets since they were the Titans, but I don't know that I can bring myself to root for Michael Vick.  Football wise, he's old, he's battered, he's gun-shy… a "mentor for Geno," I hear, but really?   Thing is, though, it is impossible to consider Vick purely from a football standpoint.

All in all, considering what the Jets have done this pre-season, I have only two words:

GO GIANTS!

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A New New Trailer

March 22, 2014 at 4:40 pm
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HBO unveiled another season 4 trailer while I was off in New York City for the red-carpet premiere at Lincoln Center and the Epic Fan Experience in Brooklyn.  Most of you have likely seen this one already, on one of the fan sites, but for those who haven't, here 'tis.

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It was a great trip, by the way.  New York City remains amazing, and in between all the official events, I found time for a pizza crawl through Brooklyn, and a visit to Bayonne, city of my birth.

More on all this later, if I ever find the time.

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The Rogues Are Coming…

March 12, 2014 at 11:56 am
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. . . and much sooner than expected.

Our good friends at Bantam Spectra have just informed me and my partner-in-crime Gardner Dozois that they have moved up the publication date of our next mammoth crossgenre anthology ROGUES. . . to June 17.  Yes, this year.   Three months from now, in other words.

If you enjoyed WARRIORS and DANGEROUS WOMEN, we think you'll love ROGUES.  It may be our strongest anthology yet.   We have some amazing writers and some incredible stories in this one.  The table of contents, as previously announced:

George R.R. Martin “Everybody Loves a Rogue” (Introduction)
Joe Abercrombie “Tough Times All Over”
Gillian Flynn “What Do You Do?”
Matthew Hughes “The Inn of the Seven Blessings”
Joe R. Lansdale “Bent Twig”
Michael Swanwick “Tawny Petticoats”
David Ball “Provenance”
Carrie Vaughn “The Roaring Twenties”
Scott Lynch “A Year and a Day in Old Theradane”
Bradley Denton “Bad Brass”
Cherie Priest “Heavy Metal”
Daniel Abraham “The Meaning of Love”
Paul Cornell “A Better Way to Die”
Steven Saylor “Ill Seen in Tyre”
Garth Nix “A Cargo of Ivories”
Walter Jon Williams “Diamonds From Tequila”
Phyllis Eisenstein “The Caravan to Nowhere”
Lisa Tuttle “The Curious Affair of the Dead Wives”
Neil Gaiman “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back”
Connie Willis “Now Showing”
Patrick Rothfuss “The Lightning Tree”

Twenty stories not enough for you?

Okay, okay, we've decided to add a twenty-first, for all you fans of fake history.

"The Princess and the Queen," Archmaester Gyldayn's somewhat abbreviated account of the Dance of the Dragons, got a great response from all the folks who read it in DANGEROUS WOMEN, so we've dipped back into the archmaester's somewhat disorganized piles of scrolls and crumbling manuscripts, and brought forth another piece of his unpublished history.  "The Rogue Prince, or, the King's Brother," will tell the story of the years leading up to the calamitious events of "The Princess and the Queen" during the reign of King Viserys I Targaryen, with particular attention to the role played by the king's brother, Prince Daemon, a rogue if there ever was one.   I hope you'll enjoy it as much as you did "The Princess and the Queen."

(And yes, sadly, "The Rogue Prince" is an abridged account as well.  For the full version, you will all need to wait some years, until we publish the complete history of House Targaryen in the GRRMarillion… which, by the way, I've decided I am going to call FIRE AND BLOOD, since the GRRMarillion joke has grown somewhat stale by now).

 We're got something for everyone in ROGUES — SF, mystery, historical fiction, epic fantasy, sword and sorcery, comedy, tragedy, crime stories, mainstream. And rogues, cads, scalawags, con men, thieves, and scoundrels of all descriptions. If you love Harry Flashman and Cugel the Clever, as I do, this is the book for you.

Oh, and speaking of DANGEROUS WOMEN… it's now HUGO NOMINATION time, and we have lots of great stories in both DW and OLD MARS that are eligible, so I hope you'll remember some of them when filling out your ballots.

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One More Peek at Season Four

March 9, 2014 at 11:20 pm
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HBO unveiled another trailer for season four tonight, just before the finale of TRUE DETECTIVE.  (And what a helluva series that was).

For those poor souls who do not have HBO, as a public service, here you go:

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I loved it, myself.  But I'm hardly an objective audience.

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