Here's the latest interview with Yours Truly, from Focus on New Mexico KNME.
(I must have done a hundred interviews in San Diego, but this one was done earlier, at the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe).
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My children's book THE ICE DRAGON — actually an illustrated and edited version of a short story that I wrote back in the 70s — has been out of print in the US for some time, as a number of my readers have informed me over the past year.
That's because Tor was preparing an entirely new edition, which I'm now thrilled to be able to announce.
Same story, but ALL NEW ARTWORK. This edition of THE ICE DRAGON will be lavishly illustrated by award-winning fantasy artist LUIS ROYO.
Have a look at the cover:
The new ICE DRAGON will be flying to a bookstore near you on OCTOBER 21 of this year!
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It seems like I just got back from France and Switzerland… maybe because I just did… and now San Diego Comicon is on top of us.
I'll be there for the whole weekend, doing promotion for HBO, Bantam Spectra, and my various other publishers. Flying in Wednesday, departing on the following Monday, so if you're going to comicon, you should have plenty of chances to see me, hear me, and get me to scrawl illegibly on your book, graphic novel, Blu-Rays, or body parts.
My schedule:
Wednesday evening, 6pm to 7pm, I will be doing a signing at the AVATAR PRESS booth, autographing copies of the SKIN TRADE graphic novel and IN THE HOUSE OF THE WORM comic. (Only those, please. There will be other places and times to get my other stuff signined).
Thursday, 2:30 to 3:30, I will be appearing in the main autograph area (the Sails) at Table 3, with DONATO GIANCOLA. The two of us will be signing copies of the 2015 Ice & Fire calendar, which will be making its debut at the convention.
Thursday, 4:00 to 5:00 pm, you can catch me in the Indigo Room, where I'll be joining William Christensen of Avatar to talk about THE SKIN TRADE and IN THE HOUSE OF THE WORM. (No signing here, this is just a talk).
Friday, we have the GAME OF THRONES panel in Hall H. I'll be there, with showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss and various members of our cast. This year CRAIG FERGUSON will be moderating. Hall H seats 7,000 people… but of course 150,000 people attend comicon, so if you want to see the panel, best get in line… ah… now. Afterward I will join the cast for interviews and a poster signing and more interviews.
Saturday, 11:00 am to 12 noon, I return to the Sails for a Random House autograph session. This time I will be at Table 7. This is the time and place to get your books signed. Copies will be on sale in the autograph area, if you don't want to drag your old ones to San Diego.
Saturday, 4:15 pm to 5:15 pm, I'll be in Room 6A for a panel on epic fantasy, part of an all-star lineup of panelists with Patrick Rothfuss, Joe Abercrombie, and others.
Sunday, 12:30 to 1:30, back to the floor for another signing. This time I will be signing copies of the HEDGE KNIGHT and SWORN SWORD graphic novels at the ComiXology booth, on behalf of Jet City Comics.
Sunday, 2:00pm to 4:00pm, I will be judging a costume contest sponsored by Courtyard Marriott.
Monday I go home.
Given the sheer numbers of people in San Diego for comicon, I regret to say that I will sign autographs ONLY at the designated signings. There are, you will note, five of them, which means I'll be scrawling my name for five hours at various points through the weekend. That's about all I can manage. So if you should happen to see me walking the floor, riding a pedicab through the GasLamp, having a drink or eating my dinner, feel free to smile or wave or say hi, but PLEASE do not ask me to sign anything. I can only do so much, and I do need some time just to enjoy the con and chill with friends.
Thanks.
See you in San Diego.
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Only six days remain on my big Prizeo fundraiser on behalf of the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary and the Food Depot of Santa Fe. We've raised some $459,000 as I write, but we're still short of our half-million dollar goal. So if you have some spare change and/or folding green in your pocket, come help push us over the top with a late surge!
https://www.prizeo.com/prizes/georgerrmartin/a-wolf-sanctuary-tour-and-helicopter-ride
Many of the special incentive prizes have been snapped up… but some remain.
You can still book a brunch with me at San Diego Comicon, a week from Sunday. (Hand at the Table).
You can still buy my red flame suspenders… yes, the pair I am wearing in the avatar pic above. (Khaleesi). They're worn, but they have done good service, and I am sure many of you would look better in 'em than I do.
Also.. some of you may recall that Bantam Spectra changed the cover design of A FEAST FOR CROWS before the book was released, and never used the beautiful Jaime Lannister artwork that Stephen Youll had painted. But we have some copies of the never-used original covers, and we're offering those as well. (Stag)
These cover flats have never been used. A rare collectible, a few of them have turned up on ebay in recent years, sometimes with minimum bids in the thousands of dollars. And those are unsigned. Buy one for the wolves, and I'll autograph/ deface it (or not), as you please. And the money will go to feed the homeless and shelter the wolves… plus buying you more tickets for the grand prize.
The grand prize, of course, remains the same: a trip to Santa Fe from anywhere in the world, a day with me, and a helicopter visit down to Candy Kitchen, New Mexico to see Wild Spirit and visit the wolves.
So join in… and do watch the site closely. We plan to add a few more last minute incentive prizes on Wednesday, before the fundraiser closes down on Friday.
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For those of you who were unable to travel to Switzerland for NIFFF, Livestream has uploaded my "Master Class" interview and Q&A.
NIFFF was great fun, all in all, though they kept me so busy that I was only able to see one film of the ninety-plus shown at the festival. Most of the interviews covered the same old ground… but the masterclass got into some areas a bit more substantially, and you may find it interesting.
I had fun doing it, anyway.
If you would like to check it out, go to:
http://new.livestream.com/nifff/GeorgeRRMartinMasterclass
Enjoy.
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Hey, lots of good news on the anthology front while I was traipsing around France and Switzerland these past couple of weeks.
OLD MARS led the way, winning the annual Locus Award as the Best Anthology of 2013:
You can check out the details at http://www.locusmag.com/News/2014/06/2014-locus-awards-winners-2/ And congratulations to my pals Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck as well. As James S.A. Corey, they won the Locus Award for Best SF Novel of the year. (Would that ABADDON'S GATE was on the Hugo ballot as well). And of course, congrats to my co-editor Gardner Dozois, and our amazing lineup of writers, who made the anthology the delight that it is. If you haven't checked out OLD MARS yet, you missed at lot.
((And for what it's worth, OLD VENUS will be even better)).
Next thing, the nominees for this year's World Fantasy Award were announced. OLD MARS wasn't eligible, being science fiction and all… but DANGEROUS WOMEN, the big crossgenre anthology that Gardner and I released last summer, is one of the finalists for Best Anthology (against some mighty stiff competition, I might add).
You can check out the full list of Wold Fantasy Award nominees here:
http://www.worldfantasy.org/awards/
To round out the triptych, in the midst of all this recognition for the books that Gargy and I did last year, our newest anthology, ROGUES, hit the shelves from coast and coast… and debuted at #7 on the NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller List. No, not the anthology bestseller list, or the SF/ fantasy bestseller list, but the bestseller list for ALL HARDCOVER FICTION. Which is pretty damned extraordinary for an anthology.
http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2014-07-06/hardcover-fiction/list.html
So, all in all, it was a hell of a month.
My thanks to the LOCUS voters, the World Fantasy Con members and judges, and all the readers who snatched up ROGUES.
I love doing anthologies, and introducing great stories and new writers to my fans. It's great to see the books being so well received.
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Got home late (LATE) last night from Switzerland. The journey back from Neuchatel, via Zurich and O'Hare, ended up taking us twenty four from when we took to when we toppled into bed again, thanks to a long layover and even longer delays in Chicago, so Raya and I were both zombies when we arrived. The flight on Swissair from Zurich was a delight. The flight from Chicago to Albuquerque on American Eagle was a nightmare. I really hate these crappy little planes that United and American have put on their domestic routes.
Anyway… very tired now, and of course a thousand emails awaited me… but I am catching up, and hope to be able to say a few words about my adventures in Europe later. It was an amazing trip.
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Our German publishers will soon be releasing their translation of INSIDE STRAIGHT, first of the "next generation" of Wild Cards books, and they've released a cool "book trailer" to herald the event,
Enjoy!
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Hey all you European Fans, GRRM is officially on his way to France tomorrow, he will be signing books at the lovely Librairier Grangier bookstore in Dijon from 2PM -6PM on Thursday July 3rd.
http://www.librairie-grangier.com
Then after a short visit in France, it's off to beautiful Switzerland and the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival, or NIFFF, which GRRM will be attending from July 5th to July 12th. During this wonderfully weird event highlighting fantastic films from all over the world they will feature three movies personally picked by George, Hitchcock's PSYCHO, CASABLANCA and of course the forever classic FORBIDDEN PLANET. GRRM will be introducing all three of these features and giving a short speech as to the influence these particular films had on him.
GRRM will also be hosting a panel about being an author, working in television and the overall adaptation process. The Panel is listed as the Writer's Room at NIFFF and is being scheduled for Monday the 7th of July at 2PM.
There will also be a signing session for fans during NIFFF it beings at 2PM on Sunday July 12th.
Please visit NIFFFs website for more details on all the fun happening in Neuchâtel this July.
This Announcement has been brought to you by the Minions of Fevre River…. 🙂
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Venus is lovely in the spring.
The Old Venus, that is. You know, the steamy, swampy Venus of the SF pulps, with its web-footed Venusians (Venerians), teeming jungles, dinosaurs, and those infamous dens of inquity in Venusburg. The Venus of Leigh Brackett, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Roger Zelazny, C.L. Moore, and Isaac Asimov.
Those who miss the place (like me) will be able to return there next spring. OLD VENUS, an original anthology of retro-SF stories set upon the lost Venus of old, will be released by Bantam Spectra in hardcover on March 3, 2015. We just got our first look at the cover:
The final lineup:
INTRODUCTION, by Gardner Dozois
FROGHEADS, by Allen M. Steele
THE DROWNED CELESTRIAL, by Lavie Tidhar
PLANET OF FEAR, by Paul McAuley
GREEVES AND THE EVENING STAR, by Matthew Hughes
A PLANET CALLED DESIRE, by Gwyneth Jones
LIVING HELL, by Joe Haldeman
BONES OF AIR, BONES OF STONE, by Stephen Leigh
RUINS, by Eleanor Arnason
THE TUMBLEDOWNS OF CLEOPATRA ABYSS, by David Brin
BY FROGSLED AND LIZARDBACK TO OUTCAST VENUSIAN LEPERS, by Garth Nix
THE SUNSET OF TIME, by Michael Cassutt
PALE BLUE MEMORIES, by Tobias S. Buckell
THE HEART'S FILTHY LESSON, by Elizabeth Bear
THE WIZARD OF THE TREES, by Joe R. Lansdale
THE GODSTONE OF VENUS, by Mike Resnick
BOTANICA VENERIS: THIRTEEN PAPERCUTS BY IDA COUNTESS RATHANGAN, by Ian McDonald
If you enjoyed OLD MARS (our Locus Award nominee from last year), you'll like this one even better, I think… and there's one story in there that's so bloody good that if it doesn't win the Hugo and Nebula both, I'll count it as a major injustice. Which one? Ah, I will leave you guys to figure that out. But first you'll need to read the book.
March 3. Mark the day on the calendars.
I'll meet you on Venus.
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