Dealer Takes Two

March 15, 2022 at 8:11 am

Kings and deuces may not be as iconic… or ominous… a poker hand as aces and eights, but it’s not a bad hand to be dealt… and Tor will be dealing those cards to all the Wild Cards fans out there with the release of two more volumes on MARCH 15.

DEUCES DOWN will be released in trade paperback that day, with stories from Melinda M. Snodgrass, Walton (Bud) Simons, Stephen Leigh, Michael Cassutt, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Daniel Abraham, and John J. Miller… from the original iBooks edition, long out of print and hard to find… and brand new tales from Caroline Spector, Mary Anne Mohanraj, and Carrie Vaughn, from Tor’s reissue. Come join Puddleman and Chuckles, Cash Mitchell, Gary Bushorn, Father Henry Obst, the Jokertown Boys, the Myth Patrol, Aurora, Demise…and Croyd Crenson, the Sleeper. I did the editing, with the able assistance of Melinda M. Snodgrass.

But we have more to offer than deuces. Tor will also be releasing the first American edition of our new British adventure, THREE KINGS, in hardcover. The twenty-ninth volume in the series, THREE KINGS is a full mosaic written by Peter Newman, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Peadar O Guilin, and Caroline Spector, featuring the Green Man, the Seamstress, Enigma, Double Helix, and Badh. Melinda Snodgrass edited this one, with yours truly assisting… a reverse of the usual arrangement.

THREE KINGS and DEUCES DOWN will both be available at your local bookstore, and from your favorite on-line bookseller… and of course autographed copies can be had from Beastly Books in Santa Fe at https://jeancocteaucinema.com/beastlybooks/

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Tags: anthologies, tor, wild cards

Things Are Hoppin’

March 10, 2022 at 10:43 am

Tags: hbo, television

Random Updates and Bits o’ News

March 9, 2022 at 8:42 am

I look around, and I don’t know where 2021 went. I blinked and it was gone. Not a year that I am going to mourn much, any more than 2020. A global pandemic, so many deaths (including friends of mine, as well as celebrities of all sorts), politics grown increasingly toxic… it was a year best forgotten. I did, however, get a lot of work done in 2021. An enormous amount of work, in truth; I seem to have an enormous number of projects.

(I am not complaining. I like working. Writing, editing, producing. There is nothing I like better than storytelling).

I know, I know, for many of you out there, only one of those projects matters.

I am sorry for you. They ALL matter to me.

Yes, of course I am still working on THE WINDS OF WINTER. I have stated that a hundred times in a hundred venues, having to restate it endlessly is just wearisome. I made a lot of progress on WINDS in 2020, and less in 2021… but “less” is not “none.”

The world of Westeros, the world of A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, is my number one priority, and will remain so until the story is told. But Westeros has become bigger than THE WINDS OF WINTER, or even A SONG OF ICE & FIRE. In addition to WINDS, I also need to deliver the second volume of Archmaester Gyldayn’s history, FIRE & BLOOD. (Thinking of calling that one BLOOD & FIRE, rather than just F&B, Vol 2). Got a couple hundred pages of that one written, but there’s still a long way to go. I need to write more of the Dunk & Egg novellas, tell the rest of their stories, especially since there’s a television series about them in development. There’s a lavish coffee table book coming later this year, an illustrated, condensed version of FIRE & BLOOD done with Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson (my partners on THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE), and my Fevre River art director, Raya Golden. And another book after that, a Who’s Who in Westeros. And that’s just the books.

There are also the successor shows. Those have taken a ton of my time and attention this year. I have seen some comments out there questioning how much I am involved in these new series. The answer is: a lot. Deeply, heavily involved in every one of the new shows. It’s my world, and while I have been working closely with some fantastic writers and showrunners, ultimately it is up to me to try to keep the canon… well, canonical… and to do all I can to help make the new shows great. (And I love these stories too).

So far, I am very excited. HOUSE OF THE DRAGON has wrapped in London and is now in post-production. What I have seen, I have loved. I am eager to see more. I am excited about the other successor shows as well, however. I am dying to tell you all about them, but I am not supposed to, so…

Well, maybe there a few things I can tell you. Things that HBO has previously announced, or hinted at, or…

We are developing live action shows for HBO, and animated shows for HBO Max. No, can’t tell you how many. But it is my hope that a number of these shows will get on the air. Not all, no, it is never all, but more than one. I certainly hope so. Some of the ideas we are working on are quite different in tone and approach than what has gone before, and that thrills me. The world of Westeros (and Essos, etc) is huge, and there is room in it for many types of stories, about a wide range of characters.

What can I tell you? Well, let’s see. Bruno Heller, the creator and showrunner of ROME, is writing his pilot script for the Corlys Velaryon series. That one started out as NINE VOYAGES, but now we’re calling it THE SEA SNAKE, since we wanted to avoid having two shows with numbers in the title. The other one TEN THOUSAND SHIPS, the Nymeria series. Amanda Segel, our showrunner, has delivered a couple drafts of that one, and we are forging ahead. The third of the live action shows is the Dunk & Egg series, helmed by Steve Conrad. My team and I have had some great sessions with Steve and his team, and we really hit it off. He’s determined to do a faithful adaptation of the stories, which is exactly what I want; these characters and stories are very precious to me. The first season will be an adaptation of the first novella, “The Hedge Knight.” Contrary to what you may have read on line, the show will not be called DUNK & EGG, which could be mistaken for a sitcom by viewers unfamiliar with the stories. We’re leaning toward A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS for the series title, though THE HEDGE KNIGHT has its partisans as well.

Over on the animated side… well, I am not allowed to talk about most of what’s happening, except to say that things are moving very fast, and I love love love some of the concept art I am seeing. And.. wait, come to think of it, the news leaked several months ago that one of the animated shows would be set in Yi Ti. That’s true. Our working title is THE GOLDEN EMPIRE, and we have a great young writer on that one too, and I think the art and animation is just going to be beautiful. I would tell you more if I could. I don’t think I can say a word about the other animated shows. Not yet.

So… there is lots going on.

And HOUSE OF THE DRAGON is coming soon. That’s what you will see first.

And me? I will continue to work with the writers and showrunners and directors and producers on all these shows. Plus ROADMARKS for HBO, and DARK WINDS for AMC, and WILD CARDS for UCP and Peacock. And NIGHT OF THE COOTERS should be finished this month.

And in addition to all that, let me say one again, yes, I am still working on WINDS OF WINTER.

Current Mood: tired tired

Tags: anthologies, prequels, song of ice and fire, television and film, wild cards

End of an Era

March 3, 2022 at 9:41 am

Our friend Janis Ian was in Santa Fe last week, at the Jean Cocteau Cinema. It was the first stop of her new tour. She did three shows for us (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, all sold out), and on Sunday she conducted a Master Class for aspiring songwriters. Janis, of course, is among the greatest singer/ songwriters of her generation (which also happens to be my generation), and has been for half a century. She’s been a star since she was fifteen, and her music, new and old, has never failed to move me. (“Seventeen” is, of course, the song she is best known for, but she has others that are just as powerful, and her new stuff… she is touring to promote her new album… is just terrific as well.

Janis has played at the Jean Cocteau before, though not for a few years. (Covid, y’know). It was an honor to have her back.

Especially since this is going to be her last North American tour. (She has a European tour coming up). But that will be it, she tells us. She will continue to write and sing, of course… music is her life, as writing is mine, and neither one of us can really comprehend the idea of “retirement.” Whatever that is. But touring is another matter, especially when the tours are as long as hers are.

So if you’re a Janis Ian fan, this may be your last chance to see her live. Don’t blow it. Santa Fe was the first stop of her farewell tour, but far from the last. She left on Sunday for Tuscon, and after that… well, take a look.

All four of her appearances in Santa Fe were sold out, and I believe many of her other dates are as well. Not all, though, at least not yet. If you’d like to catch a show, pop over to her website and grab some tickets ASAP. You won’t be sorry. Janis is a wonderful performer, a really nice person… and, as it happens, also a fan of science fiction and fantasy. (I had loved her music since the 70s, but the first time we met was at a worldcon).

Last week marked the end of another era as well. Janis Ian not only opened her farewell tour… but she also closed the Jean Cocteau Cinema. Her Master Class on Sunday was the last scheduled event at the theatre. On Monday morning we shut our doors.

The JCC was Santa Fe’s original art house. It opened in 1976 as the Collective Fantasy, and became the Jean Cocteau in 1982 after a change of ownership and a major renovation that gave the space its present configuration and its present name. During the decades that followed, it remained the City Different’s most beloved movie theatre, famous for its eclectic offerings and its popcorn (best in town! with real butter!!). After several changes of ownership, it became part of the TransLux chain… but TransLux closed all its movie houses in 2006, and for seven years the JCC went dark… until I bought it in 2013. We installed a new screen, new sound, digital projection (though we kept the old 35mm projectors as well), did a top to bottom renovation of the lobby, and turned a broom closet into our award-winning bar.

The theatre reopened in August 2013, with a bill that featured FORBIDDEN PLANET (best SF movie ever made), John Carpenter’s DARK STAR, and a classic from its namesake, Jean Cocteau. In the years that followed, we have hosted all sorts of events: live music, magic, burlesque, author events and readings, and films of all sorts, old and new, Hollywood and Bollywood, huge blockbusters and small art house movies. All accompanied by our award-winning custom cocktails, draft beers, and of course our popcorn.

Movie theatres all across America closed with the coming of Covid-19 in March 2020, and the Jean Cocteau was no exception. We shut down for the remainder of that year, and for most of 2021 as well, reopening a few times late in the year for special events when the vaccines and social distancing started to put a dent in the virus.

And now we are closing again…

… but not forever!

The Jean Cocteau will be back.

It was time for another renovation. We did a lot of work back in 2013, but that was nine years ago.

This time our focus is on the audtitorium. (Above). Say goodbye to those tired old blue seats, that tattered and soiled carpet, and that huge center aisle that took up so much room where the best seats in the house should have been. We have all new seats coming in, larger and more comfortable. Two side aisles instead of the big center aisle. A new ceiling, a new floor.

The renovations will cost us a few seats. The old Cocteau could seat 130. After renovations, our capacity will be down to 80… but truth be told, very few of our offerings ever drew 130 patrons (Janis Ian, Neil Gaiman, and GAME OF THRONES premieres excepted). And the new seats will offer more comfort and a better viewing experience for however many patrons turn up.

The popcorn will still be great, I promise.

So watch this space for news of our reopening in a few months time.

It’s the end of an era… but the beginning of a new one.

((I will open comments for this post, but ONLY for messages about Janis Ian, the Jean Cocteau Cinema, and old movie theatres in general. Off topic posts will be deleted,)).

Current Mood: contemplative

Tags: jean cocteau cinema, music

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Grab For The Ring

February 28, 2022 at 3:46 pm

The wait is over. Years in the making, ELDEN RING was released last week, and has been taking the gaming world by storm.

But don’t listen to me. From Software brought me on to do their worldbuilding, so I can hardly pretend to be objective.

Take a look at a few of the reviews:

https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a39204927/elden-ring-review/

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/23/1082603088/elden-ring-review

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/elden-ring-review-in-progress-death-of-the-wild/1900-6417832/

And… well, there’s more. Lots more.

“Once in a generation… masterpiece… beautiful and brutal… a sumptuous open world… ”

Music to the ears.

Of course, almost all the credit should go to Hidetaka Miyazaki and his astonishing team of games designers who have been laboring on this game for half a decade or more, determined to create the best videogame ever. I am honored to have met them and worked with them, and to have have played a part, however small, in creating this fantastic world and making ELDEN RING the landmark megahit that it is.

Here’s a taste:

Happy Gaming.

Current Mood: bouncy bouncy

Tags: gaming, videogames

Dark Winds Blowing

February 26, 2022 at 6:23 pm

It was back in 2015, I seem to recall, that my friends Robert Redford and Chris Eyre brought me into their dream project, to help develop and sell a television series based on Tony Hillerman’s novels about Navajo tribal policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. It took us quite a few years, with many an up and down along the way, but I am pleased to announce that DARK WINDS is finally done… almost.

AMC will be screening the first season later this year. Six episodes long, the story is adapated from the Leaphorn novel LISTENING WOMAN, with additional material from later novels. The show was filmed in and around Santa Fe, adjacent tribal lands, and the Camel Rock Casino. I’ve seen rough cuts of all six episodes, and I’m very pleased by what I’m seeing.

I wish I could share the trailer with you, but I can’t… not yet. They are still working on it. But soon, soon. AMC did a panel (virtual) and presentation on the show at the recent TCA meeting (that’s the Television Critics Association), and they tell me it was very well received.

AMC has not set a date for the DARK WINDS premiere either, but most likely it will be sometime this spring or summer. You’ll know when I do. (If I can ever get up to date on this blog).

The pilot was written by Graham Roland and directed by Chris Eyre, and will star Zahn McClarnon as Joe Leaphorn, all of them also EPs on the show… and Native Americans. Robert Redford and I are Executive Producers as well. DARK WINDS will also star Native Americans Kiowa Gordon as Jim Chee, Jessice Matten as Bernadette Manuelito, and Deanna Allison as Emma Leaphorn, as well as Rainn Wilson and Noah Emmerich.

Tony wrote eighteen novels about Leaphorn and Chee and his daughter Anne has continued the series since his passing, so there is a wealth of material available to us, and our dream is to continue DARK WINDS for many more seasons. But of course that will depend on how this first season does…

While you’re waiting for the show to premiere, pick up a Tony Hillerman novel. They’re terrific.

Current Mood: pleased pleased

The Pens Behind the Swords

February 20, 2022 at 11:10 am

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON has a great pair of showrunners in Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik.

And it has an amazing cast as well. You’ve been reading about them for months. Matt Smith, Emma d’Arcy, Milly Alcock, Olivia Cooke, Paddy Considine, Emily Carey, Rhys Ifans, Steve Touissant, Fabien Frankel, and more, and more. You may not know their names now, but I think you will before the year ends. You will hate some of them, love some of them, mourn for some of them.

There’s another group of contributors, equally important, whose names you may not know either. But you should. Without them , there would be no show. If there was, it would certainly not be as good as I think HOUSE is going to be. Here are the folks I am talking about:

Yes… it’s the writers.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON is based on my novellas “The Princess and the Queen” and “The Rogue Prince,” and other materials from my Targaryen history FIRE & BLOOD… but FIRE & BLOOD is an imaginary history, not a traditional novel. To turn it into a television series requires a lot more work than adapting a novel or short story. The scriptwriters need to make history come alive.

Ryan Condal assembled a pretty amazing team to do just that. The photograph above was taken during one of my visits to LA — the last, I think, before Covid descended on us all, and shut down my travels — when I sat down with Ryan and his writers for dinner. It was a big loud lively dinner at a long table, but the food was great and the company was greater. I loved talking dragons with the team, and I was impressed with the depth of their knowledge of my world, and their enthusiasm for the project.

The first season of HOUSE is now wrapped, and in large part thanks to the talents of our scribes. So please raise your glasses and toast our writers: Sara Hess, Gabe Fonseca, Ira Parker, Ti Mikkel, Charmaine DeGrate, Kevin Lau, and Eileen Shim. And of course Ryan Condal himself, the ringmaster and dragon tamer. Oh, and though they are not in the picture, I should also salute Claire Kiechel and Wes Tooke, who joined Ryan and Ti in the mini writer’s room that preceded this one, before there was even a pick up.

(And me, you ask? No, I did not write a script for the first season of HOUSE… part of me would have loved to, but I have been kind of busy with WINDS OF WINTER, the other THRONES successor shows, various WILD CARDS books, the WILD CARDS tv pilot for Peacock and UCP, DARK WINDS for AMC, ROADMARKS for HBO, NIGHT OF THE COOTERS and a couple other really cool Howard Waldrop projects, and… well, yeah, okay, I bought a railroad, never mind. I did co-create the series with Ryan and help give it its shape, and he and I have been in constant contact ever since).

Hollywood is a land of change, and writers are always moving around in today’s television landscape. Some of the folks in the photo above moved on to other shows and other networks before season one of HOUSE even began to film. Others have been with us all the way through the first season, and will be returning for season two (if indeed HBO gives us a season two, cross your fingers). But all of them played a part.

So here’s to the writers! Huzzah!

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Tags: hbo, House of the Dragon, television

Make Mine Marvel

February 19, 2022 at 11:32 am

Me and Marvel Comics go way back.

The first words of mine ever to appear in print (well, not counting my high school newspaper) were “Dear Stan and Jack,” the opening of my letter of comment in FANTASTIC FOUR #20. That was my first appearance in the lettercols, but not my last. I became almost a regular in Marvel letter columns over the next few years… which led me to the nascent comics fandom… and my first published stories in the comics fanzines of the early 60s, superhero stories in prose featuring characters of my own creation like the White Raider, Manta Ray, and Garizan the Mechanical Warrior, along with a few I was “hired” to write (without pay) like Powerman and Dr. Weird.

Those tales started my career, in a strange roundabout way. As a professional, I wrote science fiction, fantasy, and horror… but I never lost my love of superheroes. And that eventually led me to a role-playing game called SuperWorld, which in turn led to the creation of the Wild Cards series along about 1986-7. And now, some thirty-odd books and thirty-six years later, Wild Cards and Marvel are coming together once again.

https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/george-r-r-martin-s-legendary-super-hero-universe-comes-to-marvel-comics-in-new-wild-cards-series

The series is an adaptation of the Wild Cards origin story, scripted by our own Paul Cornell, novelist, scriptwriter, and creator of Abigail the Understudy, a serious actress. Mike Hawthorne provided the art, and Steve Morris the cover.

If you haven’t been reading the Wild Cards books for the last thirty years… well, shame on you… but here’s your chance to see how it all began. Jetboy, Dr. Tachyon, the Four Aces, and the Great and Powerful Turtle are waiting for you.

Current Mood: bouncy bouncy

Tags: comic books, wild cards

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