Just saw online that SyFy has cancelled THE EXPANSE.   Season three is now running, and after that, they are pulling the plug.

It’s a damn shame, especially for fans of space science fiction… of which I count myself one.

THE EXPANSE was a terrific show in all regards.   It looked magnificent, but that’s true of a lot of big budget space shows these days.   It was also really well written and well directed, with an amazing and talented cast.   That’s not always true for some of the other SF shows out there.

There’s still a lot of great science fiction on TV right now… WESTWORLD comes to mind… but for hardcore SF geeks like me, there’s nothing quite like a space show.   Weird worlds, alien protomolecules, gritty asteroid miners, cool spaceships, that’s the stuff I was weaned on.  (Rocky Jones, anyone?)

THE EXPANSE was the best space show on television, far and away.   Nothing else even comes close.

I hope its producers can find another home for it.

If not, then this is a sad day for science fiction.

 

Current Mood: melancholy

THIS MESSAGE IS BEING BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE MINIONS OF FEVRE RIVER:

Our buddies over at Locus Magazine have organized a special one night event being held the Tuesday before this years World Con. Our dear overlord (AKA GRRM) will grapple in conversation with multiple-award winning artist, John Picacio.  John has worked in the Fevre River world on numerous projects such as Wild Cards, House of the Worm and the SoI&F calendar, as well as being quite the entertainer.

 <http://locusmag.com/grrmevent/>  

http://www.johnpicacio.com

The event will take place at the beautiful and historic Fox Theatre in Redwood City <https://www.foxrwc.com/>, and since seating is assigned, you’ll want to get your tickets as early as possible!

Locus Magazine has a wealth of other invaluable information including news, interviews, event listings, reviews and much more.   

Use the link below to join Locus’s mailing list which is the only way to access tickets to this event a full day before they go on sale to the general public. 

https://locusmag.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=7fb5da0ecc710458fd848a415&id=311743ed1f

THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE MINIONS OF FEVRE RIVER

 

Current Mood: bouncy

THIS MESSAGE BEING BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE MINIONS OF FEVRE RIVER

We are proud to announce the winner of the first annual Miskatonic Scholarship for horror writers. 

The Miskatonic Scholarship was founded to help a horror writer with financial need attend the new Odyssey Writing Workshop; the acclaimed, six-week residential writers training program. 

Awarded to Valerie San Filippo

Here’s a portion of the press release:

 This year’s winner is Valerie San Filippo, a poet and writer from Lindenhurst, NY. She is pursuing her MFA in Fiction from Stony Brook Southampton. Her poetry has appeared in Noble / Gas Qtrly, Typehouse Magazine, The Long Island Literary Journal, and others. She is currently a teaching assistant at Stony Brook University, and an assistant editor for The Southampton Review. 

“The best writing is that which allows its characters to be human, where character is story, ” says San Filippo. “I am very excited to be attending Odyssey and to have the chance to write what I love.” 

The panel of judges included Odyssey Director Jeanne Cavelos, New York Times bestselling author Carrie Vaughn, and Ti Mikkel. 

 Valerie’s winning story, ‘The Glow,’ builds from small, everyday details that are just a little bit off to deeply disturbing horror beyond human understanding, and it carries the reader along every step of the way. The story does a wonderful job of fulfilling the criteria George Martin set for the scholarship: ‘What we want are nightmares new and resonant and profound, cosmic terrors that will haunt our dreams for years to come. 

About Odyssey 

The Odyssey Writing Workshop is widely considered one of the top programs for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Writers from all across the world apply to the six-week program held each summer in Manchester, New Hampshire. Fifteen are admitted. Top authors, agents, and editors serve as guest lecturers. Intensive instruction in advanced writing techniques, in-depth feedback on manuscripts, and one-on-one guidance help students to make major improvements. Fifty-nine percent of students go on to professional publication. 

To learn more about the Odyssey Writing Workshop visit www.odysseyworkshop.org. The Odyssey site also offers many programs and resources for writers, including online classes, webinars, a critique service, consultations, coaching, free podcasts, author interviews, writing tips, and a monthly online discussion salon. 

 

CONGRATULATIONS VALERIE!! 

THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE MINIONS OF FEVRE RIVER

Current Mood: null

No, winter is not coming… not in 2018, at least.   You’re going to have to keep waiting for THE WINDS OF WINTER.

You will, however, be able to return to Westeros this year, as I suggested  back over on Live Journal.

Archmaester Gyldayn has at last completed and delivered the first half of his monumental history of the Targaryen kings of Westeros, FIRE & BLOOD, and Bantam Spectra and HarperCollins Voyager will be releasing the hardcover on November 20, I am thrilled to say.

I’ve seen the archmaester’s manuscript.  Since it was handwritten on vellum with a quill pen, he required my help in transcribing the text to a more modern format: WordStar 4.0, on a DOS computer.   Took a while, but a few weeks ago I was able to ship it off to my editors on both sides of the Atlantic, and to my foreign representatives for all my publishers around the world.   Some of my foreign publishers will be releasing their editions simultaneously with the US and UK hardbacks; others may need to wait for translation from the Common Tongue.

It’s a hefty book, almost a thousand manuscript pages (okay, 989, if you want to be precise).   That’s not quite as long as A GAME OF THRONES or any of the later volumes in A SONG FOR ICE AND FIRE, but there’s a lot of reading there, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.  This first volume covers all the Targaryen kings from Aegon I (the Conquerer) to the regency of Aegon III (the Dragonbane), along with their wives, wars, siblings, children, friends, rivals, laws, travels, and sundry other matters.   For those not up on your Westerosi history, that’s Aegon I, Aenys, Maegor the Cruel, Jaehaerys I (the Conciliator), Viserys I, Aegon II (and Rhaenyra), and Aegon III (the regency).   Oh, and there are dragons too.

Lots of dragons.

Of course, the story doesn’t end with the regents of Aegon III.   There is a lot more history to come, and Archmaester Gyldayn will get to all that too, in FIRE & BLOOD, Volume Two.   But that one is a few years down the pike.   So don’t get impatient.  Gyldayn will get to it eventually, but he’s old, and so am I, and we both have other projects to tend to as well.   The Citadel puts a lot of demands on an archmaester’s time.

Oh, and I almost forgot the best part: FIRE AND BLOOD will be illustrated throughout.   No, it won’t be a huge coffee table book with art on every page, like A WORLD OF ICE & FIRE… but there will be lots of lots of interior artwork.   Think more along the lines of the special anniversary edition of A GAME OF THRONES that we did a few years ago, or the gorgeous hardcover of A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS, the Dunk & Egg collection.    We’ll have more than 75 black & white illustrations by artist Doug Wheatley.

And here’s a peek at the US cover, plus an illustration by Doug Wheatley:

And if I may set down Archmaester Gyldayn’s quill for a while…

Long-time fans and readers of my Not A Blog know the entire history of FIRE & BLOOD, but there may be some of you out there who do not.   This is the book that I used to jokingly refer to as the GRRMarillion (or the first half of it, at least); that is to say, my version of Tolkien’s mammoth history of Middle Earth.  In my case, the focus is on the Targaryens, from Aegon’s Conquest to Robert’s Rebellion (so, unlike JRRT, I will not be covering the creation of the world and any wars amongst the angels).   These histories began a few years back as a series of sidebars intended for THE WORLD OF ICE & FIRE, our huge illustrated concordance, but I got carried away (as I tend to do) and before long the sidebars got so long they were threatening to overwhelm the entire book, so we pulled them out of that volume… and saved them for this one.

Portions of the book have previously appeared here and there.   The chapter about Aegon’s Conquest was published, pretty much as written, in THE WORLD OF ICE & FIRE.   The section about the reigns of Aegon’s sons Aenys and Maegor came out last year as “Sons of the Dragon,” in Gardner Dozois’s anthology THE BOOK OF SWORDS, and an abridged version of same was in THE WORLD OF ICE & FIRE.   Material from the chapters about the struggle for succession after Jaehaerys I and the Dance of the Dragons after Viserys I was published in an abridged form as “The Rogue Prince” (in ROGUES) and “The Princess and the Queen” (in DANGEROUS WOMEN), and in a much more severely abridged form in THE WORLD OF ICE & FIRE… but FIRE & BLOOD will mark the first time that full, unabridged texts of Archmaester Gyldayn’s histories have been published.   In addition, of course, there are hundreds of pages of new material which has never appeared before in any form, abridged or unabridged.

I do want to stress… indeed, I want to shout… that FIRE & BLOOD is not a novel.   This is not a traditional narrative and was never intended to be.  Some of my fans have objected to the term “fake history” that I’ve bandied about in past blog posts and announcements in reference to “The Princess and the Queen” and “Sons of the Dragon” and the like.   Very well; let’s call this one “imaginary history” instead.   The essential point being the “history” part.   I love reading popular histories myself, and that’s what I was aiming for here.   Not historical fiction, not fantasy, no… but something more akin to Thomas B. Costain’s monumental (and wonderfully entertaining) four-volume history of the Plantagenets.   (But with dragons.  Did I mention the dragons?)

So: not a novel.   Everyone clear on that?   (Though there are enough stories here for twenty novels.  Battles, bloodshed, betrayals, love, lust, horror, religious wars, politics, incest, historical revisionism, all the fun stuff).

Oh, and I should also say… as most of you know, HBO is presently developing a number of different prequels to GAME OF THRONES.   I know I am going to be asked whether those shows are going to be based on material from FIRE & BLOOD.   It’s a logical question.   The only answer I can give is… ah, well, no one is sure yet, and anyway, I am not allowed to say.   So let’s move that to the side.

The important thing is: NOVEMBER 20.   Mark it down on your calendars.   (If you enjoy imaginary history).

Archmaester Gyldayn is hanging up his quill for a while.   As for me, I’m returning once again to THE WINDS OF WINTER.

For the retailer links to FIRE & BLOOD, click here.

 

Current Mood: creative