GRRM’s official site has been updated with a news entry announcing the previously-reported September 2006 publication of GRRM’s novella The Ice Dragon, in a slightly-redacted form, from Tor’s Young Adult imprint. He’s given some concrete details that help to explain some of the oddities mentioned earlier, including the fact that it will be "lavishly illustrated" by Yvonne Gilbert. There is also a small image from the book on the page.
GRRM has also updated his Not a Blog with a post discussing the Hugo Award final ballot.
This year’s Hugo nominees have been announced with the terrific news that A Feast for Crows has been nominated in the Best Novel category! The award will be handed out at this year’s Worldcon in Los Angeles, and suffice it to say the Brotherhood without Banners will be ready to party.
GRRM’s official site has been updated with a news entry concerning the demise of iBooks but the promise that Wild Cards would soon return with a new, exciting trilogy. The "Links" section has been updated with several new links to Wild Cards fansites. Finally, the "What I’m Reading" section has been updated with glowing praise for Daniel Abraham’s A Shadow in Summer.
All Sorts of Weird Stuff’s Gallery has had its Art section updated with several piece from Jamie Sims, the artist who’s worked as designer for Testors and who has most recently received some commissions from Fantasy Flight Games for their card game. Four of the pieces are pictures of original designs Jamie has made for Testors, which will soon be for sale. The last piece if an early, rejected sketch for card featuring Oberyn Martell.
Via Wild Cards thread at the ASoIaF forum, John J. Miller (most recently author of Wild Cards: Death Draws Five) drops a few little hints about the future of the superhero series.
SF Site has just published its 2005 Readers’ Choice Top 10, and A Feast for Crows came out as #2 on the list! It was edged out by Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys.
Fantasy Flight Games, producers of the Art of A Song of Ice and Fire artbook, the Game of Thrones card game , and the Game of Thrones Board Game, have announced their 2006 release line-up at their Rants page.
The last two sections, The Citadel and Blood of Dragons, have now been redesigned in the same style as the rest of Westeros.
As before, if you are experiencing any problems with the new design at resolutions of 800x600 or above and in modern browsers (IE 6 and upwards, Firefox/Mozilla or recent versions of Opera), please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and we’ll try our best to fix the issue.
Amok has just posted his depiction of Queen Naerys Targaryen, sister to Aemon the Dragonknight and Aegon IV the Unworthy (whom she married). It can be found here (at the bottom). Amok has posted GRRM’s description of her here, which reveals some of her history.
The third of five sections has now received its new design, complete with sidebar and all.
If you are experiencing any problems with the new design at resolutions of 800x600 or above and in modern browsers (IE 6 and upwards, Firefox/Mozilla or recent versions of Opera), please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and we’ll try our best to fix the issue.
Thanks to some sleuthing, we have some tenative information concerning a new novel by GRRM to be released in October 2006. The Ice Dragon looks to be published by Starscape (Tor’s Young Adult imprint), although there’s reason to believe that it may in fact be published by the Tor Teen imprint. The original is a beautifully-written short story, but it’s notable that Amazon.com lists it at 112 pages, which suggests that it will be (or has been) significantly expanded. [Another possibility which has just been pointed out is that it’s a short story collection, although at 112 pages it’s quite a short collection.]
More information will be posted as we get it, but it does put us in mind of George’s recent remark about “all sorts of interesting new books” being discussed and/or planned following his trip to New York City.
Amok has just posted his depiction of Shiera Seastar, the last of Aegon IV’s “Great Bastards”. It can be found here (at the bottom). Amok has posted GRRM’s description of her here, which reveals some of her history.
GRRM’s official site has been updated with a new entry in "What I’m Reading", a new foreign-edition cover of Fevre Dream in the "Cover Art" section, and a new entry reminding fans to vote in this years Hugo awards in his Not a Blog.
The contest gets even better, as Patrick announces that Voyager has pledged two signed, first-edition hardcovers of A Feast for Crows. These will be runner-up prizes. All it takes to have a chance to win these, or the grand prize of a full U.S. edition set of the series signed by GRRM is a simple e-mail to Pat (instructions at the first link above) with your name and mailing address.
The Hugo Awards nominationsdeadline is fast approaching, with the voting closing at midnight (Pacific Standard Time) on the 10th. If you are a member of L.A. Con IV or attended Interaction in Glasgow, you are eligible to vote. To make it easier, you can vote online. We’ve posted some recommendations and ideas for eligible works here, with comments from Parris as well as a link to GRRM’s blog entry where he makes a couple further suggestions.
It shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes of your time (and very probably much less), so please nominate and help make this year one of the best award years in recent Hugo history.