George R.R. Martin's Blog, page 236

Great blog post from TIME magazine's TV critic, urging HBO to pick up ICE & FIRE.

http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2009/07/06/hbos-next-i-hope-great-drama

Needless to say, I share his hopes.

Back home, safe and sound. Finland was great and I enjoyed my visit to Estonia as well. More on both later. The journey home was endless and exhausting, and god, I hate the TSA, especially the ones at Chicago O'Hare. Petty pseudopolice drunk on their authority. But never mind.

Tons of emails, a mountain of mail, much sleep to catch up on. I'll be digging out from under for a while. But lots of cool stuff happening too, on all sorts of fronts. I'll post what I can when I can.

Next trip on t

We're back in Helsinki for one last night. Tomorrow at the crack of dawn (which cracks very very early here in Finland) we're off again. Parris returns to Ireland, and I head home to the cats, the green chile, and A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. We'll meet again in Montreal. Ah, the jet set life...

Estonia was great, and Turku was fun as well. I hope to write more about all these places once I'm home.

Thanks for all my Finnish friends, new and old, for making this is awonderful trip. Finncon rocks.

Finncon is fini. Parris and I have just staggereed back to our hotel room from the dead reindeer party. The party is still going strong and we would love to have stayed longer... till sunset, at least... but we have to be up early tomorrow to catch a ferry to Estonia, where I'll be doing a signing in Tallinn. Then the next day it's back across the sea to Helsinki again, just long enough to set off for Turku, where I've got another signing.

Finncon was terrific. The warmth and hospitality we'v

So we're here in Helsinki, me from Santa Fe and Phipps by way of Ireland. Grey skies and rain, but the people are warm and friendly. Yesterday we visited Sveaborg, the great island fortress that I've written two stories about. "Gibraltar of the North," it was dubbed by John Quincy Adams. I can only conclude that JQA had never actually seen the Gibraltar of the south, since the resemblence between the two is nonexistent. Sveaborg is pretty cool in its own right, however, and I'm glad to have

Today is the last day to get an autographed hardcover of INSIDE STRAIGHT for $15.

The sale ends at midnight, and the price of the book goes to its normal level of $27.

(Actually, I'll probably be closing down book sales entirely for a while, since I leave for Finland on July 5. Reopen in late July or August. So this would be a good time to get a copy of the Guardians of Order RPG book, TUF VOYAGING, WINDHAVEN, or any of the other titles as well).

Details on the INSIDE STRAIGHT supersale four post

If you've been wanting to order a copy of our forthcoming Jack Vance tribute anthology, SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH, but haven't gotten around to it just yet, here's your chance to save some bucks. Subterranean Press is offering 50% off (!!!) on SONGS and many of their other forthcoming titles for those who place their orders between now and July 3.

For details, and a list of the books on sale, check out the SubPress website at:

http://subterraneanpress.com/index.php/2009/06/29/50-off-sale-on-subpre

Just got word from the good folks at Valyrian Steel. They are now taking preorders for their full-size replica of Needle. (Arya not included).

To place an order or get more details, visit their website at http://www.valyriansteel.com/shop/swords/needle-sword-of-arya-stark/prod_3.html


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And if you want be the first kid on your block to collect the complete armory, copies of Jon Snow's Longclaw are still available as well.




Don't be fooled by the pictures, the two swords are nowhere near the same size

I almost hate to say anything here, for fear of jinxing it... but for what it's worth, the last six weeks or so have been the most productive period I've had on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS in... well... a year at least, maybe several. In the last three days I've completed three new chapters. Not from scratch, mind you, these were all chapters that had been partially written, and in some cases rewritten, for months if not years. But they're finally done, and I've just reread them, and I'm almost conv

If you've been meaning to sample Wild Cards but haven't gotten around to it, this is your chance. With the mass market paperback of INSIDE STRAIGHT, the first volume of the new triad, now on bookshelves from coast to coast, the hardcover has vanished from the stores... but I've acquired a stock of them to offer on my website.

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INSIDE STRAIGHT features stories by Carrie Vaughn, Daniel Abraham, Michael Cassutt, Caroline Spector, John Jos. Miller, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Ian Tregillis, S.L. Farrell, a