George R.R. Martin's Blog, page 4

London was the third stop on our summer travels, as July turned to August.

The first time I visited London was way back in 1981.   That was also the first time I left the USA, except for the time I went to Canada for the Toronto worldcon in 1993; I was over in the UK for six weeks on that first trip, traveling everywhere from Scotland to Cornwall, on the theory that if I was going to cross that great big ocean, I might as well see everything there was to see.   I did not even come close, needles...

I was born and raised in Bayonne, New Jersey, a city of about 70,000 just south of Jersey City in the greater New York metropolitan area.   Bayonne sits on a peninsula, with New York Bay on one side and Newark Bay on the other, the two of them connected by the deepwater channel called the Kill Von Kull.  For most of my childhood I lived across the street from the Kill.  I could watch the freighters come and go, day and night, flying flags from all the countries of the world.   The Bayonne Bridge...

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, and this year it will be more exciting than ever.

Kristian Nairn is coming to Santa Fe.

He’ll be signing his book, BEYOND THE THRONE, at Beastly Books.

And afterward, he will DJing our Halloween Party at the Jean Cocteau Next Door.

The signing is free and open to all.

Tickets to the party can be purchased from the Jean Cocteau website.

We’ll hold the door for you.

After Ashford, we went to Braavos.

Or Amsterdam, as the Dutch prefer to call it.

A  lot of my readers think that Braavos was inspired by Venice.   Because of the canals, of course.   Thing is, though I’ve read a lot about Venice, histories and travel books and the like, I have never actually been there.   I have always wanted to visit, Venice is plainly a magical place, and if I had a bucket list it would right up there… but somehow I never found the time.   One day, I hope.   When the novel’s d...

After Belfast, the next stop on our summer travels was Ashford Meadows, where I’d heard there was a tournament going on.  No way I was going to miss that, so off we went.  Rumor was that some Targaryen princelings would be attending.

Yes, I am talking about the newest GAME OF THRONES spinoff show.   It’s an adaptation of “The Hedge Knight,” the first of my Dunk & Egg stories.  There were two more after that, “The Sworn Sword” and “The Mystery Knight.”  They have all been collected in a book call...

The last time I visited Northern Ireland was in 2019.   Worldcon was in Dublin that year, and a week later there was Titancon up in Belfast, a small regional that a number of the members of the Brotherhood Without Banners helped put on.  There was no way we were going to miss that.   So we hopped in a car and headed north, from Dublin to Belfast.

We enjoyed ourselves at Titancon, but Belfast had other attractions as well… one of them being the Paint Hall, where the big ships were painted in the ...

Kris Krisofferson has died.

I knew I would have to write those words eventually, and probably sooner rather than later.   Kris has not looked good the past few times I’ve seen him on the tube.   His health has not been good for some years.   Still, one can hope.   The world was so much richer with Kristofferson in it, and it is poorer now that he is gone.   But we still have his songs, and what songs they are.

I am no musician myself; that’s a gift I never had.  I cannot sing, I cannot dance, I ...

I promised you all a report on our trip.

I haven’t forgotten.   We left Santa Fe on July 15, and returned home on August 15.   In between, we visited Belfast in Northern Ireland (and Ashford Meadow in the Reach), Amsterdam, London, Oxford, and Glasgow, where the World Science Fiction Convention was being held.

It was a splendid trip, and one that did wonders to restore my bruised and battered spirits and relieve some of the stress that I had been under before we left.   The first few months of 2...

All you aces and jokers out there, go ahead and mark  FEBRUARY 25, 2025 on your calendars.  There’s a party going down on Keun Island, off the Atlantic Coast of  Cornwall, and you’re invited!

That’s the day Penguin Random House will be releasing the hardcover edition of  HOUSE RULES, the 34th original in our on-going Wild Cards series.   Guests will be gathering at the ancient, historic, mysterious (some say haunted) Loveday House..  Lord Jago Branoc and his staff will be on hand to welcome you....

Mary-Margaret Road Grader is heading for the Mojave, along with Billy-Bob Chevrolet, Freddy-in-the-Hollow, Elmo John Deere, and Simon Red Bulldozer.   You will find them all this weekend at the Wasteland Film Festival, “the world’s first post-apocalyptic short competition and exhibition.”

WASTELAND FILM FESTIVAL

Based on the classic short story by Howard Waldrop, written and directed by Steven Paul Judd, and starring  Crystle Lightning, Martin Sensmeier, Elias Gallegos, and Cody Lightning, t...