A sneak peek at the Dance of Dragons

Thanks to Tor.com, both a sneak peek and a review of the new George R.R. Martin Song of Ice and Fire novella is now available. The Princess and the Queen is a maester's account of the Dance of Dragons, the brutal civil war that took place between differing branches of the Targaryen family approximately 170 years before the events of A Game of Thrones. This civil war almost wiped out the Targaryen family and most of its dragons (the few surviving dragons died a few years after the war).

Rhaenyra Targaryen, the titular princess of the story.

The Princess and the Queen will be published in the Dangerous Women anthology, due out in December this year. At 33,000 words it's the longest story in the collection and clocks in at rather more than a tenth of the length of A Game of Thrones itself. It's a condensed version of a much longer story that Martin plans to publish in a collection - working title 'The GRRMarillion' - once A Song of Ice and Fire is fully completed. The World of Ice and Fire (due next year) will draw on both in its own account of the Dance of Dragons.

Martin is currently working on The Winds of Winter, the sixth and (hopefully) penultimate volume of A Song of Ice and Fire itself. In recent interviews he has said he is writing quickly, but not fast enough to give any indication of a release date.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Amazon.de is listing a book for release next year called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, by George R.R. Martin.

This is almost certainly a new (working?) title for the first Dunk and Egg compilation volume, which will collect The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight in one book. Originally the fourth story, The She-Wolves, was also part of the compilation but GRRM confirmed to fans at the recent ConQuest convention that he is holding it back until after The Winds of Winter is completed. This indicates either that the compilation will only include those three stories, or it will also be held back until after Winds and the date has not been updated on Amazon to reflect that.

Meanwhile, She-Wolves' replacement story, The Princess and the Queen (a story set at the outbreak of the Dance of Dragons), will appear in Dangerous Women in December.

Neil Gaiman to publish a new NEVERWHERE story (with some help from George R.R. Martin)

Way back in 1996, Neil Gaiman penned the BBC mini-series Neverwhere, adapting it into a novel a year later. Almost immediately after the story first appeared, fans noted a continuity error where the character of the Marquis de Carabas recovered his coat after it had apparently vanished forever. Gaiman promised to explain all in a short story, enigmatically entitled 'How the Marquis Got His Coat Back', but got a bit side-tracked with other projects.

The Marquis de Carabas as portrayed by Patterson Joseph in the original BBC TV series of Neverwhere.

It's been a while coming, but the story will finally appear in a new anthology entitled Rogues, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Rogues - the thematic sequel anthology to 2010's Warriors - will likely be published some time in 2014.


The full story list is as follows:

George R.R. Martin “Everybody Loves a Rogue” (Introduction)
Joe Abercrombie “Tough Times All Over”
Gillian Flynn “What Do You Do?”
Matthew Hughes “The Inn of the Seven Blessings”
Joe R. Lansdale “Bent Twig”
Michael Swanwick “Tawny Petticoats”
David Ball “Provenance”
Carrie Vaughn “The Roaring Twenties”
Scott Lynch “A Year and a Day in Old Theradane”
Bradley Denton “Bad Brass”
Cherie Priest “Heavy Metal”
Daniel Abraham “The Meaning of Love”
Paul Cornell “A Better Way to Die”
Steven Saylor “Ill Seen in Tyre”
Garth Nix “A Cargo of Ivories”
Walter Jon Williams “Diamonds From Tequila”
Phyllis Eisenstein “The Caravan to Nowhere”
Lisa Tuttle “The Curious Affair of the Dead Wives”
Neil Gaiman “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back”
Connie Willis “Now Showing”
Patrick Rothfuss “The Lightning Tree”