[Werthead]

Bantam have confirmed that THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE should be out on 29 October this year. This is a 288-page companion guide to the books, a large-format coffee table book featuring significant amounts of new artwork and vast amounts of new canon information on the world and backstory. George R.R. Martin wrote some new material for this book but otherwise only provided background notes and information. Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson, the founders/admins of Westeros.org, wrote the bulk of the book drawing on GRRM's material. The book will also clarify some of the new locations revealed on last year's LANDS OF ICE AND FIRE maps.

Preview pages:

The Dawn Age.
The Children of the Forest.
The Faith Militant Uprising.
King's Landing (with auto-generated text, so not representative of the final book).

This post has been edited by Werthead: 09 March 2014 - 10:18 AM

[Defiance]

Really looking forward to this. It'll be great to have a history book for the series. Trying to keep the timeline of all of the events in the series is pretty difficult, plus getting more information on other area of the world will be great. Particularly interested in seeing if we get any more information about the following:

The Long Night
Valyria before the Doom
Asshai and the Shadowlands (and perhaps Ulthos)

I do hope that this book only covers stuff up to the start of A Game of Thrones so that I don't have to spend even more money on future editions incorporating material from future books.

[Abyss]

I want to want this, but at root it's a 'guidebook' for a series that isn't finished yet, and that bugs me. Similar past efforts with WoT and Shannara failed to wow.

[Werthead]

AFAIK, the book's conceit is that it is written from the POV of a maester roughly around the time AGoT starts. However, it will incorporate information revealed up until ADWD (as well as tons of new material). There's a section on characters which I believe is the only bit that's ADWD-spoiler-dependent.

Quote

I want to want this, but at root it's a 'guidebook' for a series that isn't finished yet, and that bugs me. Similar past efforts with WoT and Shannara failed to wow.

The Shannara one was interesting, and Brooks apparently is not a big worldbuilder and was happy for the person who wrote it (Teresa Patterson, who also did the WoT book) to create tons of stuff and for him to then stick with it in later books of the series. The WoT one was pretty decent (in terms of writing, the art was atrocious) and stuff in it became important right up until AMoL. Again, it wasn't dependent on the series itself and how it unfolded, so it didn't really suffer from coming out mid-series.

I'm hoping these books - Feist has a similar one for Midkemia that comes out literally a week later - will be a big success and that inspires Bantam to really push Erikson and ICE for the Encyclopedia Malazaica

[D'iversify]

Is it lame that I'd like some population statistics?

[worry]

If this was a high school you'd surely get beaten mercilessly for admitting that...but since you're posting this at Nerdville Message Arena, it seems like something to celebrate.

[Kruppe's snacky cakes]

Has anyone checked out any of the previously published ASoIaF-related books, and if so, what did you think? I'm wondering specifically about the 2 art books, the RPG guide, and the HBO book.

Art of George R.R. Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire

A Song of Ice & Fire RPG: A Game of Thrones Edition

Inside HBO's Game of Thrones

[Werthead]

I'm not a fan of the Green Ronin RPG. It's okay, but I don't think the rules are that great. Plus GRRM has never given them any canon info on the setting (to my knowledge), which means a lot of the world info in the books is speculative. The Guardians of Order RPG from 2005 is vastly superior, has GRRM-approved information and is just one book, so is more contained.

The two art books are pretty good, but just what they say on the tin.

The HBO book is again okay, and in fact is very good for a fluff piece of marketing, but it's a bit lightweight. You can find all of the info in it elsewhere. Definitely a good gift to get for Christmas or something, but not something I'd rush out to buy.

[Kruppe's snacky cakes]

Ok, thanks for the info. These are already on my "only buy used or deeply discounted" list. I hate browsing for $30+ books and seeing "Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book." Umm, yeah. If I'm going to drop that much scratch on something, I'd like to take a gander at a couple of pages first, thanks.

[Jussi]

This book has been pushed back to 2014.

http://asoiaf.wester...60#entry4421633

[Werthead]

All of the text for The World of Ice and Fire is done, it has new cover art (not necessarily final) and the plan seems to be to get it out in October this year.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 09 March 2014 - 10:18 AM

[Werthead]

So in the books we've seen what happened when three dragons are unleashed at one time, and in THE PRINCESS AND THE QUEEN what happens when twenty or so fight one another. But who managed to enrage the Valyrians so much that they deployed three hundred to destroy them?

[Abyss]

Rageun Cajun, on 17 March 2013 - 02:14 AM, said:

Abyss, on 15 March 2013 - 04:15 PM, said:

I want to want this, but at root it's a 'guidebook' for a series that isn't finished yet, and that bugs me. Similar past efforts with WoT and Shannara failed to wow.

Ditto

This remains my concerns, but i have to admit that excerpt was pretty awesome.

[Werthead]

The book runs up to the start (ish) of AGoT and stops there, just like the Jordan one did for WoT. The only indication of events in the book is the dedication page, where someone (Pycelle?) has removed the "To Robert" bit and put, "To Joffrey," and then "To Tommen", suggesting the book is meant for the king on the Iron Throne, no matter who that is

The SHANNARA one was interesting because it went up to where Brooks was in the books (just after the VOYAGE OF THE JERLE SHANNARA series, I believe), which is unusual.

All of them are better than the recent RIFTWAR one, which was just really, really poor. And that's the only one that came out after the series was done.

It makes me wonder if the planned MALAZAN companion book will stop with GotM or will encapsulate the whole series. I'm guessing the latter, considering it's probably still a few years away. There's also going to be a second WoT book, possibly out next year, which definitely covers the whole series.

[Abyss]

Werthead, on 15 May 2014 - 06:16 PM, said:

The book runs up to the start (ish) of AGoT and stops there, just like the Jordan one did for WoT....

Iirc, the WoT featured portraits of main characters in the series to that point, including some who weren't around yet in EYE, and references to events in at least a few of the books to that date.

[Werthead]

The history section stopped just as EotW started. Then there were some odd references to later events in the section on the world/races/nations (like the Asha'man). The last chapter also featured a bit naming Rand al'Thor as the Dragon Reborn and a very brief bit (as in a few sentences) on his adventures. It certainly didn't cover the events of the books in detail.

[Jahdu]

Am I the only one that gets the feeling that people are just trying to milk the cash cow that is GoT a bit too much??
Why don't they just go the whole hog and open up the GoT theme park already...

Seriously all I want to do is read the books and when the series is finished then by all means give me back stories, maps,
short stories, different povs etc etc etc but dammit get the main story finished first...

[Jahdu]

It's all got a bit too commercial for my liking.

But if they did open up a GoT theme park, imagine the queue there'd be to ride on Cersei!!!
And Tyrion would be a short ride boom boom!!

This post has been edited by Jahdu: 15 May 2014 - 10:04 PM

[worry]

Having money rules.

[Werthead]

Quote

Am I the only one that gets the feeling that people are just trying to milk the cash cow that is GoT a bit too much??

I think that is a genuine concern, especially when some of the products aren't what people were expecting (a map collection rather than a 'proper' atlas etc), but to be fair to this project, it was first proposed in 2006 before the TV series was a glint in anyone's eye. It's just taken a hell of a lot longer than expected to appear