A Song of Ice & Fire is an extremely powerful story that invokes passion in all who read it.

That passion is a double-edged sword, able to cut an enemy as quickly as its bearer. While the four books and two short stories that comprise A Song of Ice & Fire are universally garnered as being some of the best storytelling ever, animosity swirls around George. The fourth book, A Feast For Crows, took five years to be published and it contained only half of the characters fans have come to love. Upon publishing A Feast For Crows, George posted that he was near to completing the other half of the story, A Dance With Dragons, with the novel coming to bookstores quickly.

That was three years ago and A Dance With Dragons is still not complete.

This has aroused a great deal of anger for many of George’s fans. Five years is a long time to wait for a sequel to arguably one of the best fantasy series of all time, especially when most writers are able to produce sequels between one and three years. But as I’ve come to discover, anger is one of the least logical emotions we possess; it can lead people to conclusions that are not wholly accurate—if not down right wrong. Much of the animosity I see written about George and his lateness is colored by that kind of anger and, while I believe there are two instances where fans of A Song of Ice & Fire are more than allowed their ire, most of it lacks any authenticity whatsoever.

This article hopes to dispel some of those erroneous angry feelings and assumptions out there—or at least give a different side to things that most readers probably have not thought of.

I’m very pleased with what John and my editor Lou Anders have achieved here. The covers really capture the awe and sense of scale I tried to place at the heart of the books.

It was 5:45 in the morning. No-one had died, though, I was fairly certain of that. My cell-phone rang.

“Hello. This is Rose Trevino. I’m chair of the ALA Newbery Committee…” Oh. Newbery. Right. Cool. I may be an honors book or something. That would be nice, “and I have the voting members of the Newbery Committee here, and we want to tell you that your book…”

“THE GRAVEYARD BOOK,” said fourteen loud voices, and I thought, I may be still asleep right now, but they probably don’t do this, probably don’t call people and sound so amazingly excited, for Honors books….

“…just won…”

“THE NEWBERY MEDAL” they chorused. They sounded really happy. I checked the hotel room because it seemed very likely that I was still fast asleep. It all looked reassuringly solid.

You are on a speakerphone with at least 14 teachers and librarians and suchlike great, wise and good people, I thought. Do not start swearing like you did when you got the Hugo. This was a wise thing to think because otherwise huge, mighty and fourletter swears were gathering. I mean, that’s what they’re for. I think I said, You mean it’s Monday?

“You can tell your agent and your publisher, but no-one else,” said Rose. “And it will be announced in about an hour.”

And I fumfed and mumbled and said something of a thankyouthankyouthankyouokaythiswasworthbeingwokenupfor nature.

It’s hard to promote a film that’s as much for adults as it is for kids, easy for something like this to bomb — or to be perceived as having bombed, which is not the same thing. The advertising is out there for another couple of weeks, and it’ll probably get more pervasive as we get closer to the 6th of February, and will not please your friends. And the run up to Coraline will take over this blog more or less completely, I expect, because it’s all I’ll be doing. And then, after Feb 6th, it will all trail off, and the advertising will die away completely, and it will fade from the blog with occasional splashes of mention if the film does something interesting, or if I go somewhere to help promote it.

Political intrigue and dark violence converge in a superb new action series of enthralling fantasy. An ice age strikes a chain of islands, and thousands come to seek sanctuary at the gates of Villjamur: a city of ancient spires and bridges, a place where banshees wail the deceased, cultists use forgotten technology for their own gain and where, further out, the dead have been seen walking across the tundra.

When the Emperor commits suicide, his elder daughter, Rika, is brought home to lead the Jamur Empire, but the sinister Chancellor plans to get rid of her and claim the throne for himself. Meanwhile a senior investigator in the city inquisition must solve the high-profile and savage murder of a city politician, whilst battling evils within his own life, and a handsome and serial womanizer manipulates his way into the imperial residence with a hidden agenda. When reports are received that tens of thousands of citizens are dying in a bizarre genocide on the northern islands of the Empire, members of the elite Night Guard are sent to investigate. It seems that, in this land under a red sun, the long winter is bringing more than just snow.

Return to the world of the Liveships Traders and journey along the Rain Wild River in this standalone adventure from the author of the internationally acclaimed Farseer trilogy. Tintaglia the blue dragon has lost interest in the stunted dragons that emerged from the cocoons of Maulkin’s Serpent Tangle. Dragons are fiercely practical about survival of the fittest, and now that she has produced her own batch of healthy hatching serpents Tintaglia no longer provides for the weak creatures abandoned near Trehaug, the main city of the Rain Wilds. The Rain Wild Council is as ruthless as Tintaglia: Deciding that the pack must be relocated they begin to recruit their least useful citizens to tend the beasts and escort them upriver to better hunting grounds. Because of their proximity to the acid waters and vapours of the Rain Wild River, Rain Wilders are born with deformities that shorten their life expectancy and must wed young and reproduce early if their family lines are to survive. Thymara is long past marriageable age. Having been born with too many abnormalities she should have been exposed as an infant, but her father chose to keep and raise her, against his wife’s wishes. When Thymara’s mother hears that the council is seeking tenders she grasps the chance to be rid of her wild, ugly daughter. But Thymara shows just as much enthusiasm at the prospect of adventure and grabs the opportunity to travel with the dragons. But the youngsters that will herd the dragons are as ignorant as the beasts themselves – both completely unaware that they are being sent into an exile rather than to a sanctuary.

The single worst piece of writing advice I ever got was to stay away from the Internet because it would only waste my time and wouldn’t help my writing. This advice was wrong creatively, professionally, artistically, and personally, but I know where the writer who doled it out was coming from.

…

But the Internet has been very good to me. It’s informed my creativity and aesthetics, it’s benefited me professionally and personally, and for every moment it steals, it gives back a hundred delights. I’d no sooner give it up than I’d give up fiction or any other pleasurable vice.

I think I’ve managed to balance things out through a few simple techniques that I’ve been refining for years.

When I’m working on a story or novel, I set a modest daily goal — usually a page or two — and then I meet it every day, doing nothing else while I’m working on it.

After all, last year it only took 17 votes to get on the ballot if you happened to have an eligible short story, and anyone can vote as long as they pay the fee to join the World Science Fiction Convention. This year it costs $50, so if you do the math (17 votes x $50), that adds up to a cost of just $850 if you want to fund voting privileges for you and 16 friends. (That assumes voting levels stay the same as they have been for the last two years.)

Once you’ve theoretically bought your way onto the ballot, buying a win would (also theoretically) be harder, but still seemingly within the realm of possibility. It costs about 10 times as much as a nomination, though, and presumably is more difficult to both organize and conceal, since more votes are involved. In 2008, you would have needed 176 in the “cheapest” category of Best Fanzine for a win (and you would have to have been eligible in that category). That adds up to a more sizable $8,800.

Best Novel: Nomination $2,000, Win $18,640

Best Novella: Nomination $1,700, Win $15,750

Best Novelette: Nomination $1,050, Win $14,640

Best Short Story: Nomination $850, Win $16,250 (BEST NOMINATION VALUE)

Best Related Book: Nomination $900, Win $11,750

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Nomination $2,200, Win $19,100 (SUPER BARGAIN!)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Nomination $1,200, Win $16,850

Best Editor, Long Form: Nomination $900, Win $12,900

Best Editor, Short Form: Nomination $1,750, Win $14,000

Best Professional Artist: Nomination $1,000, Win $15,300

Best Semiprozine: Nomination $1,900, Win $13,550

Best Fanzine: Nomination $1,300, Win $8,800 (BEST WIN VALUE)

Best Fan Writer: Nomination $1,200, Win $11,900

Best Fan Artist: Nomination $950, Win $9,250

“Amanda seemed very confident in her knowledge of the Star Wars saga despite never having watched any of the Star Wars films. That was the first good sign. When we sat down to watch them, she started telling me what she thought the plots were going to be, so I told her to hold steady while I went to get my voice recorder.”