A DANCE WITH DRAGONS Release Date AnnouncedIn the wake of Amazon.de leaking copies of George R.R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons, Voyager Books, Martin’s UK publisher, has issued a plea to fans to do their best to avoid reading and/or posting spoilers for the heavily embargoed novel. 180 people received early copies of the novel. Of course, the Internet being what it is, spoilers are already out there.

Dear UK George R.R. Martin fans,

We know that there are a lot of you out there.

We know that most of you, like us, have been waiting nigh on six years to crack open the cover of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and dive back into Westeros to relish the adventures of our old friends Jon, Daenerys, Arya and Tyrion et al.

The wait is almost over – just 14 days and counting. But due to reasons out of our control, the embargo in Europe has been broken and a few US copies have been delivered to customers in error by amazon.de. Only 180 copies have escaped the embargo, but already there are spoilers leaking out.

And so, Voyager is asking you – if you can bear it – to avoid your favourite GRRM-related sites (except for George’s official site, and the Voyager site of course, where we will be screening comments as always) to ensure that the latest instalment of this epic story is not spoiled for you. You’ve got a remarkable journey ahead of you, and some stunning surprises, and nothing should come between you and that experience. The embargo is now being thoroughly enforced by all accounts and customers around the world to ensure that no more copies are sold early.

And we would also issue a plea to those 180 fans who have managed to get hold of a copy, to please consider all the other fans around the world who have to wait for the official 12 July pub date and save your spoilers!

Sincerely,

Jane, Emma and Amy
Voyager Editorial Team

Doubly interesting, neither Bantam Spectra (Martin’s US publisher) or Voyager are planning to lift the embargo on early reviews (which only the major, professional publications have had access to), likely put in place to avoid even the smallest of spoilers from leaking early. But, with the potential for the whole novel to be spoiled in detail by fans, why not go ahead and let the major professional venues post their reviews, a tactic that might lessen the flow of traffic to the major spoilers by intercepting those looking for early impressions of the novel?

So, will you bite on A Dance with Dragons spoilers? Or will you save your virgin eyes and fight tooth-and-nail to stay a maiden until July 12th?

Also, if you do have spoilers, I’d kindly ask that they’re kept out of the comments section here. If you want to discuss them, there’s a thread on NeoGAF.

Discussion
  • neth June 28, 2011 at 9:13 am

    Bah, mostly I’m amused by all this. It’s always fun to see a bunch of hard core fans get there panties in a bunch. Of course the illegal page scanning is unfortunate, but also inevitable.

    Spoilers are generally easy to avoid if someone wants to, so most of the outrage really comes down to people who wish they were the one’s to get an early copy. And keep in mind that internet faction, while loud, is a very small percentage of the readers.

    I’ll also freely admit that it’s easy for me to be amused since I’m not planning on reading ADWD anytime soon anyway. I long ago decided I’d wait until the series finishes before reading anymore – I simply don’t have the time nor inclination for the re-reads that would be necessary with such a long wait between books. Of course I will be getting a nice shiney HB copy that I’ll happily have George sign when we next meet.

  • James June 28, 2011 at 9:40 am

    Since I am broke and do not have access to a library at this time, I will be searching out the spoilers. I did the same with A Feast for Crows when I was late in purchasing it. Unlike others, spoilers do not ruin a book a book for me or lessen my enjoyment in the slightest.

  • Raphael June 28, 2011 at 1:04 pm

    I shelved the whole series until it’s complete (hope!), so I am quite practised dodging spoilers! :) But then, the internet was a different place back when #4 was released, so it’s bound to become harder.

  • Claire June 28, 2011 at 5:52 pm

    I’m not going to hunt them out as I’ve been very good and only read one of the preview chapters. It’s going to hurt though as the book is going to take a while to arrive thru the post. I shall try to be strong thru the wait – don’t even want to read any reviews as I’ll form my own opinion on it anyway.

  • Jonathan June 29, 2011 at 6:57 am

    I’m totally waiting. I’m starting A Feast for Crows today to refresh, so there will be no need for spoilers.

  • Gabriele June 29, 2011 at 11:04 am

    Heh, I’m one of the lucky people who caught one of the early dragons. :) But I’m not going to post spoilers anywhere on the net, I promise.

    Btw, the Westeros site should be clean; they’ve put up a very strong No Spoilers Or We’ll Get Your Head policy.

  • aidan June 29, 2011 at 11:06 am

    @Gabriele — Yeah, I’m happy that Westeros put that rule in. Still, I pity the moderators who don’t have the book but have to enforce that rule!

    Do you have your copy yet? Or is it still in the post?

  • Gabriele June 29, 2011 at 11:35 am

    It’s in my hot little hands. :D

    Someone said there’s a spoiler on a fan forum about the Giants, of all places. Seriously, what ARE people thinking?

  • Rob B July 1, 2011 at 5:26 am

    I’m avoiding spoilers and at SFFWorld, we are monitoring discussions to ensure spoilers don’t get out in the wild by closing down the discussions that start.

  • Rob B July 1, 2011 at 5:28 am

    …clicked post too quickly….

    We aren’t going to have any active discussions until the pub date and even then at SFFWorld, we’ll probably have a spoiler and non-spoiler discussion.

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