The latest issue of LOCUS says that George R. R. Martin has resold RRetrospective to Anne Groell at Bantam. No idea when this will be out, but this is very welcome news. When I spoke to him at Boskone, it didn’t sound like we’d be seeing this back in print anytime soon. Subterranean, the original publisher, decided they didn’t want to do anymore books that were this big (it’s huge) and George was saying that other publishers wanted to break it up. I’m guessing this means he convinced Bantam to do a single volume. Anyone know any details? Anyhow, you won’t have to pay crazy money to get copies of this book in the future. That’s good news.
benpeek
hey, that’s cool. i only recently found martin’s stuff. what’s in the retrospective?
hippoiathanatoi
Most of his best short story work, plus a number of essays introducing each section (roughly grouped by stages of his development as an author). See here for a full breakdown.
Clarkesworld,
It’s good to hear GRRM re-sold it to Bantam. He did get Voyager to pick it up, and they’ll be publishing it in one volume in the U.K. under the title, “Dreamsongs”.
Regarding that bit about the resale of the book, does that section (or any other) refer to the world book/companion book/encyclopedia GRRM has also sold to Anne Groell? We won’t have a copy of Locus available until next week, and would love to know what precisely it says regarding it. 🙂
benpeek
hey,t hanks for that. i was under the impression it was out of print, but the site seems to say only the lettered is. though it does have a hefty price tag.
wyrmadmin
It was, they must have found a few more in storage. That’s not the original list price either. The trade went for $40.
benpeek
heh.
well, curiousity has its limits, as they say.
wyrmadmin
It says that he sold world rights to an illustrated guide to the Song of Fire and Ice universe with the held of Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson. Unfortunately, no other details.
hippoiathanatoi
Well, that’s enough for Linda and myself to go and make sure we buy a copy or six. 😉 Our first mention in Locus. 🙂
wyrmadmin
🙂 Congrats! Didn’t make the connection there. So can you tell us anything about this book?
hippoiathanatoi
Thanks!
We’re supposed to have a meeting with George and Anne (Groell) at Worldcon to discuss some of the broad parameters of the project, because a lot hasn’t quite been settled yet (deadline, rough word count to shoot for, title…) The things that are certain is that George wants it to be highly illustrated (illustrations on every page, if possible), making use of both reprinted art (from Fantasy Flight Games’s card game, Guardians of Order’s RPG, the Subterranean Press limiteds, and so on being possible sources) and commissioning original art from some of the best artists in the field.
As far as content goes, we hope to provide a general reference work for the casual reader (perhaps including something like a character guide covering major and secondary characters, new maps, historical timelines, and so on) with some new information (mostly historical or thematic, rather than plot-related) for the hardcore fans who want something else to argue about while
we’rethey’re waiting for ADwD.It’s extremely exciting for us, and rather nerve-wracking — never done anything like quite this before. 🙂
Cheers,
Elio
wyrmadmin
Sounds great! Best of luck to you. Make sure you let me know when they have publication details (yeah, way off in the future) so I can get it listed in the store.