George's story in Book of Swords

[Universal Sword Donor]

I want to read anything related to ASOIAF. I'd prefer WOW but I'll take what I can get.

[The Fattest Leech]

2 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

This just in: Sons of the Dragon is indeed what GRRM is contributing to Book of Swords. Here's the link:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/519773.html

 

On behalf of all the gods, thank you

[The Grey Wolf]

2 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Thanks! 

8 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

On behalf of all the gods, thank you

Np.

The question now is how long is the full text of The Sons of the Dragon and how much is going to be edited out.

[JLE]

Well, I guess the good thing is that this story was already written some years ago, and has not for some time been getting in the way of his attempts to write TWOW.

[The Fattest Leech]

1 minute ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Np.

The question now is how long is the full text of The Sons of the Dragon and how much is going to be edited out.

Good question. I guess we have to wait for Fire & Blood for that answer.

[The Grey Wolf]

Just now, The Fattest Leech said:

Good question. I guess we have to wait for Fire & Blood for that answer.

Probably. I just hope less is being cut compared to TPATQ and TRP because I want more on Maegor's reign. And the bloody Dornish Wars.

[The Fattest Leech]

Just now, The Grey Wolf said:

Probably. I just hope less is being cut compared to TPATQ and TRP because I want more on Maegor's reign. And the bloody Dornish Wars.

I really want the Dornish wars as well.

I am thinking we may get "enough", because these side stories are much more narrative in tone and give lot more in telling.

I love a story with that new car smell.

[The Grey Wolf]

1 minute ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I really want the Dornish wars as well.

I am thinking we may get "enough", because these side stories are much more narrative in tone and give lot more in telling.

I love a story with that new car smell.

I wonder because GRRM did say explicitly its more "fake history" from the pen of Archmaester Gyldayn or as we all know him Archmaester Fun.

[1000th Lord Commander]

I'm also glad he's put up a list of other authors, and thier stories. I felt that was lacking on the amazon preview. As much as I love GRRM's work, he writes too slowly to be my only source of fantasy

[HexMachina]

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Np.

The question now is how long is the full text of The Sons of the Dragon and how much is going to be edited out.

It sounds like the version @Lord Varys and I believe Aranteillo(spelling?) heard when GRRM read it at a con, oh, a while ago now. I forget which con it was, I think it was before even WOIAF came out. But the notes that they provided were quite detailed, and it seemed to cover quite a substantial amount 

Quote

"The Sons of the Dragon" came from the same place. Gardner asked me for a story. I told him I did not have the time to write a story. He asked if perhaps I had more like "The Princess and the Queen" lying about... as it happened, I did. So I sent him "The Sons of the Dragon," he liked it, and there we are. (Fwiw, though "Sons" has never been published before, some of you may have heard me read it at one convention or another. I think I've read it twice, though offhand I do not recall when).

 

[SeanF]

I'd like to find out the fates of Queen Rhaenys and Lady Rohane Webber.

[The Grey Wolf]

1 hour ago, HelenaExMachina said:

It sounds like the version @Lord Varys and I believe Aranteillo(spelling?) heard when GRRM read it at a con, oh, a while ago now. I forget which con it was, I think it was before even WOIAF came out. But the notes that they provided were quite detailed, and it seemed to cover quite a substantial amount 

I recall reading those write-ups and the amount of detail in them was impressive, which is why I think most of the new material we are getting will be covering Maegor's reign since that was the part GRRM stopped at both times he read TSOTD.

[The Grey Wolf]

3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I'd like to find out the fates of Queen Rhaenys and Lady Rohane Webber.

I don't think we're going to get that in TSOTD.

Rohanne will most likely be the subject of a D & E story whereas Rhaenys's fate is meant to be ambiguous.

[The Dragon Demands]

Lord Varys, you asked in the Not A Blog comments why Aenys was called "Prince of Dragonstone":

I wondered the same thing for a while and recently asked Elio, and he confirmed this was actually a typo in the first print run which was subsequently corrected:

I updated the AWOIAF article accordingly, along with link to Elio's confirmation:

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?title=Prince_of_Dragonstone&diff=196636&oldid=195611
 

 

[Lord Varys]

3 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

It sounds like the version @Lord Varys and I believe Aranteillo(spelling?) heard when GRRM read it at a con, oh, a while ago now. I forget which con it was, I think it was before even WOIAF came out. But the notes that they provided were quite detailed, and it seemed to cover quite a substantial amount.

It was LonCon 2014. The thread is linked somewhere on the wiki. My ego is not big enough to incorporate important threads I participated in into my signature ;-).

The reading covered the childhood, youth, marriages, and children of Aenys and Maegor and the entirety of the reign of Aenys I up until the burial of Aenys I, the last sentence being Maegor returning to Dragonstone on Balerion. The theory that Visenya might have poisoned Aenys I was not yet discussed.

It took about 45 minutes, give or take, with 15 minutes questions afterwards. I'm sure some people can calculate the approximate word count from that (I can't). I'd expect that the part on Maegor's reign would be at least as long as long as the account of Aenys', suggesting that we heard about half of the entire piece we are getting in the anthology now.

Could also only be only a third. Remember, it is a tale of the lives of Aegon's son and actually focuses rather extensively on their childhood, youth, and adulthood while the Conqueror yet lived.

The bulk of the action and battles is going to come during the reign of Maegor the Cruel, so George could have flashed out much more things in detail than he did during the reign of Aenys I (where the main focus was on the rebellions upon the Conqueror's death and the buildup to the Faith Militant Uprising after Maegor took a second wife).

In general this piece is somewhat more remote history than the history of the Dance. Gyldayn isn't citing any sources, nor is critiquing them, suggesting he didn't have access to as many primary sources as he has for the Dance.

[The Dragon Demands]

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In general this piece is somewhat more remote history than the history of the Dance. Gyldayn isn't citing any sources, nor is critiquing them, suggesting he didn't have access to as many primary sources as he has for the Dance.

Also, of course, after the Dance ended neither side totally "won" and tempers were running high between former Blacks and Greens....in contrast, there weren't exactly many pro-Maegor historical revisionists!

Thus there was kind of only one official version.

 

[The Dragon Demands]

Quote

http://grrm.livejournal.com/519773.html
Long-time lurkers on this site will recall that several years ago, when we were working on the gorgeous illustrated worldbook/ concordance that was eventually published as THE WORLD OF ICE & FIRE, I wrote a number of 'sidebar's about Westerosi history. Actually, I got rather carried away, until I found I had written 350,000 words of sidebars for a book that was supposed to have only 50,000 words of text (it ended up having a lot more that that, actually). Since I had only reached the regency of Aegon III the Dragonbane, and had largely skipped over Jaehaerys I the Conciliator, however, it became apparent that my sidebars were going to burst the book.

Ahh...important update to the earlier figures:

• He wrote 350,000 words of sidebars.  I thought it was 300,000.
• It stops with Aegon III.  This apparently doesn't include "Beyond Westeros", or "The Princess and the Queen", and ...probably, not the Regency era?
• Turns out he largely "skipped over" the reign of Jaehaerys I...bridging the gap between The Sons of the Dragon and The Rogue Prince.  It was a 55 year span of peace of course, but there's always various political developments.  Tax policy and such.
• Does this mean that Fire and Blood will round out Jaehaerys I? 

[Lord Varys]

54 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Also, of course, after the Dance ended neither side totally "won" and tempers were running high between former Blacks and Greens....in contrast, there weren't exactly many pro-Maegor historical revisionists!

Thus there was kind of only one official version.

It isn't just that. Historians and other people certainly would have written stuff about Aegon's sons during their youth and before all the wars. They wouldn't have written about it with hindsight in mind, that is why primary sources usually are pretty accurate if they are not recognizably propaganda. Say, if Lord Harroway or Martyn Hightower wrote some letter praising Prince Maegor then this most likely would have been true in their eyes at the time.

Such sources would also exist during the Dance. A lot of people would have praised and sucked up to Rhaenyra in 130 AC when she took the throne.

44 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Ahh...important update to the earlier figures:

• He wrote 350,000 words of sidebars.  I thought it was 300,000.

The 350,000 words should include everything he wrote for the book. Which is the Gyldayn 'Fire and Blood' history of the Targaryen reign from the Conquest to the Regency (minus Jaehaerys I where there are apparently only notes), the history of the Seven Kingdoms, the history of the lands beyond Westeros, and the early history (Valyria, the Rhoynar, the Andals and First Men, the ancient days, etc.).

Some of those histories were that edited down considerably (evident in the history of the Westerlands we have as a sample on George's homepage).

44 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

• Turns out he largely "skipped over" the reign of Jaehaerys I...bridging the gap between The Sons of the Dragon and The Rogue Prince.  It was a 55 year span of peace of course, but there's always various political developments.  Tax policy and such.

Ran has told me something of like this some time ago. It seems that there is not much detailed information on the reign of Jaehaerys I available as of yet.

44 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

• Does this mean that Fire and Blood will round out Jaehaerys I? 

Most likely. It is supposed to be a book covering the history of the Targaryen reign, and thus it should include a detailed history from the Conquest to Summerhall. Whether we'll get a detailed history of the War of the Ninepenny Kings, Jaehaerys II, Aerys II, the Baratheon interregnum, and whoever else ends up on the Iron Throne after the end of the series remains to be seen.

If this book comes out after the end of the series it would be a great way to not only shed a lot of light on the past but also have an aged Yandel cover the reign of Daenerys I and/or 'Jon Snow' as far into the future as George would like to. We all would like to get at least glimpses of the life of the children in their twenties and thirties, and learn whether they had any children of their own to continue their lines, etc. Not to mention, you know, it would be great to learn whether Westeros truly recovered from the onslaught of the Others.

[The Dragon Demands]

Quote

If this book comes out after the end of the series it would be a great way to not only shed a lot of light on the past but also have an aged Yandel cover the reign of Daenerys I and/or 'Jon Snow' as far into the future as George would like to. We all would like to get at least glimpses of the life of the children in their twenties and thirties, and learn whether they had any children of their own to continue their lines, etc. Not to mention, you know, it would be great to learn whether Westeros truly recovered from the onslaught of the Others.

....I never thought of that.  It would be a great way to cap it off.

On the other hand, while we do kind of know that the Others will be defeated, this presupposes that....literate civilization will survive.  What if only a small band of people survive and the world gets dialed back to zero?  And we know no more of King's Landing than we do the mazemakers of Lorath?

I wish GRRM would clarify this so we can write it up in the wiki page.

[The Grey Wolf]

1 hour ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Ahh...important update to the earlier figures:

• He wrote 350,000 words of sidebars.  I thought it was 300,000.
• It stops with Aegon III.  This apparently doesn't include "Beyond Westeros", or "The Princess and the Queen", and ...probably, not the Regency era?
• Turns out he largely "skipped over" the reign of Jaehaerys I...bridging the gap between The Sons of the Dragon and The Rogue Prince.  It was a 55 year span of peace of course, but there's always various political developments.  Tax policy and such.
• Does this mean that Fire and Blood will round out Jaehaerys I? 

With regards to Jaehaerys I must admit I am a bit surprised by that statement as it makes me wonder just how much non-Targaryen information we ultimately did not end up getting in TWOIAF. I remember reading an interview sometime back where @Ran mentioned that he and Linda had to cut some stuff out concerning the Dothraki and Yi Ti but nothing concerning ancient history or the 7K was mentioned as having been shortened.

Anyway, if you'd like here is a link to a thread I made to discuss Fire & Blood, including how long each section will be, what we can expect to learn from them, and which will feature conflicting sources: