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Question concerning the World Book


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Since the world book will obviously be published before the series is complete, will all the information in this book be "facts", or will they be "facts as we currenly know them"? Could there possibly be information published in the book that is intentianlly inacurate? Especially if the book was done from the perspective of a Maester's notes, or something similar, are we just going to be given information as the Maester currently understands it, even if it is completely wrong?

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Potentially, yes. I don't think we're necessarily going to touch on topics where maesters are totally wrong. But if the maesters don't know something -- there are numerous competing theories, for example -- either this is going to be stated, or the topic isn't going to be touched.

The idea behind this framework is to allow us to a) make mistakes and blame it on the maester and B) leave George room to change his mind about things as he writes without feeling he's bound by what the book says.

The Who's Who will not be written with the conceit that it's being done by a maester, so mistakes there we will own up to fully.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've been wondering about that too.

How many of these world books are going to come out? Obviously it can't spoil the series, but I think it's fair to say that after three (or more) books after this comes out, there might be something more to add. So, will it be written as though it was compiled during Feast or will it be a random mishmosh (in a good way) of facts that go wherever, but don't spoil things?

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It's probably going to be written as if it were finalized just before or around AGoT, as far as the in-setting sections go. For the Who's Who stuff, that'll probably written at least through the end of AGoT, though perhaps no further. The idea here is to leave it open to people to read who've only just started the series, basically.

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I understand the reasons for this, but I'm not a fan of this idea. They did the same thing with the Big White Book and it was kind of annoying the way the history screeched to a halt in mid-stride. Personally I'd enjoy a heavily-spoiler-warned appendix which covers developments up until the end of ADWD.

An interesting idea from the Big White Book was that they had big double-page spreads of all the cover art from the books. Any chance of something similar for ASoIaF in the World Book? Personally I'd be interesting in seeing Burns' art without the type all over it, and it would be cool to get his abandoned AFFC cover in print.

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Interesting. Don't know about the covers, but certainly it's ASoIaF art that could be interesting to see...

George is the one who was rather leery about covering too much spoiler info. I don't think we've settled on just how far we're going into spoilers just yet, but we'll probably have an idea by the end of this month or sometime the next.

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Hmmm, when you say there will be spoilers in the World Book,

i hope you dont mean stuff that will come AFTER ADWD?

I understand that this book will come out after ADWD is

released, so thats cool, but i wouldnt want

to be reading spoilers of whats coming up in future books

in the World Book, it should be just facts and info of

whats come before.

One reason why i stay away from the ADWD forums, i HATE

spoilers :tantrum:

The Young Lion

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By "spoilers", we mean "stuff that might spoil it for people who've only read the first book". I.E., ACoK, ASoS, AFfC, and I suppose ADwD. There would be no spoilers at all regarding unpublished volumes, of course.

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By "spoilers", we mean "stuff that might spoil it for people who've only read the first book". I.E., ACoK, ASoS, AFfC, and I suppose ADwD. There would be no spoilers at all regarding unpublished volumes, of course.

Thanks Ran, i thought that would be the case, just checking :D

Just thought maybe George would give us some little juicy

bits as an incentive to buy the World Book (not that i needed any).

The Young Lion

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I've never liked the idea of World Books published before the series is ended.

Jordan's big White Book is only one example. It's a colossal waste of time. Now if Jordan even finishes the series, he and his wife will be releasing an "encyclopedia" which is apparently a definitive world book of Wheel of Time.

To me at least, World Books are great when they are done at the end of a series and can be a truly comprehensive summation of all the characters, facts, and history of a completed product.

Right now, this is basically going to be an illustrated Concordance . . . which is nice but it sure would mean a lot more at the end of the series rather than right now. But obviously, there's money to be made now so go for it.

But no one has adequately explained the point of releasing a World book when the series isn't even finished. There could be a wealth of new facts and information by the end of the series making this volume obsolete. Shrug. Other than the profit of course. But Jordan's World of Wheel of Time was released around book 6 or 7 and it is just a ridiculous volume at book 11.

And hence the lovely little mental games to explain inconsistencies and incomplete facts. This is an "inworld" book. In Wheel of Time, it was explained that it would be written as if from the point of view of a "researcher" so certain facts will be wrong and incomplete blah blah blah.

Same thing it seems with this one. The "maester could be wrong" concept.

How about just waiting for the series to be finished before doing it? Or is anyone going to argue that the product would be BETTER or SUPERIOR if done in midstream? Or is the real answer that we'd better cash in right now because there's no telling when Martin is going to finish the series or if it'll be any good so milk the series now while it's number one.

Sorry if I come off so cynical and negative. I'm sure the book will be marvelous and I'll buy it but that's because I'm a collector with deep pockets who doesn't mind buying anything Song of Ice and Fire related as long as quality is good. I can't think of a better person than Elio to get the facts straight. After all, he knows Westeros better than anyone besides GRRM and I'm willing to bet on a good day he can beat GRRM himself.

It's just frustrating to see more and more licenses and side-projects spinning out and not seeing the main sequence books advance.

Instead of progress on A Dance with Dragons we get a 20 yr old short story re-released as a children's story and a book signing tour. Half of Dance was supposed to have been written already as the last half of Feast for Crows and coming into mid-October we have no sense at all of any real progress. Right now, it is an outside chance he'll be done by the end of this year meaning publication mid 2007.

I know there's no use complaining but unlike many on this board I am very concerned about the progress of the series and I for one feels Martin has a lot to prove with Dance with Dragons. Quite frankly, while certainly a good novel Feast for Crows fell far short of Storm of Swords and the Hugo voting and general board reaction reflected this.

This series is in serious jeopardy of being mired in exactly the same sorts of problems that Wheel of Time ran into and I really sincerely hope that Dance with Dragons gets Martin back to form.

Sorry for the rant, but I just see way too many similarities to Wheel of Time for my comfort with this World of Ice and Fire book stuff.

Dennis

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Thanks for sharing your views, Sword.

The reason it's being done now is that several publishers certainly pushed for it now (yes, publishers other than Bantam were interested in it), and GRRM has had many fans wanting it. Certainly, the reaction has been generally quite positive, even effusive, as far as we've seen (not just here, but also in forums which we don't really frequent where the news has appeared).

FWIW, I actually thought the content of the Jordan book was pretty good, and it pretty much provided as much illumination as I had hoped for when I had waited expectantly for it. The art was a problem, but otherwise, I thought it was a very worthwhile purchase. :)

I can only hope folks will feel at least the same about The World of Ice and Fire.

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Instead of progress on A Dance with Dragons we get a 20 yr old short story re-released as a children's story and a book signing tour. Half of Dance was supposed to have been written already as the last half of Feast for Crows and coming into mid-October we have no sense at all of any real progress. Right now, it is an outside chance he'll be done by the end of this year meaning publication mid 2007.

Okay, he goes off to do a short tour (not exactly one of AFFC proportions though) but the rewriting of Ice Dragon really amounted to the slight toning down of one fight sequence, I believe, which hardly took away time from ADWD. And, as people don't seem to get, only about 30% at the most of the 'new' ADWD will be stuff from the pre-split book. The rest of it is new and the stuff that was held over from AFFC has been rewritten, possibly several times.

As for the world book, as Ran says it was a commercial decision, which doesn't mean it will not be awesome, as I'm sure it will be.

Interesting point on the other publishers, Ran. I'm guessing Tor may have given GRRM a call with Teresa Patterson standing by to help out? Although having flicked through the Shannara world book, I note that she did a reasonable job on turning the two-dimensional Four Lands into something vaguely interesting, but I think we're all greatful you and Linda are on the job instead!

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The toning down of "The Ice Dragon" amounts to more like changing two or three sentences, as I recall. It's not remotely a re-write.

Wert,

No idea who the other publishers were. I haven't really asked. :)

Sword,

I might add that GRRM doesn't intend to touch anything Linda and I have written until after he's done with ADwD. Yes, there will be correspondence and discussions and whatnot, but the majority of his working hours are going to be on ADwD. George has been quite firm about this.

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Well, I'm sorry if I came across as if I begrudged Martin the TIME to work on this project. Far from it.

Many artists work in different ways. Some concentrate on one thing at a time only and others have to split their attention for a whle and then return with renewed vigor to the material.

It's just that having bought the Big White Book, almost 90 percent of the stuff in there I already knew and it was written around book 6. Five books later, a lot of the information was either outdated or incomplete which many fans predicted. Aside from Strike at Shayol Gul and the names of a few Forsaken we knew most of the material in that book. Many of us were excited MAINLY for the art because at that time the ONLY art we had short of fan art was the horrible DKSweet covers. Well, you can imagine the reaction when we finally laid down our 40 clams and opened it up . . .

I do understand and respect the fact that this is a commercial decision as well. As a veteran of Hollywood I'm sure George understands that if you're in the right place at the right time and an opportunity presents itself, you've got to go for it.

To be perfectly honest if this book was absolutely nothing more than a sparsely illustrated version of your Concordance updated to include material from Feast for Crows and Sworn Sword that'd be worth the price of admission alone. I love the Concordance but hate reading the tiny font on a computer screen.

And I'd be up to buying an updated and COMPREHENSIVE edition after the series is finally over.

Good luck on the venture.

Sounds like George wants to bullrush Dance and finish it off and then take a little time off away from the main sequence to work on this before gong back hopefully with renewed purpose on Winds of Winter.

Dennis

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I dont see what all the fuss is about.

I have been hanging out for a World Book with all the information

from the books into one 'Dictionary' type format, like

the Concordance for ages.

Release this one after ADWD and then bring out an updated

version in 10 years time when the series is finished :thumbsup:

A question Ran, the COrncordance doesnt have the Character

Database in it, and i know we have all been waiting for that :)

Will you have something like that in the World Book?

If so, how many characters will be in it?

The Young Lion

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Young Lion,

There will be a Who's Who type of thing, and it'll be one of the major sections of the book. A lot of readers have told George how they forget who characters are, or say they dislike flipping to the back of the appendices to try and figure out who someone is ... so hopefully the Who's Who will give readers a good reference work to have alongside them while reading the books.

We haven't figured out how many characters it'll have. It won't just be primary characters, certainly. We did put together a list based on the appendices in all four books alone, and I believe we came up with a total of 1,400+ unique characters there in. Many of these are, basically, just a note in the appendix -- they've never actually shown up, or are no more than a passing reference -- but certainly we could easily write up several hundred characters.

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This has the potential to be a very cool book. I wish you all the best of luck and can't wait to get my copy.

I love the idea of an in world book. The Maesters are always writing stuff (biased stuff). I like the idea of having a compendium that might include sections from "Questions" - AffC and some of the books from the library at the wall.

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