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FIRE AND BLOOD Volume 1


Lord Varys

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dang.

 

Well, I won't update the soon-to-be-finished video, given that in it I already say "Martin stated it's 989 manuscript pages, we're not sure exactly how many it will be in hardcover, but yeah, "over 600" seems accurate based on prior conversion formulas".

I wonder how long it will be until the our friends the Ruskies get their hands on an e-copy...

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9 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

dang.

 

Well, I won't update the soon-to-be-finished video, given that in it I already say "Martin stated it's 989 manuscript pages, we're not sure exactly how many it will be in hardcover, but yeah, "over 600" seems accurate based on prior conversion formulas".

I wonder how long it will be until the our friends the Ruskies get their hands on an e-copy...

Aren't they preoccupied with the US Congressional elections? 

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My suspicion is that outright new chapters we're getting - besides the confirmed Jaehaerys I - include:

 

  • The pre-Conquest Targaryens on Dragonstone during the Century of Blood (with possibly some new details on events in the Free Cities in that time period)
  • Pre-Doom Valyria

Elio & Linda had similar guesses in the video about Fire & Blood they made some months ago.

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19 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

I wonder if the "Myrish pirates" who CAPTURED TARTH were just "some pirates who were ethnically Myrish", or a pirate-king of Myr or something.

Not sure if there is something like 'ethnically Myrish pirates'. Culturally, perhaps, but those Free Cities taking an interest in the Stepstones usually are all 'pirates' from the point of view of decent Westerosi folk, no?

 

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I was annoyed that ALL news sites reported on this great news about Fire & Blood as "GRRM announces Winds of Winter won't be out this year".

So I sat down and made a 1 hour 40 minute long analysis/promotional video report:

"Everything We Know about Fire & Blood, and the 5 Game of Thrones Prequels"


Please watch, @Ran  , and if it's worthy, please consider adding to news post.  

 

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1 hour ago, The Dragon Demands said:

I was annoyed that ALL news sites reported on this great news about Fire & Blood as "GRRM announces Winds of Winter won't be out this year".

So I sat down and made a 1 hour 40 minute long analysis/promotional video report:

"Everything We Know about Fire & Blood, and the 5 Game of Thrones Prequels"


Please watch, @Ran  , and if it's worthy, please consider adding to news post.  

 

Good work (saying this while not having actually watched the video yet, but I'm sure you did good work).

And sure, we should do all we can to make people understand that is going to be a great book. And I'm pretty sure it will be. If I can move my ass a little bit I might also do some promotion stuff when the release draws nigh.

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Well I look forward to any comments/criticisms - a MONTH of work went into this.

....yes it's been less than a month since the announcement of F&B.  I correctly assumed that some sort of announcement was going to occur reasonably soon (hoping for it to be out in time for Xmas 2018) so I started work like 2 weeks BEFORE the announcement.  

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On 5/17/2018 at 4:31 AM, The Dragon Demands said:

Well I look forward to any comments/criticisms - a MONTH of work went into this.

....yes it's been less than a month since the announcement of F&B.  I correctly assumed that some sort of announcement was going to occur reasonably soon (hoping for it to be out in time for Xmas 2018) so I started work like 2 weeks BEFORE the announcement.  

As to the show stuff - I'm not sure we have reason to believe that those successor shows have to be based all that much on original Martin material. They sure as hell could do stuff only loosely inspired by Martin set in his world (although I don't hope that's going to happen). In that sense, not all options there must refer to material from FaB (or other things, like D&E, etc.).

As to the sizes of the novels that are in that material - we have to keep in mind that not all novels have to be about wars and such. George's idea about a novel from the Unworthy's POV wouldn't focus all that much about wars. A novel series about the Dance certainly would heavily focus on battles but also, if done in the way the main series is done, on the personal stories of the many POV characters, etc. The larger the cast of such a novel the larger the story.

I mean, even stuff like stories during the reign of Aegon I and his sons would have a lot of potential for personal stories - how did they all get along, what did really happen behind closed doors, how close where Aenys and Maegor in their better days, what did Visenya when/if she decided to kill her nephew, etc.?

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Oh, I mean "conflicts".  Only the Dance is a big straight-up "war".  Even the Conquest has a few, stand-up battles, but a lot of politics.  I mean, the Regency also has "fighting" in it, but it's mostly assassinations and intrigue, not full scale wars, and I think it would be a narrative.

But I put in the TV show stuff at the end as an afterthought (a 40 minute afterthought after a 1 hour video...) because I see the topics as linked (shrug).   I'm nothing if not Thorough.  I'm all about Thorough.

....but let's focus on Word Count.  That's what I considered the core of it.

How long could "Peace of the Dragon" be?

By my count, we had 56,000 words unaccounted for.  The print World book has a 2,000 word section on the First Dornish War, probably from that.  Regency is "almost as long" as the 60,000 word Dance...which at first I thought was 59,000...now probably closer to 50,000.

Probably a moot point given how much new material GRRM wrote.  It was 160,000 in 2014.  Final version is...what, 230 to 270 thousand?

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8 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Oh, I mean "conflicts".  Only the Dance is a big straight-up "war".  Even the Conquest has a few, stand-up battles, but a lot of politics.  I mean, the Regency also has "fighting" in it, but it's mostly assassinations and intrigue, not full scale wars, and I think it would be a narrative.

But I put in the TV show stuff at the end as an afterthought (a 40 minute afterthought after a 1 hour video...) because I see the topics as linked (shrug).   I'm nothing if not Thorough.  I'm all about Thorough.

Sure, it was just that I don't really think we should see 'narrative potential' in this background stories only if there are a lot of battles. Even with the Dance, it might be that the more interesting potential is behind the personal stories - Alicent/Rhaenyra, Criston/Rhaenyra, Daemon/Nettles, Forrest Frey/Sabitha Vypren, etc. 

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How long could "Peace of the Dragon" be?

I honestly don't know. Didn't catch Elio's remark on that one. I think TWoIaF gives us pretty strong clues to this material. The Dorne section on the First Dornish War has Gyldayn quotes in there, so it is likely that a more detailed account on that war exists in the Gyldayn material. The same for the KL, Rule of Six, etc. material from Aegon's reign. Elio also remarked somewhere we would get something on the first Grand Maester, so there has to be material there which we haven't seen yet.

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By my count, we had 56,000 words unaccounted for.  The print World book has a 2,000 word section on the First Dornish War, probably from that.  Regency is "almost as long" as the 60,000 word Dance...which at first I thought was 59,000...now probably closer to 50,000.

Probably a moot point given how much new material GRRM wrote.  It was 160,000 in 2014.  Final version is...what, 230 to 270 thousand?

Pretty much no idea. What I think we can assume is that the younger the material the more detailed it is likely going to be. The Conquest piece is a pretty short summary, something George likely still wrote with the intention to fit it into TWoIaF. It focuses pretty much only on the Targaryens - only the siblings are flashed out as historical figures of note, whereas their enemies only get described in relation to them. They are not living, breathing characters with their own courts, families, etc. Some names pop up here and there - the Gardener sons and grandsons, Brandon Snow, etc. - but the story is not very deep.

TSotD is somewhat deeper, but it, too, focuses mainly on the two protagonists, Aenys and Maegor (and to a lesser degree on their families).

Once we enter into Dance territory the story really grows in the telling. In TRP one sees characters and personal stories come to the fore outside the circle of the few royals, and in TPatQ this continues when a lot of pages focus on rather obscure people like Unwin Peake and the other Caltrops - characters of that sort didn't really get a lot of spotlight in TSotD or the Conquest thing. Back then one gets occasionally some council member name-dropped, but little more. During the Dance the members of the various councils are characters in their own right.

One therefore can imagine that the Regency piece and whatever George has written thereafter is going to resemble 'The Dying of the Dragons' much more than the piece on the Conquest. It is more likely to be a history of the Seven Kingdoms - from the point of view of the Targaryen dynasty, of course, with the kings and the royal family at the center, but a broader history nonetheless.

If that idea is true we should all urge George to get to the second volume as quickly as he can because that would mean we would get a very detailed history of the reigns of the kings from Aegon III onwards - which, in turn, might enable him to make another break after the Great Spring Sickness and then we would have all the background material we need (and want) before Dunk & Egg are finished.

As curious I am about this stuff I'd not want to get my first clear picture on King Aerys I, Rhaegel, Aelor & Aelora, Daella & Rhae, Shiera Seastar, Haegon Blackfyre, etc. through the lenses of some historian. I want to meet these people first through Dunk's eyes.

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@Lord Varys

@Ran also mentioned the "winter armies" of the pre-Conquest North would be mentioned in passing so clearly The Peace of the Dragon includes a bit on what Westeros was like before 1 AC. 

@The Dragon Demands

I watched it. Very good. Noticed two errors but only remember one of them. (Aerys II ruled 21 years, not nearly twenty.)

Anyway, I personally disagree with some of your estimates.

My hunch is Peace of the Dragon is 10K (since The Conquest is that long and it is the shortest piece we have).

Also, I am of the opinion that Jaehaerys I will be 25-30K words.

Finally, I believe anywhere between 5-10K more will be expansion of existing material (such as the story of how Prince Aegon bonded with the dragon Quicksilver), which would still leave over 30K on Dragonstone and Old Valyria.

Re TV Shows: I personally believe the one not set in Westeros is Braavos.

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3 hours ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

If I remember correctly, that information was part of the Cregan Stark campaign.

Yeah, that's how I recall that, too. One expects there is going to be another paragraph on Cregan Stark and his army in 'The Dying of the Dragons' there, referencing more ancient practices of the Northmen.

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On 5/16/2018 at 11:54 PM, The Dragon Demands said:

I was annoyed that ALL news sites reported on this great news about Fire & Blood as "GRRM announces Winds of Winter won't be out this year".

So I sat down and made a 1 hour 40 minute long analysis/promotional video report:

"Everything We Know about Fire & Blood, and the 5 Game of Thrones Prequels"


Please watch, @Ran  , and if it's worthy, please consider adding to news post.  

 

Well, definitely thank you for the video. But while I will buy the book, I understand people´s concerns. I am not really that impatient (although my father is and whenever I´ll mention Martin next to him he becomes aggressive). Considering Martin openly talks about writer´s blocks and it seems that his gift is now producing historical narration instead of standard novel narration, I think it suggests dangerous shift in creativity. Question for me isn´t "Will he ever finish?". It is instead "Is his mind even set that he can construct regular story anymore?".   

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1 - ...what "winter armies"? I forgot this.  I'm mixing it up with Cregan's Company of the Rose or something...

2 - Well I was just rounding to the nearest whole number 20.

3 - Kind of irrelevant, as I did stress:  that's the word count *in 2014*, and he's clearly expanded them since then.  

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25 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

1 - ...what "winter armies"? I forgot this.  I'm mixing it up with Cregan's Company of the Rose or something...

2 - Well I was just rounding to the nearest whole number 20.

3 - Kind of irrelevant, as I did stress:  that's the word count *in 2014*, and he's clearly expanded them since then.  

Not to butt in to your convo with others, but this may be the “winter armies” in reference...

 

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On 5/13/2018 at 4:12 AM, The Dragon Demands said:

My suspicion is that outright new chapters we're getting - besides the confirmed Jaehaerys I - include:

 

  • The pre-Conquest Targaryens on Dragonstone during the Century of Blood (with possibly some new details on events in the Free Cities in that time period)
  • Pre-Doom Valyria

Elio & Linda had similar guesses in the video about Fire & Blood they made some months ago.

George ruled out pre-Conquest Targaryens in F&B.

Quote

 

Will we learn about House Targaryen previous to the Doom of Valyria? From what I understand it used to be rather small and unimportant in the freehold. And it would please me to know more about Aenar the Exile and Daenys the Dreamer. I’m mostly curious about the Freehold itself.

In FIRE & BLOOD? No, won’t be much about the pre-Conquest Targaryens.

IN future books, stories, or TV shows? Maybe.

 

 

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