Earlier this year Game of Thrones ended, and yet author George RR Martin still has two books to go in the series it’s based on, A Song of Ice and Fire. Nevertheless, for better or worse, he published a book last year called Fire and Blood: A history of the Targaryen Kings from Aegon the Conqueror to Aegon III. The first of two volumes in a 300-year history of the House, it turns out it almost wasn’t a book at all. This week Martin attended a London Q&A on the book, where he revealed how Fire and Blood wasn’t supposed to exist.
The Wertzone Blog reported: “[Fire and Blood] was supposed to be his contribution to The World of Ice and Fire in the form of sidebars that he wrote shortly after finishing A Dance with Dragons, but instead of 3,000 words he ended up submitting over 170,000 words…as it had just all poured out of him in a few weeks (way back in the day he said it was around 2-3 months).
“His publishers were horrified, as it made The World of Ice and Fire too big to be publishable.
“His co-writers Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson compressed almost all of it down and summarised it to fit into the book, leaving George with this big manuscript which he then chopped up to produce the three anthology stories (Princess and the Queen, The Rogue Prince and Sons of the Dragon).
“The motivation to publish Fire and Blood came when HBO started talking about prequel spin-offs and George realised the manuscript could be a potential source of new stories and information, although ironically the one HBO decided to proceed with had nothing to do with the Fire and Blood material.”
GEORGE RR MARTIN ON RED WEDDING INSPIRATION
Meanwhile, Martin gave an update on Fire and Blood volume 2, which will include Aegon IV and his mistresses, but he won’t start it until the final novel in A Song of Ice and Fire, A Dream of Spring, is released.
By the sounds of it Fire and Blood volume 2 is years off, especially with The Winds of Winter to go.
The author also specified that he intends to write the fourth and fifth novellas in between the last two A Song of Ice and Fire books.
Martin’s planned writing schedule is a follows:
1. The Winds of Winter
2. Dunk & Egg IV (either The She-Wolves or The Village Hero)
3. A Dream of Spring
4. Dunk & Egg V (either The Village Hero or The She-Wolves)
5. Fire & Blood II