George R. R. Martin’s new ‘Game of Thrones’ book is coming… but not the one we’re waiting for

But there’s news! And a book!

Just… not that book.

Responding to questions in the comments section of a post he put on his LiveJournal (George R. R. Martin is the only person on Earth that still uses LiveJournal), he revealed that 2018 will see the publication of volume one of Fire and Blood, a companion piece to the main ASOIAF storyline. He described the book back in July:

“We have so much material that it’s been decided to publish the book in two volumes. The first of those will cover the history of Westeros from Aegon’s Conquest up to and through the regency of the boy king Aegon III (the Dragonbane). That one is largely written, and will include (for the first time) a complete detailed history of the Targaryen civil war, the Dance of the Dragons.”

A lot of what will be in the books is material written for, but cut from, The World of Ice and Fire, a visual companion to the show that Martin accidentally wrote several hundred thousand too many words for. We’ve all made that mistake, right? Right.

He’s an interesting guy, George R. R. Martin. He owns a cinema, loves turtles, used to make a living from chess and writes all his books on a DOS machine running WordStar, software that dates from the 1980s.

Fire and Blood volume one will be released before The Winds of Winter, and volume two after it. That possibly means TWOW definitely isn’t happening this year…