Dunk and Egg

Torrent for The Lands of Ice and Fire

Don’t even think about it!  After receiving my book yesterday, I couldn’t be happier with everything.  The hardcover binder, the size and quality of the printing of the maps, but most of all the new content!

I’m not sure what most people’s expectations were but the map of Essos in particular is SWARMING with new cities and regions that we have never heard of!  Will we find out more about the history of Essos?  Just when you were thinking that Essos was nothing more than the free cities, Slaver’s Bay, and old Valyria, GRRM comes out and drops a bomb on us.

Serious, buy this and consider framing at least a few of them.  It will be the best $24 you spent this year.  Maybe get a few for Christmas gifts!

See larger image The Lands of Ice and Fire (A Game of Thrones) (Poster) By (author) George R.R. Martin List Price: $40.00 USD New From: $18.88 In Stock Used from: $27.12 In Stock Release date October 30, 2012.

Tower of the Hand E-book Now Available!

See larger image Tower of the Hand: A Flight of Sorrows (Kindle Edition) By (author) Alexander Smith, Miles Schneiderman, John Jasmin, Amin Javadi, Mimi Hoshut, Douglas Cohen, Stefan Sasse Release date October 11, 2012.

Need something to read? You are in luck.  The good folks at Tower of the Hand have released a brand new E-Book called A Flight of Sorrows.  The book is available exclusively at Amazon and features essays from their editorial staff.  Let’s take a look at the all-star cast of writers:

Foreword – Phil Bicking, editor-in-chief of WinterIsComing.net

What would you give for a Dunk and Egg TV series?

That question may seem bizarre and out of the question considering there are still many seasons to go for Game of Thrones, but some talented and creative fans of both A Song of Ice and Fire and Dunk and Egg have taken to creating just that.  However, they intend it to be a web series rather than television.  In fact they have even completed much of the filming.

For Dunk and Egg, a group of Los Angeles-based Thrones fans got together to create a labor of love based on George R. R. Martin’s world, and shot numerous scenes on their own dime. But now they want to get more ambitious with a massive battle sequence, and that’s where fan funding comes in.

“We want the battle to feel authentic. We want our viewers to be engaged and experience war within the Game of Thrones universe,”creator and Executive Producer Chase Boyajian said. “To do that we are bringing in some real talent from around the gaming and film industries.”

To finish the pilot episode of their series with a bang, the creators of Dunk and Egg put together a Kickstarter page and set a fundraising goal of $10,000 (they’re already about a quarter of the way there with more than three weeks to go). They also put together an introduction video that includes a sneak peek at a scene from the pilot.

As with all Kickstarter pages, your money will only go towards the project if they real the fully funded amount.  I am guessing based on the progress that they have made so far, and how much time they have left to go, that this project will indeed get funded.  Don’t you want to watch an episode entitled “The Tourney of Ashford Meadow”?

Watch the video below and we encourage you to contribute!

New A Song of Ice and Fire novella coming in May 2013 

From Westeros.org, via Locus, we have news about the release date for the next Dunk & Egg’ novella from George R.R. Martin. The Dunk & Egg’ novellas, which currently consist of The Hedge Knight,’ The Sworn Sword,’ and The Mystery Knight,’ are a series of stories following the titular characters, Duncan the Tall and Egg, on their various adventures and mis-adventures through the land of Westeros. The stories are set about 90 years before the events in Martin’s popular A Song of Ice and Fire novels, and often feature cameos by characters and events hinted at in the mainline novels.

Of the novella, Westeros says:

[The] fourth Dunk and Egg novella, which will follow Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg to Winterfell where the she-wolves are said to rule as Lord Stark lays dying.

As Westeros mentions, it will be interesting to see if, indeed, this short story/novella does intersect with one of my favourite scenes from A Dance with Dragons. It won’t be the first time that the path of Duncan the Tall has intersected with everybody’s favourite little greenseer.

It’s ain’t The Winds of Winter, but you’ll never catch this guy complaining about new George R.R. Martin short fiction coming available, especially when it’s tied to A Song of Ice and Fire. via Westeros.org

GRRM talks about his monkeys, The Winds of Winter, and Dunk and Egg

This is a pretty nice update from GRRM.

I suggest reading it all, but for the good parts:

There is this regarding The Winds of Winter:

THE WINDS OF WINTER. Also known as “Son of Kong.” Working on it. Lots to do.

and more importantly (to me anyways) regarding Dunk and Egg:

Dunk & Egg #4, An original novella of Dunk & Egg. Working on it. Hope to have it done by worldcon. It’s scheduled to be published in

And of course, he is DONE with THE LANDS OF ICE AND FIRE.

ASOIAF Theory: Dunk and Egg as required reading

If you discovered A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE via the HBO series Game of Thrones, there is a good chance that you aren’t familiar with the other series that takes place in Westeros, The Tales of Dunk and Egg.  The simplest way to describe the series is as a prequel in the sense that they take place prior to Robert’s rebellion against the Targaryen King Aerys.  Compared to A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast For Crows, and A Dance With Dragons, the three (so far) works in the Dunk and Egg series are shorter novellas.  They were all published as part of anthologies by multiple authors, and as of yet can not be purchased separately or as an entire series.

Let’s take a look at the order of which all of the books were published to establish the theory that they are “required reading” in order to get the most out of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.

• A Game Of Thrones  - 1996
• The Hedge Knight – 1998 Get it here.
• A Clash Of Kings – 1999
• A Storm Of Swords –  2000
• The Sworn Sword – 2003 Get it here.
• A Feast For Crows – 2005
• The Mystery Knight – 2010 Get it here.
• A Dance With Dragons –  2011

So we can see that the publishing dates of the Dunk and Egg series are interwoven with the main series of novels.  That’s a starting point, but that’s hardly an indication that George R.R. Martin intends for readers to read both series as they are published, so lets look into the novellas and see what content they contain and how it could benefit a reader.

For this exercise I will work backwards, and give a warning to all readers.  Spoilers ahead.  If you have not finished all novels and all three novellas, read at your own risk.

The strongest case that I have for this theory is Bloodraven.  I know a good amount of people who have read A Dance with Dragons, but a many of them ask me who this Bloodraven person is that I’m talking about.  The title never occurs in A Dance with Dragons, and if your only knowledge is based on what you have read in the main novels, you would have a challenge to identify him.  There is a passage in A Feast For Crows when Sam, Dareon, and Maester Aemon are on their ship headed to Braavos that the name comes up.  Maester Aemon is describing his original trip to the wall with his honor guard that contained a future Lord Commander, Brynden Rivers.

So how is the average reader expected to piece together the connection between a brief reference from a previous book and Bran’s friend the three-eyed-crow?  With a little help I suggest.  In The Mystery Knight, Bloodraven is the hand of the king and feared throughout all of Westeros for having spies and informers everywhere.

How many eyes does Bloodraven have?  A thousand eyes, and one.

This line is repeated over and over throughout both The Sword Sword and The Mystery Knight.

There are other references as well, to towns and tourneys that give back story or foreshadowing.  For those who feel ill will towards Lord Walder Frey, here are three descriptions of him as a baby via The Mystery Knight:

The bride’s father followed close behind her, hand in hand with his young son. Lord Frey of the Crossing was a lean man elegant in blue and grey, his heir a chinless boy of four whose nose was dripping snot.

and,

They met beneath the viewing stand where Lord and Lady Butterwell sat on their cushions in the shade of the castle walls. Lord Frey was beside them, dandling his snot-nosed son on one knee.

and lastly,

Egg stood before him, freshly bathed and garbed in princely raiment, as would befit a nephew of the king. Nearby, Lord Frey was seated in a camp chair with a cup of wine to hand and his hideous little heir squirming in his lap.

Hideous and snot-nosed indeed.

Lastly, and this dives into the realm of speculation, there are some who believe young Aegon Targaryen, who we meet in A Dance With Dragons, is not who he says he is.  Or even who he thinks he is.  GRRM spends almost the entire second novella, The Sworn Sword discussing the Blackfyre Rebellion and the battle of the Red Grass Field.  Why spend so much time on one specific element of Westeros’ history if not for it to come back into current events.  Many believe that Aegon is actually a Blackfyre.  Similarly to Bloodraven, the average reader would be left scratching their head trying to figure out who and how and what makes this all possible.

Conclusion:

I’m sure there are a lot more points that I have omitted from this theory (add your own in the comments!), but there are definitely at least the two that I stated above that make a good case that you should really be reading Dunk and Egg as well as the main novels.  This is timely as the next installment of the Dunk and Egg series The She-Wolves of Winterfell is planned for later this year.  We hope.