George R.R. Martin, you sneaky bastard.
Earning immediate induction in the pantheon of epic teases, the Game of Thrones author just announced his latest Westeros-set book, which drops November 20th. It is not, however, the long-awaited sixth installment of A Song of Ice and Fire. It’s a companion history of the Targaryen family.
According to Martin’s tweet, and an accompanying blog post, the book will be titled Fire & Blood, and take place 300 years before the events of GoT, when House Targaryen ruled with dragons far larger than anything we’ve encountered in “present-day” Westeros. The book, which Martin insists is not a novel, but a historical account similar to Tolkien’s The Silmarillion (his massive exposition text on the minutiae of Middle Earth) numbers a whopping 989 pages in total.
Silver linings? Now that this is finished, maybe Jersey Tolkien will finally have time to write the book his fans actually want to read.
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