A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Amazon.de is listing a book for release next year called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, by George R.R. Martin.

This is almost certainly a new (working?) title for the first Dunk and Egg compilation volume, which will collect The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight in one book. Originally the fourth story, The She-Wolves, was also part of the compilation but GRRM confirmed to fans at the recent ConQuest convention that he is holding it back until after The Winds of Winter is completed. This indicates either that the compilation will only include those three stories, or it will also be held back until after Winds and the date has not been updated on Amazon to reflect that.

Meanwhile, She-Wolves' replacement story, The Princess and the Queen (a story set at the outbreak of the Dance of Dragons), will appear in Dangerous Women in December.

The Wheel of Television Part 4: Practicalities

In the first three parts of this article series, I argued that the current plans by Red Eagle Entertainment and Universal to turn The Wheel of Time into a series of movies were impractical and unrealistic, and that adapting the books into an ongoing television series was more feasible. This especially makes more sense in the wake of the success of fantasy TV projects such as Sky's Discworld TV movies, the BBC's recently-concluded Merlin and of course HBO's Game of Thrones. I concluded that getting the series made by one of the three big remaining cable channels (Starz, AMC or Showtime) was essential to give the project the right combination of high production values and a decent amount of time to adapt the complex storyline before going on to address the issue of how you structure the series from a top-down approach. In this part I address several major technical and practical issues standing in the way of adapting the books to television.

Sets and Locations
If there is one major cost saving that TV shows have over movies, it's sets. A film with a budget in the tens of millions of dollars can afford to construct a specific set for each and every scene, and use a different location in every other shot. TV shows spread their costs more widely by the use of regular, recurring sets. Think of the bridge of the Enterprise in Star Trek, the throne room in Game of Thrones or the school library in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You can spend a fair bit of money on an impressive set and then spread that cost over dozens of episodes.

With Wheel of Time, there is one rather huge problem: there is no single standing set that could be constructed and re-used a lot in the first season (if you recall, in the hypothetical plan we are discussing the first season would adapt the first two books, The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt). The first two books are constantly on the move, taking the characters from the Two Rivers to Baerlon to Shadar Logoth to Whitebridge to Caemlyn to Shienar, and thence to Tar Valon, Cairhien and Falme. Later in the series we would get standing sets and regularly-appearing locations, such as the Royal Palace in Caemlyn and the White Tower in Tar Valon (which would debut in the first season, but would not be revisited until later), but it's a while before such places recur regularly.

This is fairly headache-inducing, although compensated for to some extent by how much of the first two books takes place outdoors. This brings its own headaches in terms of the expense and practical issues of location filming (dealing with the weather and so on), but at least is better than having to build dozens and dozens of different sets and then discard them. A surprising number of locations in the first two books are in fact pubs of different description (the Winespring Inn in Emond's Field, the Queen's Blessing, the inn in Cairhien that Rand, Hurin and Loial stay in etc). A standing 'pub set' could be built, possibly in modules, with walls and partitions that can be switched around. Combined with redressing and the use of different camera angles, this can turn one set into several different locations. The same principal can be applied to shops, houses and even palaces (the Royal Palace of Caemlyn could pull double-duty as Fal Dara, for example, if you dropped in a few partitions and redressed things).

For location filming, Wheel of Time does have some problems with how much of it is set in large cities (especially later on, when scenes unfold near-simultaneously in Caemlyn, Cairhien and Ebou Dar). Caemlyn, for example, would likely have to be a real medieval-looking city, possibly in Europe, just as both Mdina in Malta and Dubrovnik in Croatia have stood in for King's Landing on Game of Thrones. Given the weird and otherwordly nature of Shadar Logoth, on the other hand, it might be possible to get away with realising that city through small set-pieces and CGI backdrops (CGI is of course a powerful and useful tool but we are not at the stage yet where full CGI sets and locations are believable or affordable on such a scale).

As for where the series should be filmed, there are quite a few options. Eastern Europe is both affordable and would have the right look for most of the main continent. The Republic of Ireland (probably not Northern Ireland, since a lot of the more interesting locations have already been used by GoT) would also be an attractive option. Morocco or the American West (heavily CGI-enhanced) could also be viable options for the Aiel Waste.


Costumes
Costuming is probably the least-challenging aspect of the production, thanks to both Robert Jordan's clear descriptions in the books and the availability of costumes and costumer designers familiar with the appropriate period.

"Awesome. I want 100,000 of them for the next shot."

Prosthetics
Wheel of Time features a large number of non-human creatures, including the friendly Ogier and the hostile Shadowspawn: Trollocs, Myrddraal, Draghkar and so on. Some of these creatures appear infrequently enough that they can be rendered in CGI: the Green Man immediately comes to mind. Draghkar and Darkhounds also appear infrequently enough that this should be viable. Trollocs and Ogier are more difficult to achieve. Loial is a fairly major character with a lot of screentime. Rendering him in CGI would require a Gollum-level performance and technology to achieve satisfactorily, neither of which may be available on a TV budget and time schedule. On the other hand, prosthetics/animatronics large enough to depict the Ogier as described in the books may be stiff and unconvincing. This is something that would require screentesting to find the best solution.

It should be possible to depict Trollocs by just using large extras with prosthetics. A mix-and-match of prosthetics could be made available to blend the different animal parts together to make each Trolloc unique (or as unique as possible), rather like how the creatures themselves are created in the books. CGI would be used for scenes with large numbers of Trollocs (which is most of them) to render more of them in the background.

"More lightning bolts!"

"Not too many, they cost $10,000 a time!"

The One Power
The One Power is one of the most detailed magic systems ever created, with a lot of complex rules on how it works, how it's detected and what the different types of the Power can do. Depicting the One Power on screen risks looking cheesy - people sticking their hands out and firebolts roaring off - and depicting people glowing when they embrace the Source could be confusing (as only those able to use the Power can sense it when others are using it).

The best way to handle this is as it is in the books, with 'our' characters initially unable to see or sense the Power itself, only its effects (i.e. someone pointing and the ground exploding or mist appearing). As our core characters become more acquainted with the Power, then we can start to see POV shots from them, showing the glow of the Power (I'm thinking a subtle haloing effect rather than people blazing with the light of a thousand suns). We'll only see this if we have a POV character in the scene who can sense the Power, otherwise they'll just see the effects.

A related issue is how to handle the issue of Aes Sedai ageing. As book-readers know, Aes Sedai gain an 'ageless' appearance as they get older, so that it becomes impossible to tell whether a woman is in her 20s or 40s (and that appearance may be only a reflection of their true age, as Aes Sedai can live for several centuries). Such an effect would be prohibitively expensive to achieve with CGI - 'de-aging' Moiraine alone in her every appearance in the series would cost a fortune, not to mention the problem being exasperated when a dozen Aes Sedai appear in the same scene - so this would have to be a practical make-up effect. If unconvincing or too odd-looking, this may have to be an element from the books that is dropped or perhaps changed to something less notable.

There are obviously a lot more complexities and practicalities that would have to be addressed to make these books into a TV show, but these were a few thoughts on how you'd achieve some basic questions.

This may be the last entry in this blog series, though I may do one more focused on how you'd write and structure the first episode, to put some of these ideas into practice.

Matt Smith quits DOCTOR WHO

According to British tabloid The Daily Mail, that is. They've been wrong about this sort of thing before. However, there's also been talk of some big Doctor Who news that's been under an embargo for the last few days and this would certainly fit.

If true, when exactly Smith would depart is unclear. The BBC had previously reported that he'd be on board for the eighth season, which is planned to air in 2014. Whether this remains the case - or indeed if the story is a load of old bobbins - remains to be seen.

Update: The BBC has confirmed the news. Smith will regenerate in the Christmas special this year (not the 50th anniversary special in November). His replacement has not yet been named.

Patrick Stewart's awesomeness: confirmed

Patrick Stewart is an awesome dude, it is known. If there was any doubt, here is him talking openly about his family experiences and how they led to him working with women suffering from domestic abuse and soldiers suffering from PTSD.

The young woman who asked him the question, Heather Skye, speaks about the experience here.

HARDWARE: SHIPBREAKERS previews

Blackbird Interactive, a company set up by several of the founders of Relic, are working on a new game called Hardware: Shipbreakers. Many of the individuals involved worked on the original Homeworld and Homeworld 2 before they left Relic, and the new game has attracted a lot of attention due to its similar aesthetics. These include the excellent, moody electronic music and the phenomenal art style, inspired by the 1970s/1980s book covers by the likes of Chris Foss and Peter Elson.

Fortunately, the game is F2P, which means when it comes out it'll be free. Unfortunately, it is multiplayer-only. So far, it appears that there is no single-player campaign or skirmish mode, which has defused a lot of the initial excitement for the game. I'll probably give it a go anyway due to the pedigree of the creators and the fact that the game appears to be melding the ethos of the Homeworld series with the superb ground-based gameplay of its contemporary, the equally awesome Ground Control series.

Meanwhile, unconfirmed rumours are circulating that Blackbird have been in discussion with Gearbox about their recent acquisition of the Homeworld IP. Blackbird potentially working on a Homeworld 3 would be very interesting indeed.

Initial teaser trailer.
Preview Episode 1: The Prospector's Guide.
Preview Episode 2: The Baserunner.
Interview with the creators.

Plot synopsis for ASSAIL by Ian Cameron Esslemont

A plot synopsis for Assail, Ian Cameron Esslemont's final Malazan novel (for now), has surfaced.

The final chapter in the awesome, epic story of the Malazan Empire.

Tens of thousands of years of ice is melting, and the land of Assail, long a byword for menace and inaccessibility, is at last yielding its secrets. Tales of gold discovered in the region's north circulate in every waterfront dive and sailor's tavern and now countless adventurers and fortune-seekers have set sail in search of riches. All these adventurers have to guide them are legends and garbled tales of the dangers that lie in wait -- hostile coasts, fields of ice, impassable barriers and strange, terrifying creatures. But all accounts concur that the people of the north meet all trespassers with the sword. And beyond are rumoured to lurk Elder monsters out of history's very beginnings. Into this turmoil ventures the mercenary company, the Crimson Guard. Not drawn by contract, but by the promise of answers: answers to mysteries that Shimmer, second in command, wonders should even be sought. Arriving also, part of an uneasy alliance of Malazan fortune-hunters and Letherii soldiery, comes the bard Fisher kel Tath. And with him is a Tiste Andii who was found washed ashore and who cannot remember his past life, yet who commands far more power than he really should. Also venturing north is said to be a mighty champion, a man who once fought for the Malazans, the bearer of a sword that slays gods: Whiteblade.

And lastly, far to the south, a woman guards the shore awaiting both her allies and her enemies. Silverfox, newly incarnated Summoner of the undying army of the T'lan Imass, will do anything to stop the renewal of an ages-old crusade that could lay waste to the entire continent and beyond. Casting light on mysteries spanning the Malazan empire, and offering a glimpse of the storied and epic history that shaped it, Assail is the final chapter in the epic story of the Empire of Malaz.

Based on previous information, Assail serves as an epilogue to both Ian Cameron Esslemont's Malazan Empire books and Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

Assail is currently listed for release on 24 December this year, though that date may be subject to change. It will be followed on 4 January 2014 (also a working date) by Steven Erikson's Fall of Light, the second in the Kharkanas Trilogy, a prequel work set hundreds of thousands of years before the main series.

Update on THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE update (update)

The World of Ice and Fire - the companion volume to George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire novels co-written by Martin and the admins of the Westeros.org website - has once again had its release date (provisionally) changed.

This time, happily, the book has been brought forwards. Originally mooted for a late 2013 release, the book was dropped back a full year to a late 2014 release. However, George R.R. Martin said at the weekend - and since confirmed by his UK publisher - that the book was now aiming for a Spring 2014 release (possibly to tie in with the start of Season 4 of Game of Thrones). Westeros.org has also issued an update, noting that the release date change is not yet final and a drop-back to late 2014 is still possible, but they are seeing if they can make Spring 2014 work as a new date.

In addition, George has admitted to going somewhat overboard with his plans for the book. Whilst Linda Antonsson and Elio Garcia wrote the bulk of the book, it was always planned for GRRM to write a certain amount of material for it. This plan was originally for about 50,000 words, but he ended up writing - or providing - 250,000 words material and notes. Antonsson and Garcia have condensed and summarised this material for the book, whilst another chunk has been sectioned off to become the stand-alone short story The Princess and the Queen, to be published in the Dangerous Women anthology. Martin's original material has been preserved and GRRM and his publishers are musing using this material for a 'GRRM-arillion' type of book later on. This is a reference to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion, a detailed narrative history of Middle-earth which is more remote and removed than a novel, but not so distant, dry and academic as a bald plot summary. The 'GRRM-arillion' project will not be worked on or released before A Song of Ice and Fire itself is completed.

It appears that Tor.com has gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick and released a seriously misleading article about the book. To clarify their points, The World of Ice and Fire has always - since late 2007 when it was originally announced - been an illustrated companion book focusing on the history of Westeros and Essos. It has never been an A-Z encyclopedia. The focus and format of the book has not changed. It is not now a multi-volume affair, it's what it always was intended to be. The 'GRRM-arillion' project is a totally new and separate idea, not The World of Ice and Fire II: The Wrath of Ran. And yes, the book's official date has dropped back to November 2014, but all parties involved are trying to make Spring 2014 work as the new date.

RIP Jack Vance

A giant of the genre has fallen. Jack Vance has died at the age of 96.

It is impossible to overstate Vance's contribution to the fields of both science fiction and fantasy. His impact is comparable to J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard, although in Vance's case it was at a remove: Vance was a huge influence and inspiration to writers such as George R.R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Gary Gygax, Neil Gaiman, Tad Williams and many more.

Vance (real name: John Holbrook Vance; Jack was his pen-name) was born  in California in 1916 and was raised in San Francisco and nearby Oakley. He studied engineering, physics, journalism and English at the University of California, Berkley. Vance was working an electrician at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii, returning to the mainland just a month before the Japanese attack. Vance initially failed to qualify for military service due to weak eyesight. He memorised an eye chart to get into the Merchant Marine and worked on cargo ships crossing the Pacific.

"The mark of good writing, in my opinion,is that the reader is not aware that the story has been written; as he reads, the ideas and images flow into his mind as if he were living them. The utmost accolade a writer can receive is that the reader is incognizant of his presence." - Jack Vance, This is Me, Jack Vance!

Vance's interest in science fiction and fantasy began at a young age; early attempts to write SF for his English classes drew disdain from the teachers. It was during free time serving in the Merchant Marine that Vance conceived of his most famous creation: a time in the dim and distant future when the sun is dying and about to go out, and the world has become populated by fantastical creatures and astonishing technology coexisting in the ruins of ancient cities. He wrote a series of linked short stories in this setting which was - eventually - published as The Dying Earth in 1950. The book was hugely influential on a generation of readers, including George R.R. Martin (who cites Vance as his favourite author and one of his primary influences) and Gary Gygax, who 'borrowed' both Vance's magic system and several of his spell names for the Dungeons and Dragons game Gygax published in 1974. Vance followed up The Dying Earth with a duology of novels following the adventures of the scoundrel and reprobate Cugel the Clever, The Eyes of the Overworld (1966) and Cugel's Saga (1983), before rounding off the series with a concluding set of linked short stories under the title Rhialto the Marvellous (1984).

"What are your fees?" inquired Guyal cautiously."I respond to three questions," stated the augur. "For twenty terces I phrase the answer in clear and actionable language; for ten I use the language of cant, which occasionally admits of ambiguity; for five, I speak a parable which you must interpret as you will; and for one terce, I babble in an unknown tongue." - The Dying Earth (1950)

In 1946 Vance met and married Norma Ingold (who sadly passed away in 2008). Norma helped Vance in his writing, typing up his longhand drafts into submittable manuscripts. In the late 1940s he began making money by selling short stories and writing scripts for the Captain Video TV series. Though writing did not become his sole occupation until the 1970s, Vance was able to fund frequent overseas trips with his income. He and his wife would spend months at a time living in places like Ireland, Kashmir and South Africa, with Vance pounding out more stories and novels on a keyboard whilst soaking up the local culture. Vance became close friends with several other SFF authors of the period, spending several months living near Frank Herbert on an extended trip to Mexico. Vance's sight began failing him in the 1980s after an operation to treat glaucoma went wrong, but he continued to write with the help of Norma and computer voice-recognition software.

Astonishingly, despite being completely blind when he wrote most of it, Vance was still able to write one of the greatest works of fantasy literature in the 1980s, the Lyonesse Trilogy. Set in a fictional archipelago in the Bay of Biscay that would later sink, this trilogy sees people (including humans, fairies and the fearsome Ska) and cultures clashing for control of the islands and their destiny. Vance's mastery of language was at its peak in this trilogy, consisting of Suldrun's Garden (1983), The Green Pearl (1986) and Madouc (1989). In its omnibus edition, this may be the finest one-volume work of fantasy of the 20th Century, matched only by The Book of the  New Sun (which itself can be seen as a literary rewrite of The Dying Earth), The Lord of the Rings and the Gormenghast omnibus.

"I have transcended that phase in my intellectual growth where I discover humour in simple freakishness. What exists is real; therefore it is tragic, since whatever lives must die. Only fantasy, the vapors rising from sheer nonsense, can now excite my laughter." - The Green Pearl (1986)

Vance also wrote many works of SF, including the Ports of Call duology, the Cadwal Chronicles trilogy, the Gaean Reach series and, most famously, the five-volume Demon Princes series (often cited, alongside Dying Earth and Lyonesse, as one of Vance's three masterpiece series). He also wrote the one-volume planetary adventure, Big Planet (1957), set on a planet considerably larger than Earth and again noted by George R.R. Martin as an inspiration for A Song of Ice and Fire (Martin spent some time planning to make Westeros's planet far larger than Earth as well, but seems to have backed off a bit from this idea).

Christopher Priest has penned a memorial to Jack Vance here. George R.R. Martin muses on Vance and his influence here. The Guardian is also collating various tributes to Vance here. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction has a more detailed account of Vance's career here.

Jack Vance died on 26 May 2013 at the age of 96.

Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear

Qarash, the greatest city of the Khaganate, has been destroyed by treachery. Temur, a grandson of the Great Khagan, survives and goes into exile, knowing his cousin will seek his head to eliminate any rivals. At the same time, in distant Tsarepheth, the Once-Princess Samarkar is set to undergo her testing. She will casting aside her life as a noble to become a wizard, if she has the strength of character needed. The destinies of Temur and Samarkar are linked along with those of others: a half-blind warrior monk, a pregnant princess doomed by politics and a tiger-woman with formidable skills in battle. The destruction of Qarash and the raising of armies of ghosts portends the arising of a great threat which must be faced.

Range of Ghosts is the opening novel of the Eternal Sky Trilogy. This is a work that blends together different fantasy elements, with traditional epic fantasy stylings such as political intrigue and war mixing with both the historical fantasy of Guy Gavriel Kay and moments of offbeat strangeness that recalls the New Weird (though this is the least of the three influences).

The world the book takes place in is reminiscent of our own Central Asia during the Middle Ages, with lands in the book serving as analogues of the Mongol Empire, India, China and Russia. These aren't quite one-for-one correlations, with Bear mixing things up in interesting ways. The skies over each land are different, with the Khaganate skies being filled with small moons which appear or disappear to herald the births and deaths of important figures. The Uthman Caliphate's skies have a sun which rises in the wrong location. These differences extend to constellations as well. It's an odd detail but one that is never dwelt on by the characters, as it's simply the way the world is to them.

The book is divided amongst relatively few POV characters: Temur and Samarkar (whose names are echoes of Timur the Lane/Tamerlane and his capital city of Samarkand) are our primary protagonists, but we also get occasional chapters from Al-Sephehr (our antagonist) and Edene, an innocent woman caught up in events due to a chance meeting with Temur. The restricted POV count keeps the book moving quickly, but Bear is able to lace a lot of characterisation through this small POV count. Other fantasies, even otherwise excellent ones such as A Song of Ice and Fire, have a tendency to portray their 'barbarian' cultures fairly broadly (the Dothraki are rather under-developed and unconvincing compared to their Mongol, Hun and Amerindian inspirations, for example). Bear here flushes out the Qersnyk tribes with much greater nuance, noting their ability to speak many languages, their relaxed approach to religion and their military skills. Temur is widely-travelled and much more than the simple barbarian it would have been easy to portray him as. Bear also uses her characters to analyse issues ranging from gender discrimination to religious co-existence, and does so in each case as an intelligent and natural extension of the story.

Weaknesses are few and are mostly the natural issues that arise with a book being merely the opening section of a much larger tale. The book packs a lot into its 350 pages before ending fairly abruptly, leaving readers wanting more (although this is better than the alternative). There are a few passages which are a bit over-expositionary. I wasn't entirely sold on the romance that develops near the end of the novel with relatively little preamble. And that's about it really. Otherwise, this is a very fine novel.

Range of Ghosts (****½) is an exceptional opening volume to a fantasy trilogy that blends different influences and the author's own impressive prose to great effect. It is available now in the UK and USA. The sequel, Shattered Pillars, is also available now. The already-delivered third book, Steles of the Sky, will follow in early 2014.

French government to seize copyright on out-of-print books published before 2001

A curious French plan known as 'reLIRE' is in the offing which could have serious consequences for authors - SFF or otherwise - who have published books in French prior to 2001.

Under this plan, if you published a novel, novella or short story in France prior to 2001 and it is now out of print, the work would now be considered 'orphaned'. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France is placing all such works on an online database. Writers and copyright-holders have six months to check the list and register that the story is still in copyright. If they do not, the works will be auctioned off to publishers to use as they see fit, with them keeping almost all of any resulting profits.

If you do have such works, you have to fill out a form (currently only available in French) and provide a valid French ID card number or a passport number. If you don't have a passport, tough. If you don't spot the story on the database in the first six months, tough. If the author has died and his or her family or heirs fail to act on any of this, tough.

So far, works by SFF authors including Robert Silverberg, George Alec Effinger, Ursula LeGuin, Samuel R Delany, Vonda McIntyre, and Roger Zelazny have been found on the database.

The initial database list was issued on 21 March. This means that authors, their representatives and heirs have only four months from now, until 21 September, to act on the issue or risk losing control of their works in France.

More on this alarming story here and from the Science Fiction Writers of America here.