A new book from Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin is coming before 2018 closes out, and it’s not The Winds of Winter like some may have hoped. The famed author made an announcement about his newest “imaginary history” book Fire & Blood today on his personal website.
Martin began his newest blog post by letting fans know The Winds of Winter will not be arriving in 2018. After getting that news out of the way, the author officially announced Fire & Blood would be released on November 20 of this year, taking fans back into the world of Westeros 300 years ago.
The new book pushes 1,000 pages, something not unusual for a book from Martin. According to the notorious author, the first volume of Fire & Blood will follow some of the Targaryen kings, namely Aegon I and Aegon III. Also thrown into the mix will be Aenys, Maegor the Cruel, Jaehaerys I, Viserys I, and Aegon II. Most importantly, there will be plenty of dragons, with an emphasis on plenty.
Mixed within the 989 pages will be various illustrations, but Martin promises it won’t be anything like a coffee table book with too many pictures. The author put an approximation of about 75 black and white images in Fire & Blood , something he paralleled to a special edition of his A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms hardcover.
FIRE & BLOOD, the history of the Targaryens, will be releasing in hardcover on November 20! Read more about it in my blog post: https://t.co/Y6kdsfEds9 #FireandBlood pic.twitter.com/URFJRzGA9r
— George RR Martin (@GRRMspeaking) April 25, 2018
An important message relayed in Martin’s new post was to stress that Fire & Blood is not a novel. Instead, the author is referring to it as an “imaginary history” after receiving backlash from fans in the past over his term “fake history” when he previously referred to The Princess and The Queen and Sons of the Dragon . The new book will simply be a history of the Westeros fans know and love.
As many wonder when Martin puts pen to paper, is this something HBO would be interested in? There has been confirmation of Game of Thrones spinoffs, namely prequels, for the popular premium network, and Martin could neither confirm nor deny if Fire & Blood would be one of them.
George R.R. Martin confirms: Winds of Winter not coming this year https://t.co/D1j62xAfLE
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) April 25, 2018
“The only answer I can give is… ah, well, no one is sure yet, and anyway, I am not allowed to say. So let’s move that to the side.”
After making the announcement, Martin promised he was getting back to The Winds of Winter , which at this time still has no official release date, much like the Season 8 premiere of Game of Thrones .
