Comments | grrm: How It All Began

grrm

How It All Began

Jan 14, 2017 14:50

Curious about where the Wild Cards series came from, lo these thirty years ago?

All your question... well, okay, some of your questions... are answered in the latest video from Tor Books, cut together from the hours of interviews they taped at last summer's Kansas City worldcon, during the launch party for HIGH STAKES.

Click to view

This is the third in the ( Read more... )

tor, wild cards, interviews

Comments 27

ext_3807605 January 12 2017, 21:51:37 UTC

I ordered the first Wild Cards book yesterday! Can't wait to check it out!

Awesome! cmelanson January 12 2017, 21:56:29 UTC

Thanks for these sneak peeks!

Fascinating stuff! ext_3591039 January 12 2017, 22:07:42 UTC

Mr Martin,

Can you tell us the title of the seventh Wild Cards volume? And, are there any estimates for when it might be released?

I worry that my 'Ace in the Hole' will not satisfy me for long. :)

And thank you for posting this video. Fascinating stuff.

-Voice

Re: Fascinating stuff! grrm January 12 2017, 22:31:50 UTC

Volume seven is DEAD MAN'S HAND, and the Tor reissue is scheduled for June 13 of this year.

DEAD MAN'S HAND and ACE IN THE HOLE were originally one book, but with seven viewpoint characters, our publisher thought it was too long to publish as a single volume, so the decision was made to split it.

The two books take place simultaneously, during the same week in the summer of 1988, one mostly in Atlanta, the other mostly in New York. DEAD MAN'S HAND is unusual in that it features only two writers: John Jos. Miller and yours truly. After the split, both of us expanded our sections, and the book is much stronger for it.

Re: Fascinating stuff! cashcraig January 13 2017, 16:25:58 UTC

Those two volumes are definitely the strongest in the series to date, if you ask me. Actually I haven't read all the newer ones yet, but I will.

Re: Fascinating stuff! ext_3591039 January 13 2017, 18:42:40 UTC

Very cool. Is there an estimated date for the Dead Man's Hand release?

Oh, and will John Jos and yourself be expanding upon your DMH expansions, and writing two separate stand-alone novels instead of/alongside an eighth anthology? I'm assuming that would be unlikely. :(

Wild Cards chapters ext_3928751 January 12 2017, 22:15:02 UTC

Well, I just fineshed reading the first book (and I really loved The Great and Powerfull turtle), so my question is: Do you write chapters for the other books (I know that you wrote one for Aces High as well), or you are just editing?

Re: Wild Cards chapters grrm January 12 2017, 22:35:01 UTC

I don't write for every book, no, but I did contribute stories and/or interstitial text for most of the early volumes. Later on, when first Hollywood and the ICE & FIRE took over my life, my stories became less frequent. These days I mostly just edit.

However, as my writers can tell you, I am a very hands-on editor. A shared world is the most demanding sort of editing there is... so believe me, there's a lot of me in every volume of Wild Cards.

Re: Wild Cards chapters ext_3928751 January 12 2017, 22:56:01 UTC

That's really great, I can imagine It is a lot of work just editing, and you have Ice & Fire to write, must be tiresome. Anyways, can't wait to read the other ones.

Comparisons between your big series? terrymcmahon312 January 12 2017, 23:15:26 UTC

Hi George -- Forgive me if this is an annoying comment, but have you ever written something like "Why ASOIAF Fans Should Try Wild Cards"? I personally dipped into your earlier oeuvre for the first time this fall with FEVRE DREAM and loved it, but I bet a lot of your followers have only read ASOIAF and its related works.

And a series by (mostly) other authors about a very different setting may not jump out as appealing. Have you ever thought about a post about what the two have in common?

Again, sorry if you consider this off-topic, but I thought you might find it a worthwhile way to get fans of one of your series to get into another one.