(Part 3) Top products from r/asoiaf

I recommend Gene Wolfe's masterpiece The Book of the New Sun, easily my favourite fantasy work alongside AoIaF and LotR. Wolfe is not that well known about fantasy readers, but he deserves a top spot; Neil Gaiman calls him his hero.

The New Sun is wonderfully dense and complex, easily as complex as ASoIaF. The writing is superb (at a much higher literary level than Martin), with plenty of violence and darkness and weirdness. It starts out deceptively like a straight-faced sword and sorcery novel, and then it gets… complicated. It's notable for deconstructing traditional sword-and-sorcery fantasy and turning the heroic epic on its head. It's fairly gritty, and deals with amorality in a way which can be off-putting to some. Its plot is positively panoramic, spanning a huge amount of time. It even has a bit of apparent time travel, in a good way.

It's a single novel, comes in five volumes (with hoary cover art, just ignore it) plus an extra volume written later that is not mandatory reading. If you like New Sun, Wolfe has two series set in the same universe that could be considered sequels, and which together comprise a sort of thematic trilogy about the nature of identity and narrative.

Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (they're parts 1 and 2 of a trilogy, respectively).

Rothfuss writes an incredibly engaging story. The trilogy is about the rise and fall of one of the greatest heroes in a fantasy world, and it couldn't be more personable or interesting.

Also, everybody needs to read some Diana Wynne Jones in their life. She's an amazing fantasy author who's often dismissed as a children's author. Think JK Rowling if JK Rowling studied under Tolkien and were a much, MUCH better storyteller. Howl's Moving Castle is probably her most famous novel (it was turned into a Studio Ghibli movie a few years ago), but the Chrestomanci series is great too.

I just finished the "children's" novella The Ice Dragon by GRRM, and it may give some insight into this question. It is a much shorter story than ASOI&F, and it deals with some warring political intrigue in the background, with the high fantasy Dragon (regular and ice versions) elements taking center stage. The characters are pretty vanilla and you don't really get invested in them, but that is more a function of the limited story space available to flesh them out. But it does retain that gritty style we have come to love from GRRM, without getting to fairy tale about it.

I see the remainder of these books playing out in a similar way. Bran's DwD chapters are the best in-series example of what we can expect, and I find those to be some of the most well written chapters of the whole series.

TL;DR: I'm optimistic.

Hedge Knight has better imagery with all of the colors and crests and helms and what not, but the story might be better in Sworn Sword

Enjoy! They're great!

So, Fire and Blood is 640 pages long (75 of which are illustrations). There's some stats about it in the Amazon page:

https://www.amazon.com/Untitled-Ballantine/dp/152479628X/ref=sr_1_1_twi_har_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1523998199&sr=8-1&keywords=9781524796297

It's the size of a regular ASOIAF book and weighs 2.3 pounds. A few of the stories are "unabridged" versions of stories he wrote in other books, but most of it is wholly original, and ends at the end of the Dance of Dragons war. This is also the "full story", the first part of the GRRMarillion, which isn't leaving out any parts to "no one knows" unless it's never going to be told. Interesting, and hopefully it'll tide people over a while. Hopefully it also explains some of the main series mysteries.

I'm really hoping we get that Winds book I've heard so much about soon, too. I just hope he doesn't rush it. Sure it's probably going to come out around 8 years after the previous book in the series, but... seems like it'll come out next year.

I've only read a bit, but it is pretty good if you are into the whole superhero and shared world anthology thing.

The first volume is only $8 new on amazon if you want to give it a read. Martin wrote some of this volume himself, as well as serving as editor.

• A Game of Thrones is currently unavailable. A result for it on ebay showed the winning bid being £460!
  
• A Clash of Kings
  
• A Storm of Swords
  
  edit: the rest of the series
  
  
• A Feast for Crows
  
• A Dance with Dragons
  
  Oddly ASOS was quite easy to find on Amazon UK. AGOT and ACOK were trickier. I had to google "a clash of kings slipcase", search images, find the result I was looking for. The link associated with the image brought me to this guy's reviews on Amazon UK, where he had reviews for both ACOK and AGOT which led me to the links.

They're kind of hard to come across because well, they're always included in collections. The Mystery Knight is in a collection called Warriors. I've read all the Novellas since the Hedge Knight was originally published in the first Legends collection. Luckily there is a paperback available for Legends 1 but I think it's out of print. Also to be more confusing, the paperback it's contained in is called Legends 2 because it's the second part of the hardcover or something? But Legends II collection is where you get the Sworn Sword. Well here's a handy list though some might not be in stock (PB = Paperback/HC = Hardcover):

• The Hedge Knight - Legends 1 PB HC
  
• The Hedge Knight - Graphic Novel PB HC
  
• The Sworn Sword - Legends II PB HC
  
• The Sworn Sword - Graphic Novel - PB HC
  
• The Mystery Knight - Warriors I PB HC

Read the Kingkiller Chronicles(Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear) by Patrick Rothfuss. You'll still have to wait a bit, but only for one more book. It's fantastic stuff. I've read the first two books at least three times each in the past year and a half.

I see there are a lot of fantasy recommendations here, but I think you may want to try out historical fiction.

GRRM gets a lot of his inspiration from history. Try out Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCullough.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sworn-Sword-Graphic-Thrones/dp/1477849297

Graphic novel versions are outstanding. I haven't been able to afford the entire anthologies (AFAIK, they haven't been printed on their own).

Why are you reading Spoiler All threads!!!???!!! :-)

Yeah, there are four prequel novellas right now. Unfortunately, they aren't available together - you have to buy them in anthologies that include a bunch of other stuff (although some have standalone graphic novel adaptations). It's enough of a hassle that a lot of people don't bother. Hopefully eventually at least the Tales of Runk & Egg will be published in one volume.

Their titles are:

The Hedge Knight, published in the Legends anthology

The Sworn Sword, published in the Legends II anthology

The Mystery Knight, published in the Warriors anthology

The Princess and the Queen, published in the Dangerous Women anthology

The Hedge Knight - $8.97 available for pre order (11/5/13 release date) here:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Hedge-Knight-Graphic-Novel/dp/1477849106/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1PJXZVRY8JI1V&coliid=I2DAXB6JDPEG7R

The Sworn Sword - $8.97 available for pre order (1/21/14 release date) here:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sworn-Sword-Graphic-Novel/dp/1477849297/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1PJXZVRY8JI1V&coliid=I2R1C6W03Q9BAM

More fun stuff to add to the collection!

Book of the New Sun. Dense, awesome allegorical sci/fi-fantasy. Its my first read through and I'm already hooked.

Before that I read Pohl's Gateway and American Gods. Cannot recommend Gateway enough.

I might be about to commit heresy by mentioning another author in this sub, but anyways. If you haven't read them already I highly recommend to you the Saxon Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell. Historical Novels who are known to be well researched and they portray the Norse and their attacks on Britain around the time of Alfred the Great. He really tries to show that the Norse weren't the just Vikings out for plunder and rape, mindlessly killing people while wearing horned helmets and going full berserk. Funny bit of trivia: George Martin himself listed Cornwell in a list of authors he loves once.

Link

Just so you know, the Dunk and Egg stories are available really cheap online in various anthologies; the latest one I bought at Barnes and Noble.

EDIT: Here are amazon links to the said anthologies

The Hedge Knight

The Sworn Sword

The Mystery Knight

what I'm thinking is more along the lines of: it's always cheaper to buy books in one volume than multiple volumes. for example on amazon I can buy The Lord of the Rings in one volume for $16.00 yet if I buy ONLY Return of the King it costs $8.76 What I'm saying, at the very least, is: If it were broken up into novellas the series as a whole would cost more for you.

I think we can both agree on that. The publisher's profit margins are another story.

I'm late to the party, but here are links to all the anthologies on amazon

The Hedge Knight

http://www.amazon.com/Legends-Stories-Masters-Modern-Fantasy/dp/0765300354

The Sworn Sword

http://www.amazon.com/Legends-II-Dragon-Sword-King/dp/034547578X

The Mystery Knight

http://www.amazon.com/Warriors-George-R-Martin/dp/1469259338

Are all the books (that are published) gonna be realesed in an Ilustrated version like this one?

I see A Clash of Kings also to be realesed in November 4th but is from another author. Any way to get news about this?

You say Wild card and I'm like stop editing this stuff and finish the Song.

I got the full set of these from Amazon (in the UK) - does this kind of design do it for you?

If you want just the stories, they were published as part of a collection of short stories by several fantasy writers. They are each just a few bucks on amazon:

Book 1 - The Hedge Knight

Book 2 - The Sworn Sword

Book 3 - The Mystery Knight

The first three are contained in separate collections of short stories, and there are also the graphic novels, which are expensive. I got books on Amazon for around $30 total US.

Warriors I
Legends
Legends II

There is volume one:

http://www.amazon.com/Art-George-Martins-Song-Fire/dp/1589942183

And volume two:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1589949676/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2/192-2579020-1559148?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_r=1RKSAQ6N07RDN5BZ422K&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=1278548962&pf_rd_i=1589942183

The first link is only the first half of AGOT.
The second link is AGOT.
So go with the second one.

Are these from this book?

There are graphics novels for the first two books. There is an Illustrated edition for A Game of Thrones that was released in 2016: https://www.amazon.com/Game-Thrones-Illustrated-Song-Fire/dp/0553808044

The illustrated edition of ACOK will be out in November: https://www.amazon.com/Clash-Kings-Illustrated-Song-Fire/dp/1984821156

However I don't believe there is anything in the main series that is illustrated other than locations in the TWOIAF.

They weren't really that expensive. I got them from Amazon.co.uk.

http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Dragon-George-R-Martin/dp/0765378779/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462454501&sr=8-1&keywords=ice+dragon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0007456379/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

Jack Vance!

Specifically, The Dying Earth.

It's completely different from everything else out there.

Cugel's Saga is included in this compilation:
http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Dying-Earth-Jack-Vance/dp/0312874561/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311963411&sr=8-1

No, there is only one book. The red cover is the US release, while the black cover is the UK release. They should both have the same number of pages.

US release, 736 pages: https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Blood-Thrones-Targaryen-History/dp/152479628X/

UK release, 736 pages: https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780008307738/fire-and-blood/

cc: /u/reindsome

Those look to be from the books: Art of the Song of Ice and Fire. Either volume 1 or volume 2

No way, I cherish my books.

One time a few months ago my "dirty" copy (filled with drawings, highlighting, observations, etc.) of AGOT got coffee spilled all over it and the pages got all fat and gross. My (amazing) girlfriend spent a week fixing it for me before I got out of my funk.

My "clean" copies (this version) sit on my desk and never get opened.

You have to be very cautious cause the first editions split each book in 2 or 3 parts.
Look for the one called "l'intégrale 1".
This one is the entire AGOT for example
https://www.amazon.fr/tr%C3%B4ne-fer-Lint%C3%A9grale-1/dp/2290019437

(and as mentioned by someone else: be warned that the French translation isn't a good one)

>The funny thing is that the Hobbit & Lord of the Rings combined were smaller than AFFC & ADWD

I had to look it up and holy shit, you're right!

LotR one volume edition has 1178 pages

Hobbit has only 300 pages

But A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons together consist of 2256 pages.

It's crazy.