As revealed on his Livejournal, George RR Martin has revealed the cover to the coffee table-sized hardcover “World of Ice and Fire,” written by himself, Elio M. Garcia Jr. and Linda Antonsson the team behind Westeros.org (the main ASOIAF fansite). Take a look:
The cover keeps in line with the current iteration of hardcover dust jackets, which should make most fake-OCD shelf geeks happy. This is also the first of two volumes, with the second being “Fire and Blood” that will detail the reigns of the Targaryen kings, as confirmed by GRRM on his blog.
The book itself will delve into everything from the Dawn Age up through Robert’s Rebellion, full of new commissioned illustrations and artwork and over 50,000 words of text (that most fans will probably passive aggressively remark on how they should’ve been used on “Winds of Winter”). For those like myself who are interested in the storied history told through sometimes differing myths and legends, it will be nice to have a comprehensive and definitive guide to point to when casual references are made to things like the Tragedy of Summerhall or, oh, I don’t know… the Night’s King?
The book is currently set for release October 28th from Bantam. We shall see.
