Before Dancing

As nearly everyone in the world knows by now A Dance with Dragons (the 5th volume in George R.R Martin's best selling fantasy epic A Song of Ice and Fire) will be released on July 12. If you can't remember where George last left his heroes, and as it's been 11 years since readers last heard from some of them, this could be the case, and don't want to do a complete reread of the series or don't have time never fear. One of George R.R Martin's most devoted and knowledgeable fans; Adam 'Werthead' Whitehead has produced a comprehensive recap in 4 posts on his blog; The Wertzone. The Song of Ice and Fire posts can be found here, here, here and here.
This was a huge undertaking and Adam has done great work and performed a valuable service for a lot of readers. Even if you don't need a recap this series of posts is well worth reading if you have any interest in the series.

TGIF

There were a few happenings out there this week. Most of them come from prominent blogger Werthead at his Wertzone.

First, Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica was cancelled by Syfy, see what Wert has to say about that here

A couple of authors, mainly recent Hugo award winner China Mieville, have had a problem with Facebook, Wert brings this to our attention: here

As George Martin's A Dance with Dragons grows it's looking increasingly like the book will be split in 2 for the mass market paperback release, especially in the UK: have a look. Good argument to buy the trade paperback really.

There's another great guest blog over at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist, this time author Mark Hodder explains how he came to choose explorer Sir Richard Burton as one of the heroes of book: The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, read and enjoy

For the Aussies out there, Chris at SFFNews supplies a list of the best selling SFF works on the Australian charts, here

Following the success of the Cage Match earlier this year Suvudu are doing it again, this time with villains. The roster sucks (Cartman, Prince Humperdinck and Bender, WTF?), but this match is interesting: give it a read. Go vote and try not to let this one turn into another GRRM fanfest.

Finally the folk over at Gestalt Mash have been doing yet another A Game of Thrones read through, yes 'groan' I know, not another one! This one is a bit more fun mainly because one of the 2 readers; Elena Nola, has never read the book before:
enjoy Elena's considered option of Viserys Targaryen