George RR Martin republishes children's book

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/06/george-rr-martin-childrens-book-game-of-thrones

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A little girl "born during the worst freeze that anyone could remember" is the heroine an unlikely entrant into this autumn's line-up of children's books: George RR Martin.

Better known for his bloodthirsty, intricate and bestselling fantasy novels for adults, the Song of Ice and Fire series, Martin is republishing a children's story first published in 1980, The Ice Dragon, in October. With new illustrations by the Spanish artist Luis Royo, the children's book tells of Adara, "beautiful, people said, but in a strange, distant sort of way, with her pale skin and blond hair and wide clear blue eyes", and her friendship with the legendary ice dragon. Adara first rides the dragon, sitting upon its "broad chilled back", when she is five; when she is seven her farm is attacked by fiery dragons from the North, and she and her dragon must act.

The book is set in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, the series of books which has been made into the hit television series Game of Thrones, said its publisher Tor. The character Jon Snow refers to an ice dragon in Martin's most recent novel, A Dance with Dragons: "The wind was gusting, cold as the breath of the ice dragon in the tales Old Nan had told when Jon was a boy," writes Martin in that book, as Jon descends from the Wall.

Tor Books calls The Ice Dragon "an enchanting tale of courage and sacrifice for young readers and adults", and a "captivating and heartwarming story of a young girl and her dragon" which is "sure to become a collector's item for fans of HBO's megahit Game of Thrones". "In the world of A Song of Ice and Fire the ice dragon was a creature of legend and fear, for no man had ever tamed one. When it flew overhead, it left in its wake desolate cold and frozen land. But Adara was not afraid. For Adara was a winter child, born during the worst freeze that anyone, even the Old Ones, could remember," writes Tor.

The book opens: "Adara liked the winter best of all, for when the world grew cold the ice dragon came", with Martin going on to write of how Adara's mother died during the "chill of [the] terrible freeze" during the night of her birth. "They said that the cold had entered Adara in the womb, that her skin had been pale blue and icy to the touch when she came forth, and that she had never warmed in all the years since. The winter had touched her, left its mark upon her, and made her its own."

Although ice dragons have yet to appear in Martin's adult novels, the motto of the Stark family is "winter is coming", and they have been imagined in detail by the book's new artist Royo, with early images provided by Tor on its blog.

This October will also see publication of The World of Ice and Fire, the "untold history" of Westeros. "It's everything I hoped for!  A bloody gorgeous book," blogged Martin earlier his week, after seeing a copy at San Diego Comic-Con. The book was written in collaboration with the founders of the fan site Westeros.org, Elio M García Jr and Linda Antonsson.

"Years back, when my editors at Bantam first approached me about doing a concordance for Westeros and its history, I was initially reluctant.  I had seen a number of these 'worldbooks', and, well, some were pretty good, but others were awful, cheaply made collections of previously published material with lots of bad art.  If we do one of these, I declared, I want it to be the best one ever published," blogged Martin. "A coffee table book, big and beautiful, with lots of original content, histories and tales never previously published anywhere, plus maps and heraldry and family trees, all of it lavishly illustrated by some of the best fantasy artists in the world. That's what we got.  It took WAY longer than we thought it would, and required much more time and effort from everyone concerned, but I think the end result is worth it, and hope you all will agree."

The book won't answer every question about Westeros and its history, added the author – "I need to save SOMETHING for the novels" – but it will answer "a lot of questions , including some you never knew you had, and there are long meaty histories of all the major regions and great houses of the Seven Kingdoms, plus the Lands Beyond – the Nine Free Cities, the Summer Isles, the grasslands of Essos, even the Further East, beyond the Bones."

Martin is currently working on the sixth book in his fantasy series, The Winds of Winter.