Beyond the Wall: Exploring George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, From A Game of Thrones to A Dance with Drago

by James Lowder

  Once Ice and Fire had become well established, Meisha Merlin published a limited, signed edition with extensive artwork by notable science fiction and fantasy artists. These books instantly became a big hit on the collectible book market. When Merlin went out of business, Subterranean Press took over the limited edition niche with A Storm of Swords and will undoubtedly continue through to the end of the series. They have also announced plans to republish the two Meisha Merlin volumes in a format identical to the Subterranean volumes. This is an unusual circumstance, but it shows the continually increasing popularity of the series. My guess is that these volumes will also be eagerly embraced by the collector community.

  Limited editions are highly sought after because of the (usual) high aesthetic quality of their design, which include such elements as special slipcases, fine endpapers, page edge gilding, and reams of artwork by the finest artists in the field. Throw in autographs by author and artists with guaranteed authentic signatures, and print runs limited to the hundreds rather than the thousands produced by the big publishers, and you have a product popular among discerning collectors of the particular writer, the genre, or even simply fine art and writing in general.

  Meisha Merlin published 448 numbered copies and 52 lettered (a to zz) copies of A Game of Thrones in 2002 and A Clash of Kings in 2005. These volumes sold well even before publication, since collectors routinely preorder or subscribe to the entire series. Generally speaking, similarly numbered or lettered sets are preferable to sets with varied numbers or letters but, of course, are also much harder to assemble if you’re late to the game.

  Subterranean Press, taking up the Ice and Fire gauntlet when Merlin went out of business, produced similar quantities of numbered and lettered editions of A Storm of Swords in 2008 and A Feast for Crows in 2009, with plans to continue the series as more titles become available. A Dance with Dragons is scheduled for publication in the spring of 2012. As previously mentioned, they also have plans to release their own versions of the first two titles. Their format is different than Merlin’s, with each title broken into two volumes.

  It would be difficult to form a collection of the limiteds at this late date. Current owners of these volumes are proving quite loyal to the series and are either unwilling to sell their copies or, if willing, believe almost universally that the market will go nowhere but up.

  The following information, taken from the AbeBooks website, which has 40,000,000 books for sale in its database, is a snapshot of the market in a precise moment of time (in this case, early December 2011) but adequately reflects the general state of availability and cost of the Ice and Fire titles.

  The only Meisha Merlin/Subterranean Press limited editions currently on the market are a complete set of the first four titles. The set is from the numbered release (#38) and is described as “as new.” The asking price is $10,000.

  If collecting the early limited editions seems impossible at this time, there is always the first editions to fall back on. Ice and Fire has had remarkable success throughout the world, so you may be interested in acquiring the first edition in your native language, but the very popularity of the series, which has appeared in dozens of countries in almost every major language around the world, makes it impossible to examine non-English editions in any detail.

  Instead, I will establish publication primacy in the English language. Fortunately, with one somewhat tricky exception, that’s easy. I first laid out the groundwork for identifying the first worldwide editions in an article for Firsts magazine, “Collecting George R.R. Martin,” back in 2001.

  A Game of Thrones is the tricky one. Supposedly released simultaneously by HarperCollins Voyager (UK) and Bantam Spectra (US) in 1996, the Bantam American release is the true first wordwide edition, actually preceding the British edition into print by several months. Although the indicia page of the Bantam edition lists the publication date as September, Bantam actually rushed Game into print for the American Booksellers Association convention in May 1996. Additional copies also were distributed at the Westercon science fiction convention over the 1996 Fourth of July weekend.

  This is good news for collectors who collect worldwide firsts. Although the initial print run for Bantam’s A Game of Thrones was rather small, it certainly eclipsed HarperCollins’ UK run of 1,500 copies, especially considering that many of the HarperCollins books were purchased by libraries and are precluded from the collectors’ market by condition problems.

  The HarperCollins editions of the next three titles, A Clash of Kings (1998), A Storm of Swords (2000), and A Feast for Crows (2005), were all released prior to the Bantam US editions and are the worldwide firsts.

  A Dance with Dragons was a simultaneous 2011 release in America and the United Kingdom by their respective publishers, so basically they could be described as co-firsts. However, Martin has brought up an interesting point. Both British and American bookstores held midnight release parties on the first “day” of the book’s official release. And it must be admitted that midnight falls first in Britain. Is that enough to establish primacy for the British edition? I’ll leave that to the individual collector to ponder.

  Primacy is thus established for the Bantam (American) edition for the first volume, the HarperCollins (British) editions for the next three, with the fifth having co-firsts. Given the essential impossibility of collecting the British editions, many collectors, especially Americans, have been content to target the Bantam editions as firsts. Of course, they are obviously the American firsts.

  Other printings and editions for all titles, with different covers and in different formats, quickly followed. Some—for example, the HarperCollins slipcased hardcovers, limited to a thousand sets—may ultimately prove popular with collectors. The only limited editions considered here, however, are the Meisha Merlin/Subterranean Press numbered/lettered editions, due to their scarcity, artistic quality, and publisher-authenticated signatures of artists and authors.

  Once factors of primacy remove later printings and editions from collectible consideration, condition becomes important. There’s no science to ascertaining condition, despite what the coin, baseball card, and comic book graders would have you believe. It’s all opinion. Granted, experienced, educated opinion is worth more than naive, hopeful, or (especially) unscrupulous opinion. If you enter any field of collecting, you must educate yourself on its standards and gain a knowledgeable opinion about any object you plan to acquire.

  The number of Ice and Fire books in the various first print runs, especially for the first three volumes, are limited, but we must also remember that all were recently published. As such, only those books in top condition, Near Fine or better—dust jacket and book itself—can be considered collectible.

  There’s no doubt that the American Bantam editions are more common than the HarperCollins UK editions, though common in this case is a relative term. The only HarperCollins firsts for sale on AbeBooks are copies of A Dance with Dragons. I knew that A Game of Thrones was a scarce title, but I was surprised to find the first four books totally absent. Even A Dance with Dragons was scarce, with only six copies in collectible condition listed. Prices ranged from $153 to $65, with an average of $103. Note that all of these copies are signed, which adds a premium to their value. Note also that Martin is a willing and frequent signer and many signed copies of his books can be found on the market.

  Many dealers are advertising the HarperCollins slipcased hardcovers as first editions, with asking prices for signed copies of A Game of Thrones as high as $350 and as low as about $50. By no means should these later editions be considered firsts. It remains to be seen what impact they will make on the collectors’ market.

  The Bantam editions are somewhat more common. Let’s start with complete sets, for those who are really late to the game. If you’d like to acquire all the Bantam firsts in one swoop, a set of all five in Near Fine or better is available for $3,000.

  All the copies enumerated below are in collectible condition (Near Fine
or better), book and dust jacket both.

  A Game of Thrones shows eight copies available, all signed, ranging in price from $1,500 to $500, with an average price of $956. When I did the Firsts article in 2001, the price range for this title was $250 to $300.

  A Clash of Kings shows two signed copies available at $650 and $575; average $612. Three unsigned copies were also available with prices ranging from $250 to $150, averaging $200. In 2001 the price range for this volume was $30 to $50.

  A Storm of Swords is represented by four signed copies at $300 to $140; average $216. One unsigned copy was listed at $115. In 2001, this title was selling for $15 to $30.

  A Feast for Crows has five signed titles at $300 to $50; average $153. There was one unsigned copy at $60.

  A Dance with Dragons, with by far the largest first print run, has a relatively small population of twenty-four signed copies at $150 to $49 (average $82) and four unsigned at $40 to $31 (average $35). I would have thought there’d be more copies available. I would suggest checking used bookstores, but remember, again, you’re looking for first printings. Even though there were several hundred thousand, many seem to have already disappeared into the hands of the general reading public, who on the whole don’t know or care about the difference between a first edition or a book club edition. That can be good news for a determined (and lucky) collector.

  The existence of e-book editions for all titles has had no discernible effect on the collectors’ market. Some time, obviously, the market will peak and prices will stabilize, but I don’t think we’ll see this for a while.

  It might not be a bad idea to snatch up those available unsigned firsts of A Dance with Dragons and hope that George will appear in your area soon.

  JOHN JOS. MILLER has had about ten novels and twice as many short stories published, as well as comic book scripts, gaming books for the Wild Cards series, and over a hundred posts for the blog cheesemagnet.com. He also has written extensively on baseball history, especially nineteenth-century baseball and the Negro Leagues. He is one of the original members of the New Mexican group that created the superheroes-in-prose franchise Wild Cards. Besides having stories in three of the titles currently available from Tor Books, he has also authored two RPG volumes about Wild Cards for Green Ronin Publishing. His adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s “In the House of the Worm,” a Gothic horror story that takes place in the far future on a dying Earth, will be published by Avatar Press whenever the artist finally gets around to finishing it. His columns on cheesemagnet.com deal mainly with fantastic cinema and fiction. He also frequently gives away books and movies, so you should check it out just for the swag alone.

  NED VIZZINI

  BEYOND THE GHETTO

  How George R.R. Martin Fights the Genre Wars

  WHAT’S THE HARDEST PART of writing a book? It’s a good question—one I get often from aspiring authors wary of the pain—but the answer is never what people think. Beginning can be hard, yes, and ending can be downright brutal, as the protracted wait for A Dance with Dragons demonstrated, but the hardest part comes once you’ve finished your book and sold it. Then you must make a searching and fearless moral inventory and try to get blurbs. Securing other authors’ positive comments on your work is the closest you will probably come to asking out your celebrity crush; my strategy is to beg.

  When I set out to get blurbs for a young adult novel with fantasy elements that I sold in 2010, the person I wanted to beg most was George R.R. Martin. While reading up on roleplaying games’ influence on American culture, I discovered his work through Dreamsongs: Volume II, which, if you’re already chafing for The Winds of Winter, documents Martin’s creative ventures in Los Angeles with Tyrion-esque cynicism. In Dreamsongs I found that in 1983 Martin started playing the Call of Cthulhu and Superworld games so much that he stopped writing for a year and nearly went broke. As he explained in an introduction to the Wild Cards novels that resulted from his obsession: “[My wife] Parris used to listen at my office door, hoping to hear the clicking of my keyboard from within, only to shudder at the ominous rattle of dice.”

  This was the first time I’d read about a writer having a fantasy gaming problem, as opposed to, say, a drug or alcohol problem. Since I’d recently weathered my own ten-year addiction to Magic: The Gathering, I saw a kindred spirit in Martin, someone who might understand me—and dig my book. My publisher approved of my blurb quest, as Martin is a phenomenal success, with more than 8.5 million books sold in the Song of Ice and Fire series according to USA Today. But those sales are supported by a surprising development for an author steeped in roleplaying games and genre fiction—canonical critical acclaim. Time Magazine gave Martin the ultimate blurb in 2005: “the American Tolkien.”

  But when did that become a distinction? Tolkien has been part of our culture for so long that it’s easy to forget that The Lord of the Rings was derided as escapist—and worse, foreign—when it first appeared here. You can get a sense of just how harsh the criticisms were in Michael Saler’s excellent 2012 critical overview of fantasy, As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality, from Oxford University Press. “Certain people—especially, perhaps, in Britain—have a lifelong appetite for juvenile trash,” declared Edmund Wilson in 1956. “What apparently gets kids square in their post-adolescent sensibilities is not the scholarly top-dressing but the undemanding, comfortable, child-sized story underneath,” chided Life.

  This argument—that fantasy is simple, formulaic, and for children—has kept it in a genre ghetto since its inception as a modern literary form in the nineteenth century. Although it has been creeping into academia for years, and Martin has accelerated its move toward acceptance by serious circles like the New York Times Book Review, it is still dismissed by many critics as by-the-numbers hackwork created to serve a market: nerds like me, Martin, and, let’s face it, you. Fantasy’s story, from formulation through critical dismissal to massive popular success and overdue academic assessment, is part of an ongoing intellectual conflict as grueling as the War of the Ninepenny Kings—the genre wars—that is only now approaching detente.

  More than anything, “genre” is a marketing term. It’s meant to help booksellers shelve product, and thus it doesn’t have much relevance prior to the ascendance of the book as a mass-market product in England in the mid-1800s, where reduced printing costs led to an explosion of garishly illustrated “penny dreadfuls.” These serialized entertainments, marketed as literature to lower- and middle-class readers, forced critics to draw the first line in the genre wars: between “literary” and “popular” fiction.

  It was clear to academics that the work of, say, George W.M. Reynolds (who never used the word “face” when “countenance” would suffice, and avoided “said” in favor of “ejaculated”) was not literature. It had to be something else, and “crap” seemed impolite. The problem was, people loved it: in ten years, according to The Victorian Web, Reynolds moved over a million copies of The Mysteries of London and its sequel The Mysteries of the Court of London, which would make them bestsellers even today. “Popular” fiction seemed a safe place to sequester his output from serious work.

  Yet even when separated from literature, popular fiction was seen as a threat. Henry James warned against it in his 1884 essay “The Art of Fiction,” aiming squarely at Robert Louis Stevenson, who had just written the well-liked adventure tale Treasure Island. For James, “a novelist writes out of and about ‘all experience’ and aims to represent nothing less than ‘life’ itself in all its complexities,” says Ken Gelder in his 2004 survey Popular Fiction: The Logics and Practices of a Literary Field. In contrast, “Treasure Island [. . .] is nothing more than a fantasy.”

  Stevenson responded in an essay of his own, “speaking up precisely for those qualities found in ‘the novel of adventure’ that Henry James had so disdained: a plot or a ‘story’, as well as ‘danger’, ‘passion’ and ‘intrigue’.” Hidden in this defense lies the problem that still hampers fantasy
fiction today: “danger” and “intrigue” are one thing, and they’re both in heroic supply in A Song of Ice and Fire, but what makes a bookseller shelve a novel under “fantasy” is often that it stars a farm boy who doesn’t realize he’s a prince; or a farm boy who has to face a series of challenges having to do with earth, fire, water, and air. The persistence of cliché in fantasy allows critics in the Jamesian tradition to continue to dismiss it as writing for children, whereas Stevenson and his contemporaries preferred to think of themselves as pioneers of the imagination.

  Imagination was a dangerous force in nineteenth-century Europe. Polite people were not supposed to imagine too much, lest they suffer like two causalities of earlier skirmishes in the genre wars: Madame Bovary, who read too many romance novels, or Don Quixote, who read too many knight’s tales. Real literature was supposed to be set in the real world, where real-world people navigated real-world problems. As Rousseau argued in 1762: “The real world has its limits, the imaginary world is infinite. Unable to enlarge the one, let us restrict the other.”

  But imagination did have its place among the masses, in folklore, satire, and children’s literature such as Alice in Wonderland (1865). In the guise of juvenile fiction, fantastical tales were acceptable even for upper-class readers, some of whom, like Stevenson, grew up to be authors who couldn’t constrain themselves to the realist mode sanctioned by the Enlightenment. They produced books at the turn of the twentieth century that embraced impossibility but were grounded in reality. Jules Verne called them “Les Voyages Extraordinaires”; H.G. Wells called them “scientific romance,” and that term works for me: it spells out the books’ necessary characteristics of fantastic premises and empirical prose.