Dunk and Egg Collection Announced

Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hadn’t seen, read or at very least heard of A Game of Thrones… However, the stories of ‘Dunk & Egg’ – The Hedge Knight (1998), The Sworn Sword (2003) and The Mystery Knight (2010) – are far less well-known – mainly because they’ve been buried in genre anthologies – Legends, Legends II and Warriors – aimed at only the most dedicated fantasy readers. However, it looks like the two characters, both fan-favourites, are set to be brought to the attention of the masses as this week George R.R. Martin has announced that he will be compiling the three stories he has written so far into a single anthology, titled ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’.

For those unfamiliar with the tales, Dunk and Egg live within the same world of Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, but 90 years before the events of those novels begin. They follow the adventures of “Dunk” (the future commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Duncan the Tall) and “Egg” (the future king Aegon V Targaryen) and are lighter in tone and more akin to medieval adventure novels (I get a kind of Don Quixote vibe from them). Fans of the series will enjoy exploring a time when Daenery’s great relatives, the Targaryens, are on the iron throne and the Baratheons are in their prime – enjoying their place at the forefront of the realm’s tournaments.

Martin wrote on his blog that: ‘it has always been my intent to write a whole series of novellas about Dunk and Egg, chronicling their entire lives. At various times in various interviews I may have mentioned seven novellas, or ten, or twelve, but none of that is set in stone. There will be as many novellas as it takes to tell their tale, start to finish.’ In addition to this anthology, Martin confirmed that  two further “Dunk and Egg” novellas are in the works, but that we shouldn’t be expecting them anytime soon, at least not until Martin has delivered The Winds of Winter to his publishers.

But what if you’ve already read the novellas? Why would this news excited you? Well, Martin explains that: ‘Since the collection is comprised entirely of previously-published material, we wanted to add something extra for the fans who might already have read the stories in LEGENDS and WARRIORS. Some illustrations would be great, I thought (my love of illustrated books is well known by now, I suspect) and my British and American publishers agreed. We reached out to the amazing GARY GIANNI, who did all the artwork for the stunning 2014 Ice & Fire calendar, not to mention Prince Valiant and those absolutely gorgeous Solomon Kane and Bran Mak Morn collections from Wandering Star. Gary was interested in the project… but after reading the stories, he decided he did not want to do just a small handful of illustrations. He wanted to bring the whole book to life with his artwork. Last year at San Diego Comicon, he presented my editor Anne Groell and myself with a mockup of A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS as he envisioned it, with art on almost every page. Even as roughs, Gary’s sketches were gorgeous. They blew us away. Of course we said yes.’

I guess the question that remains is when’s it out? Martin isn’t 100% firm on the date exactly, but we’re this sketchiness on the date is not actually his fault – we’re waiting on the artist. He explains that Gary Gianni is still working on the artwork for the collection, but that Bantam Spectra and Harper Collins Voyager hope to publish their fully-illustrated editions of A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS in 2015, in both the US and UK.

That wasn’t it for Dunk and Egg news either. Martin used the announcement to talk about adaptions of their work, both in terms of graphic novels and of possible movies. Firstly, for those unaware, the first two ‘Dunk and Egg” novellas have been reissued by Jet City Comics, but the ‘news’ was that a graphic novel of “The Mystery Knight” is currently in the works from Random House. As for the movie, Martin said: ‘I am frequently asked whether or not there are any plans for Dunk & Egg movies or television shows. There has been interest, yes, but the rights situation is complicated. Film and television rights to the characters and the three published Dunk & Egg stories remain with me at present… but HBO, when acquiring the rights to the SONG OF ICE & FIRE novels, also acquired film and television rights to the world of Westeros. So if we did Dunk & Egg with anyone else, we would need to remove all the references to House Targaryen, the Iron Throne, etc… not completely impossible, but certainly undesireable. Whereas if HBO decided they wanted to make a Dunk & Egg miniseries or TV movies, they’d first need to buy the stories. That’s a much more attractive proposition for all concerned, I think… but if it happens, it will happen years from now, not tomorrow, and not next week.’

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