With Apple’s help, author George R. R. Martin has released A Game of Thrones: Enhanced Edition to Apple’s iBooks library.
Rather than finishing the book series on which his monumental fame is based, George R. R. Martin is currently adding digital bonus features to his existing work. This edition of the original novel features “a world of additional content” that includes background information, glossaries, noble sigils, and even family trees.
Martin has described the release as “an amazing next step in the world of books,” saying:
We’re now entering a new period in the history of publishing. The digital book gives readers the ability to experience all this rich secondary material that had not been possible before. These enhanced editions, available only on iBooks, include sigils and family trees and glossaries. Anything that confuses you, anything you want to know more about, it’s right there at your fingertips.
The second book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Clash of Kings, will get its own enhancements on October 27, and A Storm of Swords is slated for December. The fourth and fifth books will debut their updates in the early months of 2017, which is more than can be said for the still-unpublished The Winds of Winter: “As yet nothing has been finalised regarding the publication … but when the book is ready, it will be announced through George’s website.”
Fans of the show on which the books are based will probably see the ending to the Song of Ice and Fire series before the fans of Martin’s books. The Winds of Winter is still a ways out, and A Dream of Spring is still due afterward before the books will have caught up to the television series’ end. According to Martin just last month, “Yes, there’s a lot written. Hundreds of pages. Dozens of chapters … But there’s also a lot still left to write. I am months away still … and that’s if the writing goes well.”
Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both.