Fantasy Flight Games of Roseville, Minnesota announced the acquisition of board and collectible card game rights to George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fantasy series of novels. Fantasy Flight will produce a CCG, set for release at GenCon and a board game, slated to debut in the fall of 2002. Both of the Fantasy Flight games will take their name from the first novel in Martin's series, A Game of Thrones, which was published in 1996. Since then Martin has penned two additional titles, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords, and a fourth novel in the series, A Feast for Crows should appear early next year. The first three books in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fantasy series have sold a combined total of over one million books so far. Martin also is well-known as editor of and contributor to the hugely popular Wild Cards series that began in the late 80s and continues to be published this year.
Fantasy Flight's Lord of the Rings Board Game (see 'Final Fantasy Gets Lord of the Rings') impressed Martin, who decided, '[T]hese were the guys [Fantasy Flight] that I wanted to bring the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and its quarrelsome inhabitants alive for gamers around the world.' The enormous success of the first LOTR movie (almost $300 million in domestic box office alone), has spurred a great interest in all types of fantasy. Look for new fantasy-based TV series and motion pictures in the months to come as well as an inevitable increase in the number of fantasy novels, but let's hope that the best current practitioners of the genre (like Martin) will gain some well-deserved additional exposure as well.
