Lacking the fanfare of, say, King Robert Baratheon arriving at Winterfell, George R.R. Martin quietly opened a bookstore in Santa Fe last month.
The bookstore, Beastly Books, is located next door to the Jean Cocteau Cinema, which Martin also owns, near the Santa Fe Railyard. The name is a reference both to French filmmaker Jean Cocteau’s 1946 work “La Belle et la Bête” and to the “Beauty and the Beast” TV show from the late ’80s, for which Martin was a writer and producer.
That’s right – the author of “A Game of Thrones” worked on a Beauty and the Beast series that stared Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman as the respective titular rolls. With Hellboy and Sarah freaking Connor, it must have been amazing, right? (This writer has no idea, but will report back to you after he resubscribes to the CBS All Access app, where you can currently see it, so he can watch that “Star Trek: Picard” show coming out in January.)
Anyway, Martin’s bookstore, according to his blog, has an array of books signed by him and other popular science fiction and fantasy authors, such as S.M. Stirling, Lee Child, and Diana Gabaldon. Many of these authors have appeared at the theater next door to speak, reports the Santa Fe New Mexican, so it seems likely they’ll do the same at the new space. The store’s also got all manner of Game of Thrones items, from calendars to cookbooks to card and board games. And coffee.
We’re excited to visit the bookstore next time we’re in the neighborhood. Our only concern is that if Martin spends any time at his bookstore or his theater or Meow Wolf, which he is also invested in, he isn’t spending that time writing “The Winds of Winter,” the sixth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. “A Dance of Dragons,” the fifth book was published in 2011. The last few seasons of the HBO series did us dirty, George, and some of us want to know what actually happens to our favorite characters.
Winter may be coming, but not fast enough.
Nick Gonzales
