Get out your wallets, Needle is available for preordering now.
Click here to preorder Needle.
At this point we hope to have it out Fall of 2009, September or October, conservatively.
Included with the product information are some photographs for your viewing pleasure. Once we have the finalized box art we’ll post that as well.
If you cannot checkout let us know and we’ll work up a shipping quote for your country.
I’ve seen some comments people didn’t picture Needle like this, they pictured a rapier. I did too, GRRM set me straight, and it makes sense.
Needle was requisitioned for Arya as a lighter sword, not as a Braavosi sword. Jon had never been to Braavos, and Mikken, the man who made it, was a Northman, not a Braavosi. Arya’s teacher was eventually Braavosi of course, but that was long after she had left Winterfell. So, the issue is, what would Mikken, a Northman, have made when asked by Jon to make a light thin sword for Arya? The fighting style in which the sword is eventually used doesn’t change who made it and with what skill.
This is what makes ASOIAF so great, GRRM thinks of these things. A lesser fantasy novel might have Mikken conveniently be a smithing dynamo, familiar with all weapons the world over. But in these novels, characters realistically have limits to their abilities. It is best to think of Needle not as a Braavosi blade, it isn’t, but as an original Mikken creation.
Remember to stick them with the pointy end!
