George R.R. Martin threatens to punish those responsible for A Dance With Dragons leak in typically medieval fashion  

The fifth book in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Dance With Dragons, has its long-awaited official release date tomorrow, but since a strictly enforced on sale date for books is something not even the Harry Potter series could master, it’s not all that surprising that Martin’s series fell victim to leaks.

According to a June 29 post on Martin’s Livejournal—where he naturally lists his mood as “angry”—Amazon Germany started shipping A Dance With Dragons early, with about 180 copies going out before tomorrow’s official release date. This enraged Martin then went on to delineate what punishment awaited the worthless peons responsible for ruining the sacred release date that wasn’t at all delayed because of Martin himself: “If we find out who is responsible, we will mount his head on a spike.” Given the world that Martin has created in the books, that reaction lines up pretty well with the logic of Westeros. The readers could also avoid message boards on the Internet until they finish the book, but Martin points out “there are always a few jerkwads in every group,” so remaining unspoiled might be difficult.