Westeros

Two new interviews have been added to the So Spake Martin collection of correspondence, chats, interviews, and signing reports. The first was brought to our attention by GRRM himself, at the Feather Factor where he discusses his vices, his looking into buying a new car (Gullwing > SuperSports, George!), and more. It’s a nice interview, different than the usual interviews with Martin.

The other one is an audio interview with the gentlemen at Sidequesting, and starts about 8 minutes in. They discuss the series, the world-building, whether GRRM will return to science fiction some day, and football, among other things.

The arrival of the Game of Thrones season 1 DVD & Blu-ray sets (Pre-order: UK DVD, UK Blu-ray, US DVD, US Blu-ray) is a pretty big event, given the buzz we’ve seen on the internet. And not without cause: one of the most celebrated new shows of 2011, adapting one of the most popular novel series in the fantasy or, indeed, any other genre, with a host of award nominations and a few wins, which is pretty good for a show in its freshman year. And HBO has started to turn up the buzz for season 2 with photos, teasers, posters. It goes without saying that Linda and I were well-primed to be excited when a special delivery arrived at our doorstep, containing within it the Season 1 Blu-ray set. We’ve now taken a few days to rewatch a few episodes, listen to commentaries, explore the bonus features, and hunt dragon eggs… and we figure we can now share some of our thoughts on it.

But before going long-winded, lets just say this: if you’re a fan of Game of Thrones, if you want to show HBO just how much love and appreciation there is for the series, get this set. The show? It’s terrific, but you know this. The extras? Some of them are mind-blowingly good if you’re prone to geeking out over the show. The quality? Start to finish, this is one of the most handsome, well-produced sets we’ve seen for a TV series, right up there with ... well, with some of HBO’s other past offerings, such as their Deadwood boxed set. Before we get into the meat of the review, though, credit has to be given to Bryan Cogman for writing the entirety of one of our favorite features (Histories & Lore), giving people unfamiliar with the novels a great overview of ancient and recent history (and giving those who are familiar a thrill to see it articulated on screen), and Herzog and Company, the company involved with putting the package together. In particular, I’m not sure who they hired or who came up with it, but there are some segments in the In-Episode Guides that left my jaw on the floor. But more about those later!

ther digital download services.

This is a nice, new production video from the Making Game of Thrones website, this time following popular demand I believe: a look at extras, the unsung heroes who can turn a scene featuring two lead characters having a chat into a living, breathing environment with people going about their days:

Canadian band Irish Moutarde has turned their Celtic punk rock stylings to George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series ... and they did it using the lyrics to “The Bear and the Maiden Fair”, a song that appears in snippets throughout the series. They just premiered it yesterday, and have even gone ahead and made it available for download from their site. Here goes:

Amazing!

Two sets of territories announced their air dates the other day. First off, HBO Latin America has given fans in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean a wonderful surprise: Game of Thrones will premiere on April 1st, exactly the same as the premiere date in the U.S.! Ah, the wonders of being a corporate subsidiary. This goes for Brazil, too, for the Brasilianos out there. ;)

And over in Scandinavia, Canal+ has revealed their air date: May 2nd, about a month after the U.S. premiere. Sadly, this is actually a long span of time than their first season premiere in relation to the U.S. air date, and we can only assume the problem lies in Canal+ being unable to change around its scheduling for the particular day and time they’d like to run the show on. It’ll be a long, hard wait for those of us in the frosty North, but it does dovetail beautifully with Sweden’s SVT airing of the first season beginning next week; the finale should be almost exactly a week prior to the premiere of the second season on Canal+.

Back in November, we shared the news that Dark Horse—best known by many for their comics, but also a top-notch producer of collectibles—had received the license from HBO to create collectible items for Game of Thrones. And now the first product has been unveiled.

Per their original release, Dark Horse’s license extended to, “statues, busts, and action figures; prop and jewelry replicas; and barware, stationery, and other collectibles.” I guess we know what they went with first. The bust has already been unveiled at the International Toy Fair, will be appearing for pre-order in the March Previews (the leading catalog for the direct market), and will subsequently be released on June 20.

You can find the full press release below.

We’ve previously reported on Green Ronin‘s plans for their Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying system. One of the details they revealed was that they had hired Michael Komarck to return and provide the cover for their new “Game of Thrones” edition of the main rule book.

And now? They’ve unveiled the cover, and lo! it is good. Amazing piece of work, and yet another depiction of one of the most iconic moments of Robert’s rebellion. Now if only they had been on horseback (and Robert beardless), it would have been utterly perfect…

Preorders for the book will become available in April, after the premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones.

George R.R. Martin shares the news that Gary Gianni will be illustrating the 2014 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar. Better yet, GRRM reports that the sales on the 2011 and 2012 calendars have been so strong that Random House has also contracted to create 2015 and 2016 calendars. Gianni is an Eisner-award winning artist, perhaps best known for having taken over the Prince Valiant comic strip in 2004 and for his artistic interpretations of Robert E. Howard’s oeuvre. Some truly beautiful artwork, both in color and black-and-white.

The 2013 calendar (Preorder: US, UK), with art from Marc Simonetti, will be published on July 31st and will be unveiled at San Diego Comic-Con.

Thanks to Adam Whitehead, we’ve learned that the UK’s Sci Fi Now magazine has published a special look at season 2 of HBO’s Game of Thrones, with never-before-revealed details. Adam’s kindly summarized some of the highlights over at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum.

Here’s some of the highlights:

Gamespy has a good interview with lead game designer Sylvain Sechi and project manager Thomas Veauclin regarind Cyanide’s forthcoming Game of Thrones roleplaying game (Pre-order: X-box, PS3). The game is due to hit shelves in North America on May 15, and should be in Europe around that time as well.

They go into some detail about how they developed the story for the game, and the degree to which George R.R. Martin has been involved. According to them, when they presented their plans with some trepidation, Martin looked it over and told them he had been planning even bigger events to take place in later novels, so their plans were just fine. They also discuss the difference in philosophy between sandbox games such as Skyrim and more narrative-driven games, such as those produced by BioWare.

You don’t see this every day…

Apparently HBO will be promoting the launch of Game of Thrones season 1 in Australia through a unique menu of food at Sydney’s Gastro Park restaurant. Sci Fi Australia has been sharing photos of the food being presented at an early taste for the media, and… well, “unique” doesn’t get the half of it. “Eyeballs” and rare meat skewered on arrows, anyone? How about ravens claw broth or dragon eggs?

It’s a nifty promotion, to say the least. Game of Thrones begins airing on Foxtel’s Showcase channel from April 10.

We sent this around on our social sites at Twitter, Westeros, and Google+ yesterday, and it’s been spreading like wildfire ever since. For those who’ve missed it, then, take a look at Chirtopher Bishop’s Valentine’s Day cards inspired by A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s Game of Thrones.

In a similar vein, someone running a Robb Stark fan Tumblr had these  Robb-centric Valentine’s Day messages to offer, which we thought rather cute.

HBO’s released a nifty new poster teasing the April 1st premiere of Game of Thrones, which we’ve placed in our gallery:

I could only wish that they had green sparks and flames, just to tease the wildfire as they did with their graphic tease many months ago.

And speaking of videos, HBO has also released the Iceland production video onto Youtube in high definition. Check it out for another glimpse of Night’s Watch goodness amidst the gorgeous, frozen landscapes of Iceland.

HBO’s released a follow-up to its In Production: Croatia video, this time giving us all an extended look at the production’s filming in Iceland. Some gorgeous scenery… and our first glimpse of Simon Armstrong as Qhorin Halfhand:

For the Swedish fans out there, SVT will begin airing the first season of Game of Thrones on February 22nd… and, coolest of all, they’re following the tack of Sky Atlantic’s Thronecast—and one upping it, because they’re doing something that, so far as I know, they’ve never done before: they’ll be airing an after show half an hour after each episode ends (and just five minutes afterward on the SVT Play streaming service). This should be good fun.

Among the presenters? Radio presenter and writer Johanna Koljonen, who revealed her fandom for the show last year when she helped arrange the Nalen TV Club’s Game of Thrones-themed party>.