Westeros

We were waiting for one of these end-of-year lists discussing the most illegaly torrented programs, and TorrentFreak has come through with their report.  Just pipped by Dexter, HBO’s Game of Thrones is said to have scored 3.4 million downloads to secure second place, making it a more popular download target than uber-popular comedy Big Bang Theory, venerable medical drama House, and surprise cable success The Walking Dead.

I wonder if Game of Thrones would have surpassed Dexter, if HBO Adria and Sky didn’t air the series almost simultaneously with the U.S. airing, cutting down on the incentive for subscribers to pirate the show…

In any case, it’s a dubious honor, but at least it can be said to provide yet another piece of data revealing that there’s a great deal of interest in the show.

The HBO Store has recently added quite a few new items… in the form of laptop, netbook, tablet, phone, and MP3 player skins featuring the words and heraldry of the various great houses. Have to say, the Baratheon iPhone/iPod

“phone and MP3 player” skin is actually quite striking. We’ve also added links to the heraldic coasters and a mug set in the last few days.

Presently, the store also has a free shipping offer going on if you use the code FREESHIPDAY at check out.

Although the CDs won’t be out until next year, you can already download the newly re-recorded, fully unabridged A Feast for Crows, read by actor Roy Dotrice who has previously recorded all the other books in the series. And all this, thanks to popular demand by fans, who repeatedly ask the publishers both in the U.K. and U.S. to get Dotrice—who missed recording the book the first time around because of a tight deadline and an on-going theatre committment—to read it.

The book can be found at Amazon.com, and Audible.com is listing the book as well, and offering it for free for a 30-day trial membership.
For those in the UK, we expect Amazon.co.uk will soon list it.

Via EW, we have the full television nominees for this year’s Golden Globes. As many predicted, Game of Thrones joins HBO sibling Boardwalk Empire, along with Showtime’s Homeland (which has been wrongfully overlooked this season, IMO), Starz’s Boss, and FX’s American Horror Story. And of course, Peter Dinklage scores another best supporting actor nod for his role as Tyrion Lannister, joining three other actors nominated for their work in HBO productions (Paul Giamatti, Guy Pearce, and Tim Robbins).

Linda and I will be in transit when the Golden Globe nominees are announced shortly, but chances are pretty good that Game of Thrones is going to get some attention. With the international cast, the big production values, the buzz, commentators and fans alike expect several nominations are possible. Will it happen? We’ll have to see. CBS will be providing a live stream, though, which we’ve embedded below and which should be on the air shortly.

Came across this new interview with George R.R. Martin at Scotcampus, which we’ve added to our collection of correspondence, interviews, and signing reports. There’s some good remarks on episode 9 of this new season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, and a bit of speculative fodder for fans of certain elements of the A Song of Ice and Fire series.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards have just been announced for film and television, and HBO’s Game of Thrones is among the nominees! The first announcement regarded the stunt team being nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series.

After that, it was the main acting awards for primetime television… and Game of Thrones did pretty well for itself, scoring a nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble. Congratulations to all the actors, and of course the producers, writers, and crew who gave them the material to work with!

The awards will be presented on January 29th, and will be broadcast on TNT.

This interview is rather neat. George has been in New York City since the start of December, doing all sorts of things (including signing books at the HBO Store and a B&N, and recording some sort of Q&A for Audible.com, which we suspect ties into this news)... but he has to kick back and relax at times, right? And in this case, this life-long fan of the New York Jets and New York Giants took the opportunity to watch a home game of one of his two favorite teams (and had the pleasure of seeing the Jets trounce the Chiefs, by the way—alas, that I can’t say the same for the Dolphins…)

While he was there, the official NY Jets site took the opportunity to conduct a celebrity interview. It must have been a chilly day, looking at that fur cap on George’s head. Naturally, he finished it off with a rally cry: “J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets!”, but in between he answers a couple of questions about the inspiration for the series and what fans can expect for the second season. Nothing we haven’t heard before, but it’s nice to see George getting a chance to be in the stands for a game.

Wow! Fans have been asking for years for the publishers to consider re-recording A Feast for Crows, the fourth novel of the A Song of Ice and Fire series…. and Random House and HarperCollins Voyager has listened! Roy Dotrice has already recorded the book (sneaky, sneaky!) and it will be available as a digital download via Audible.com and Audible.co.uk on December 15th, with a CD set due March 2012.

Roy Dotrice,  but the fans have been wanting to hear him on it enough that they’ve decided to go ahead and re-record. Fantastic news, suffice it to say! A veteran, award-winning actor, Dotrice became acquainted with GRRM from playing the role of Father in Beauty and the Beast, and the two have been friends ever since. Dotrice was initially cast in the role of Grand Maester Pycelle in HBO’s Game of Thrones, but health issues forced him to withdraw; he was cast as Hallyne, a wisdom of the Guild of Alchemists, for season 2.

Here’s an excerpt:

Download MP3

This teaser was solid—some nice images reacquainting ourselves with a number of characters from the first season, and prominently featuring a brand new one in Stannis Baratheon—but it was definitely a tease.

Still, we’ve extracted all the most notable images from the teaser, and have them up at our Previews gallery, with our usual commentary. Most of the comments are quite brief—what’s left to be said, right?—but we do have some thoughts on Stephen Dillane as Stannis, and some guesses as to what scenes are being shown in some cases. Check it out!

Here it is, the newest teaser for season 2 of HBO’s Game of Thrones!

Annotated screencaptures to follow. We’ll post when they’re ready.

A great article by Amy Chozick about how the Dothraki language—created by David J. Peterson—and other created languages are helping make fictional worlds seem more real. Some excellent details from Peterson and others. Favorite part? Peterson recorded translations of various phrases, which provides us the Dothraki pronunciation of Brooklyn and their version of, “Fughedaboutit!”

I’m not ashamed to say it: this parody music video from @WinterSpringPro is rather addictive!

Great work by the duo and their crew. Particularly love the snow-Ghost. Very cute!

The prestigious American Film Institute, which among other things selects ten films and television programs each year for outstanding achievement, has announced this year’s honorees. And, as you might guess, Game of Thrones is a winner!

This year’s honorees were selected by a jury, the full list of which can be found here, but includes producer and writer Steven Boccho, critics James Poniewozik, Maureen Ryan, and Matt Rousch, and more.

Our hearty congratulations to HBO, the cast, and the crew!

Ahead of tonight’s Game of Thrones teaser, the Making Game of Thrones official production site has a new interview with a member of the crew. This time, it’s on-set VFX co-ordinator Niall McEvoy, who worked on the first season of the show as well as this second season (which is due to wrap filming today—the last footage is being shot in Iceland at this very moment).