To quote:

HBO got in touch with Linda and I, asking us for Westeros.org to help launch the availability of Game of Thrones Sideshows by providing one for episode 2, “The Kingsroad”, which we were all too glad to do. It was an interesting experience, and we hope the fans of the series find some of the details we point out interesting or amusing!

Best of all, Valyrian Steel means to continue to producing replicas based on the novels at the same time. They have a Night’s Watch Survival Kit in the pipeline, each one featuring a unique, hand-made obsidian dagger, and King Robert’s Warhammer is on the way to join Longclaw, Needle, and Ice. All the weapons made under the “A Song of Ice and Fire” license are done with the direct input of GRRM, unlike the Game of Thrones replicas.

Bid early, bid often, because all proceeds goes to deserving charities, including Partners in Health! The auction on the George R.R. Martin items ends on Sunday.

The teaser certainly seems to be suggesting that political intrigues and currents are going to be an important part of the game’s narrative. More information about the RPG can be found at the official site, and in our earlier report.

A write-up of the interview can be found at MTV’s site, for those who can’t see the video.

Hopefully no one will seriously take issue with their changing the hand from which Davos’s is lacking a few joints!

James Hibberd at EW seems to have been thinking along the same lines, and has learned from a network representative that they’ve never had a piece of online promotional content generate so many hits (now standing at some 3.5 million) in so short a time. Amazing.)

The eager fans of HBO’s hit series who flocked to the “Shadows” teaser is quite amazing. A day and a half since it premiered, and Youtube presently reports that it’s been viewed no less than 2,296,806 times. That’s… well, a lot! The intensity of anticipation among fans of the series is growing as we’re about two hit just two months away from the premiere on April 1st (April 2nd in the UK and Central Europe).

In fact, the numbers suggest that the show has been steadily climbing all around, not just in the perception of the fandom on the internet.

The e-book is an iOS exclusive, at least at this time, and is sold only from the UK bookstore.

Here’s the full details:

The nice thing about the ensemble being nominated, it must be said, is the fact that so many of the actors—especially the younger actors—turned up at the award ceremony. Here’s a recap of who was there:

• Kit Harrington was there, and was even featured in a red carpet interview.
• Emilia Clarke looked lovely in a Chanel dress from the Fall 2012 collection. There’s even a poll about the look and what fans thought of it.
• Alfie Allen looked relaxed with his open collar.
• Nikolaj Coster-Waldau was on hand, too!
• Jason Momoa and wife Lisa Bonet were there as well, and were glimpsed on camera… but it doesn’t look as if they managed a red carpet photo. From what we’ve read from one of HBO’s publicity people, the photo line was quite horrendous and many actors chose to skip it.

Screen caps can be found here, beginning with this image at Dragonstone.

The take out? I’d say fans of the show who nominate should all nominate it in the Long Form category, and maybe not vote for it at all in Short Form (a category which will, with 99.99% certainty, be won by the Doctor Who episode “The Doctor’s Wife”, written by Neil Gaiman) so that the administrators have an easy choice to make as to category. It worked back in 2008 when fans nominated Heroes in Long Form and almost no votes were thrown in for Short Form. That’s what we intend to do, in any case, having gotten a supporting membership of our own.

All members of last year’s Worldcon, and current members of this year’s Worldcon at Chicon in Chicago provided they get their membership—any membership, even the $50 Supporting membership, which has a number of perks such as receiving e-books of all the finalist novels - on or before January 31st), can nominate. And you should do. And if you can actually attend the event, even better—five days of SF/F/H goodness, academic tracks and film tracks, parties and meeting many of the luminaries of the genre past, present, and future, parties, art dealers and memorabilia and books upon books, parties…

Did I mention the parties? The Brotherhood without Banner will be making a strong showing, and their parties are famous. And of course, George will be there, and as he always says, a con’s the absolute best setting to see him, not just at signings and readings, but also on panels and, yes, in the party rooms.

Mark your calendars, folks. And for those who are True Blood fans, HBO also says there’ll be a “short graphic tease” for season 5 of that show at 8:58 PM.

In brief:

• $10 off hardcovers
• $20 off limited editions

And to quote instructions:

As always, GRRM’s happy to personalize inscriptions on books sold through his official website. (At a guess, that GO GIANTS requirement may make this a non-starter for Pats fans…)

He goes on to discuss his work more generally, and offers some good advice for budding 3D artists. Well worth checking out.

And we’ll just mention that his official page is a great way to see where he’ll be in coming months. Trips planned for this year include London in April for Eastercon, as well as such varied places as Portugal, Montana, Seattle, and Spain.

Last summer, Subtext invited me to be one of three “experts”—joined by series editor Anne Groell (who’s also our editor on The World of Ice and Fire)  and Sean T. Collins of Boiled Leather)—to add notes to A Game of Thrones. It was a fun, interesting project, and we amassed something north of 1,000 notes covering the sublime (Sean’s entries are particularly thought-provoking) to the amusing (Anne has some good stories about the behind-the-scenes) to the trivial (well, that’d be my entries, filled with little facts and heraldry and quotes direct from GRRM). The feedback has been quite positive, I’ve been told.

A growing range of books are supported by the app, so that readers, experts, and writers can comment on and communicate with one another about the books they’re reading. It’s a fantastic way to bring books even further into the 21st century, by making them social. Want to argue why a character made a bad choice on page 633? Want to respond to an editor’s funny story about how the author worked his way to writing a particular scene as she did? Want to take argue with someone else’s gloss of the text? You can do all of that with the Subtext app. Or how about embed videos or images that you associate with particular characters, scenes, or events? You can do that, as well.

Books can be imported from various sources, or bought through the Google Books store, and there are nice, clear instructions for how to do it in the app. I believe an Android version is in development, so for now it’s just for iPad, and available only via the siTunes US store. If youv’e an iPad, I really recommend checking it out—I believe there’s a few 50 page previews, with the notes, so you can see what each book they have has to offer.