Westeros

Via Bleeding Cool, we’ve an interesting quote from co-executive producer and writer Vanessa Taylor regarding the writing of season 3:

Big visuals to open episodes? If I had a guess, the tremendous success and impact of “Blackwater” and the skills of VFX house Pixomondo (recently discussed in a Variety article on German-based VFX houses) have opened them up to the possibilities of spectacle in the series.

The quote from Taylor is from Jeff Goldsmith’s Q&A podcast, which is predominantly focused on Hope Springs, Vanessa Taylor’s first feature film. You can listen to in full; we’ll be checking it out to see if any more Game of Thrones tidbits came out of it.

(Thanks to Marcelo Cordova for the pointer!)

Though the livestream was sadly marred by a ridiculous claim of "copyright violation" that led to it being shut down—made all the more ridiculous by the fact that the Dramatic Presentation clips shown were all used with permission of the copyright holders, and were surely brief enough to merit a Fair Use argument—the Hugo Awards rolled on. Here’s the results for the fans:

It’s that time again, folks: the World Science Fiction Convention is presenting the Hugo Awards, the oldest literary award for works of science fiction and fantasy. A number of the nominees may be of particular fans of George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire, and HBO’s Game of Thrones:

One of the more interesting program items at Worldcon this year will be an hour and a half long interview focused on Game of Thrones with GRRM, conducted on stage by TV critic Maureen Ryan of the Huffington Post. Ryan has posted a call for questions.

She makes no promises about asking everything, but she’ll use some of them, and get a sense of what topics are most interesting to the wider community. My suggestion? Go over there and let her know what you’re most interested in asking about! Me, I’d like to know a bit more about what he considers so different between his Littlefinger and the Littlefinger portrayed on the TV show, which is a remark he made in passing during an interview for Sky’s Thronecast.

Thanks to the latest “Not a Blog” update from GRRM, we’ve learned that Game of Thrones actor Ron Donachie—last seen playing Ser Rodrik Cassel—will be attending Chicon 7, the 70th Worldcon, as a representative of the show for HBO. Donachie also happens to be the audio book reader for the new audiobook of Fevre Dream—Martin’s award-winning horror novel set on the Mississippi in the Antebellum—which Martin announced back in June.

Martin has also shared his Worldcon schedule, which we’ll repost below, with an interesting possible caveat: in comments he mentions that instead of reading one of the chapters from The Winds of Winter that he’s read on previous occasions, he might instead read from The World of Ice and Fire (the book we’re co-authoring with him) as he did at Bubonicon (a report from which can be found here). GRRM asked for opinions. Personally, the chapters he’s read have generally been read several times, and there are extensive reports available on the “A Song of Ice and Fire” forum… whereas he’s only read once from TWoIaF, and there’s plenty of details from that reading that haven’t been shared with fans.

Here’s his schedule:

Back during Comic-Con, we had a great look—thanks to correspondent Amy Marie—at Dark Horse’s forthcoming licensed products, but one in particular really caught some eyes: the statue of Tyrion Lannister wielding his axe during the Battle of the Blackwater Rush.

More details have since come out, and Dark Horse has very kindly offered us an exclusive, high-res image depicting the statue from a number of angles. It looks like the tentative price for the 10-inch statue of $200 seems to have held, but they’ve actually managed to get it ready for February 2013, which is nicely timed in conjunction with season 3’s premiere in April.

If you can’t wait until February, Dark Horse is releasing their Daenerys Stormborn bust in October; it’s available from international comics and collectibles seller TFAW—Things From Another World—here.

Over the weekend, HBO released four names of new cast members and their roles to fan sites—we reported our pair , veteran actors Dan Hildebrand and Ramon Tikaram in the roles of Kraznys and Prendahl, last weekend, and now Winter Is Coming has added their pair of actors, both playing Eastern characters as well: MC-turned-actor Ed Skrein in the role of Daario Naharis, a skilled, untrustworthy sellsword who’ll Dany will meet along the way, and Jacob Anderson will play the role of Gray Worm, one of the eunuch slave-soldier called the Unsullied that the Ghiscari slaver, Kraznys, trades in.

Of the two, Anderson has a good deal more acting experience and credits, having been in a number of British TV series and mini-series, as well as in a number of episodes of Episodes. Skrein has only recently gotten into acting, though apparently he has a role in the Ray Winstone action film, The Sweeney.

Game of Thrones set fans abuzz with the news from yesterday that Ciarán Hinds had joined the cast as Mance Rayder, the King-beyond-the-Wall. Now, we can confirm two additional names for the cast, these two focused on the region of Slaver’s Bay where Daenerys Targaryen’s story will be taking place next season. So, without further ado…

After a long, long search, HBO and the Game of Thrones production have at last found their Mance Rayder, the former ranger who now calls himself King-beyond-the-Wall. According to James Hibberd at EW, Ciarán Hinds has been cast. The Belfast-native actor has a long and distinguished career, playing everything from King Lot in John Boorman’s Excalibur to the proud but tormented Brian de Bois-Guilbert tormented villains in the (very good) Ivanhoe miniseries and on to significant roles in Hollywood films such as The Sum of All Fears, John Carter, and the well-reviewed Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

But Hinds may be best-known to HBO fans for his gravitas in HBO’s much-missed Rome, the most expensive TV series the cable network has produced. His Julius Caesar may give a taste—just a taste—of the commanding presence he’ll bring to the role of Mance Rayder.

David J. Peterson, creator of the Dothraki language for HBO’s Game of Thrones, has now indirectly revealed that he’s working on creating the Valyrian language for the production thanks to an interview with PRI’s The World. At the 2:05 mark, the interviewer in the piece reads some of the names of languages that Peterson is working on as displayed on his computer, and Valyrian is among them (another one mentioned, Skroth, is the name for the “language” that Peterson invented for the Others as briefly heard in the opening of the first episode).

Thanks to the success and popularity of Game of Thrones, as well as the Na’vi language in James Cameron’s Avatar, a number of TV and film productions are hiring language creators and linguists like Peterson to invent languages. Besides working on the Game of Thrones languages, Peterson’s also working on alien languages for Syfy’s new cross-media series, Defiance.

CORRECTION: Defiance, not Dominion, is the series Peterson is creating languages for.

Over at “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin has published his schedule for Bubonicon 44 in Albuquerque, New Mexico between August 24th the 26th. As usual at these convention appearances, there’s a reading ... and this time, the reading’s a surprise: rather than read the extract from The Winds of Winter that Martin has read at his last few appearances, he’s treating everyone to the very first public reading of an extract from The World of Ice and Fire, the setting guide that Linda, George, and I have been working on, on and half, for… well, awhile. ;)

As GRRM’s hinted in earlier “Not a Blog” posts, he’s recently written a few historical pieces for the book, pieces that answer questions that some fans have had about the history of the Seven Kingdoms and the early reign of the Targaryen dynasty from the very start of the series back in 1996. If you’re in the ABQ area and don’t have plans for that Friday, you can get yourself a day pass for $15. And, hey, evenings? Parties are where you’ll find GRRM hanging out. His advice for those going to Worldcon holds for Bubonicon, and will give you a sense of how approachable GRRM can be at an SF convention.

It’s quite remarkable to note that A Dance with Dragons, the fifth novel in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, holds the #10 place in the New York Times Hardcover Fiction bestseller list for http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2012-08-19/hardcover-fiction/list.html August 19th... and as one notes there, this marks the 52nd week that the novel has been perpetually on the short list for hardcover fiction.

Of course, the mass-market paperbacks continue to do well, with A Game of Thrones presently at #11, with the other novels ranging down to #18. They’ve all been on the bestseller list for a minimum of 44 weeks (for A Feast for Crows), while A Game of Thrones has been on the list for 69 weeks, and seems likely to be hanging on for a good while more.

For those who want to get in early on the ordering and Amazon.com in the US has now posted the pre-order pages for the Game of Thrones Complete 2nd Season DVDs (Pre-order) and Blu-ray (Pre-order). There’s presently no other information available, not even a release date, though HBO’s usual practices suggest that we won’t be seeing it earlier than February or March of 2013.

Some mysterious tweeting a few days ago—from the likes of Simon Pegg, Olympic gold medalist Ryan Lochte, and Maisie Williams—hinted at the following: a terrific “Funny or Die” video featuring all three individuals… plus Sir Patrick Stewart, playing the lead role as a ticket tout on the make. Some very funny stuff, and of course Maisie Williams as “Scraggly Sue” is cute as a button. As to Lochte? He should probably stick to his day job, but have to give him kudos for making the effort. (The video that follows features him as well, and it actually works a bit better with its mockumentary style).

Long in the making, at last we’ve our third and final part of our discussion of prophecies in “A Song of Ice and Fire”, in light of the events of A Dance with Dragons. There are, as you might guess, spoilers through the five novels in the series to date.  This particular one actually deals with a very early prophecy—or prophecy-like utterance—from A Game of Thrones. Apologies for any syncing issues, by the way—it looks like our minor editing caused a slight slip in the sound syncing to the video.

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