Westeros

For those who may have thought a $50 cover price was a bit steep for The World of Ice and Fire—the book we’ve co-written with George R.R. Martin—it looks like Amazon.com has received some corrected information: it’s now priced at $40, which is presently discounted down to under $28 presently (Preorder).

For that matter, the book appears to have picked up a new subtitle: “The Official History of Westeros and The World of A Game of Thrones”. This is actually news to us, since those are decisions outside of our purview.

By the by, speaking of Amazon, they’re now shipping the Game of Thrones Complete Second Season Bluray and DVD sets (Order: US Bluray, US DVD) , with the Bluray down to $29.99—more than 50% off the retail price! If you’ve missed it, I’ve written up a review discussing some of its features. I even came across a fourth dragon’s egg since that review, featuring a Littlefinger and Varys scene that fans will doubtless enjoy.

We’ve noted this previously, but a new article in Texas A&M’s The Eagle provides some amazing insight into the forthcoming Deeper than Swords exhibition at the Cushing Library, focused entirely on A Song of Ice and Fire and the many things that have been born from it. George R.R. Martin was invited to have his life’s work archived at the library back in 1993, in recognition of his contributions to science fiction and fantasy fiction and television, and has been a “dream donor” ever since.

Among the holdings in their archives:

Concerning the event itself, here’s what The Eagle has to say:

(Many thanks to Olaf Keith for pointing this article out.)

HBO and Best Buy have partnered together for a special launch event at Best Buy’s Union Square store in New York City for the Game of Thrones: Complete Second Season Blu-ray and DVD sets (Pre-order: US Bluray, US DVD, UK Bluray, UK DVD), and it sounds like they’ve some exciting plans in store. Read on to learn just what’s going on… and how you can win a chance to get early access to the event!

February 19 sees the release of the Game of Thrones Complete Second Season setin the US, and March 4th should see it out in the UK and more widely in Europe (Pre-order: US Bluray, US DVD, UK Bluray, UK DVD).

For those anticipating it, we’ve shared clips and details, but thanks to HBO, we’ve had the opportunity to get an early review copy. In brief, it lives up to the production values of the previous season, and in some places (such as the Histories, which I consider my personal favorite extra) exceeds them. The Blu-ray set is a showcase of the show’s very high production values, revealing it in the full glory of 1080p.

Courtesy of HBO, it looks like George R.R. Martin has taken the black:

Earlier in the month, we shared the news that Factory Entertainment had secured a license to produce collectibles along the lines of plush animals, throw pillows, prop replicas, and sculptural miniatures. Now, we have our first glimpse at some of their products, courtesy of Action Figure Times. In this gallery focused on Factory Entertianment’s display at Toy Fair 2013, we have two images showing Game of Thrones products.

The first image features some soft dragon eggs and a couple of house throw pillows, while the second image displays a few rather cute plush direwolves (notice Ghost with the red eyes), as well as a Targaryen throw pillow which suggests they’ll all features the house motto as well as the sigil.

Factory Entertainment expects to start releasing products in Summer 2013.

German booskeller Olaf Keith brought to our attention the fact that The World of Ice and Fire—the work we’ve been co-writing with George R.R. Martin, providing a look at the history and lands of the setting of “A Song of Ice and Fire”—has made its first appearance on Amazon.com for those who’d like to pre-order it. We can’t remark on the publication date, page count, or even the price point at this time, but at least there’s now an ISBN and a chance to pre-order. It can also be preordered at Amazon Germany, for those who use that service.

This book is distinct from the A World of Ice and Fire iOS app from Random House, which we also provided the content for, although they both share some common origins.

Narrated by Aidan Gillen as Littlefinger, this promotional video for season 3 of Game of Thrones certainly looks and sounds ominous:

What do you think of it?

Over at “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin shares the news that his science fix up novel, Tuf Voyaging, has now been reissued by Bantam Spectra. A fix up is a novel that’s constructed from a number of short stories, and in this case these stories tell the tale of Haviland Tuf—a rather eccentric merchant in the far future (in the setting Martin has dubbed the Thousand Worlds) who becomes commander of the most powerful, dangerous ship in the galaxy. They’re alternately amusing and scary, and the final part always gives me chills.

In his post and in comments, Martin ends up responding to questions regarding his recent overall deal with HBO, which will see him pitching and potentially writing and producing new series’ for HBO. Here’s what he had to say about some of the possibilities kicked around (we’ve bolded text for key points):

Back in October, we stumbled across the fact that young actor Dean-Charles Chapman had a role in season 3 of Game of Thrones, as revealed by his talent agency. We did some digging, got some fairly solid leads as to who he might be playing, and we dutifully asked for confirmation. We were informed that that wasn’t possible, so we let it lie and, I admit, rather forgot about it. Since his casting has been more widely publicized, we’ll share what we learned back then:

One of the things Game of Thrones has done best is bring the epic scale of the world and the magical nature of some of its inhabitants to life with special effects, and it looks like the Visual Effects Society has recognized it, giving the show four awards at the 11th Annual VES Awards, more than any other television program.

It won four awards in the Broadcast category, including Best Visual Effects for their work in the episode “Valar Morghulis”, Outstanding Animated Character for the dragon training sequence, Outstanding Created Environment for Pyke, and Outstanding Compositing for the army of wights at the end of “Valar Morghulis”.

Many congratulations to the VFX studio, Pixomondo, who produced the vast majority of the special effects in season 2.

This is pretty cool: George R.R. Martin has signed an overall deal with HBO, according to Deadline’s Neelie Andreeva.

What does that mean? Per the article:

The official Game of Thrones Youtube channel has posted up a couple of clips from the upcoming season 2 collection (Pre-order: US Bluray, US DVD, UK Bluray, UK DVD), one of which I’m sure is new and features Rose Leslie as Ygritte giving a wildling’s perspective on the history of the Night’s Watch:

The other is another glimpse of the “Inner Circle” roundtable of actors and producers, featuring Lena Headey discussing her work with Peter Dinklage; think we’ve seen the last part before, and maybe all of it:

A new entry at the official Making Game of Thrones production blog provides some new information regarding filming in Iceland (which has been a topic featured both in a video blog and a new Bluray excerpt), as it reveals a bit about filming a scene among the wildling encampment where Jon is taken to meet actor Ian Whyte, who played Ser Gregor this past season (and a White Walker in both of the previous seasons):

What do we think this means?

This is a clever way to promote the forthcoming release of the Game of Thrones second season complete collection being released in the US on February 19th (Pre-order: US Bluray, US DVD, UK Bluray, UK DVD): My Watch Begins, a website where fans can record their taking of the oath of the Night’s Watch, led by Jon Snow himself. Very fun, especially as you can mix in other voices with your own, creating a legion of men (and women!) taking the black. It also looks like some special event is being planned in New York City on the 18th if you click the #taketheblack hash tag link at the bottom of the site. A mass oath-taking in Central Park, maybe?

UPDATE: Here’s a promotional video tied-in to the new online experience that Campfire have made:

And speaking of Jon Snow, here’s another preview of the extras that are coming on the Blu-ray set (which we’re hoping to get a review copy of in the next couple days—stay tuned!), courtesy of MTV, where Kit Harington discusses just how cold it can get in Iceland: