Westeros

It took awhile, but we managed to get our annotations from the excellent, minute-long third teaser all sorted out. You can find them starting from this page of our Previews gallery. Hope you enjoy them, and remember, next Sunday will bring us the 10 minute “Inside Game of Thrones” feature!

The brand new teaser is out, and Making Game of Thrones has kindly placed it up on the web for all of us to enjoy!

What’d you think of it?

You can find our annotated stills starting here.

For those wondering, the music from the trailer was provided by Sencit Music, who’ve provided scoring for teasers including Inception.

We have completed annotating the latest two Artisans videos (featuring set decorator Richard Roberts and weapons master Tommy Dunne), starting from the second row of our Behind the Scenes gallery. Some terrific details here, from shots of the Red Keep’s interior to a myriad of amazing weapons including Ice and Needle.

Remember, this evening HBO will be airing a brand new teaser for the show, and we’ve already annotated the preview for next Sunday’s “Inside Game of Thrones” as well as the brand new, high-res gallery of production stills featuring many favorite characters.

Making Game of Thrones has kindly shared the promo for the upcoming “Inside Game of Thrones” promotional documentary due next Sunday, December 5th. Here’s the embed. Our annotated screencap gallery can be found in the Previews section of the gallery, starting here:

EW’s exclusive images are now available at Making Game of Thrones. We’ve also placed them in our own gallery, with commentary concerning the appearances of costumes and locales that may be of interest.

More gallery images to be added soon, we hope.

HBO has clarified that the promo showing up tonight before the 8PM film is, in fact, a promo spot for the Inside Game of Thrones 15-minute program which we’ve already reported on. It may well contain some new, quick shots that give a sense of what the promo piece will show on December 5th before the Boardwalk Empire finale, but it’s not the promised 3rd teaser.

Instead, the new 3rd teaser will start airing on Sunday, not Saturday. Again, we fully expect it will air just before or just after Boardwalk Empire, but we’ll try to get more specific information.

HBO has not only confirmed last night’s report of a 15-minute long “Inside Game of Thrones” program on Sunday, December 5th, but they’ve also revealed that there’s going to be a brand new teaser scheduled to air this Saturday and

Sunday.

We don’t have specific times as of yet, but we’d expect the teasers to air in the vicinity of major original programming (after or before this weekend’s Boardwalk Empire seems a likely bet), and in any case we’re told that they will be placed on the Making Game of Thrones site in short order. Expect Westeros.org to provide its usual embedded links and thorough analysis when we get a hold of them out here!

Additional: HBO indicated to us that it will run just before the 8PM film, so we’re thinking tuning in at 7:45 would be a good idea to make sure you don’t miss it on your TV screen.

Thanks to a tweet, it seems we’ve discovered that HBO is getting ready to roll out the big promotional guns for Game of Thrones starting December 5th, which happens to be the finale of their big costume drama, Boardwalk Empire. At first there was some confusion… but a quick check with ogebaba led me to HBO’s on-line schedule. Put in Game of Thrones and what you get is two showings on Sunday, at 8:45 and 11:45, of what’s said to be a 15 minute program. You can see the initial listing here. The program description is, “A special sneak preview of the highly anticipated HBO series Game of Thrones”.

After that, the program will be put into regular rotation at least through January 6th, though it’s listed as being 10 minutes there. At a guess, the 15 minute version could contain some exclusive, one-time extras like a scene… or it could be material connected to Boardwalk or other programming. Regardless, at least 10 minutes of Game of Thrones-centric material seems a shoe-in.

The question is then ... what’s the material? At a guess, we’re likely to see some of the Artisans material, at least, which has not been aired on HBO as far as we know. But it seems quite likely that there’ll be at least something new as well.

Thanks to long-time forum member ogbebaba for tipping us off!

Needle, an officially approved replica of Arya Stark’s sword, is on sale through the holidays thanks to Valyrian Steel. Designed and produced with George R.R. Martin’s direct input, this is the only such replica of Needle currently available to be purchased. If you’d like to see pictures and ordering information, visit their store,

Via “Not a Blog”, George informs fans that a report and video from Fantasy Flight Games following their Days of Ice and Fire event have been posted. The video’s quite cool, featuring GRRM’s remarks on his cameo in HBO’s Game of Thrones, a few examples of name pronunciations, and remarks from a panel including two of his Wild Cards collaborators, Melinda Snodgrass (who’s just posted some interesting thoughts on Dragon Age 2) and Ian Tregillis.

You can find these reports (plus the video), along with other Days of Ice and Fire reports, at the So Spake Martin collection.

George R.R. Martin has confirmed that David Bradley, best known as Harry Potter’s Argus Filch, has been cast as Walder Frey. See our previous post on the matter.

In that item, we also noted GRRM had confirmed that the role of Donal Noye was not being cast, at least not for this season. However, HBO has confirmed that Andrew Wilde (via Winter is Coming. Tobho Mott is the wealthy foreign armorer who is visited by Lord Eddard during his time in King’s Landing. Scenes featuring him, and Joe Dempsie (cast as his bull-headed apprentice Gendry), were already filmed in Malta some weeks back.

That’s where GRRM’s clues seem to be pointing that way, as a number of fans have been commenting on the web and Twitter. David Bradley, presently best known for his role as Argus Filch in the Harry Potter films, fits the clues to a tee. Born in 1942, the actor was part of Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre (hence the Olivier name check), played Cohen the Barbarian in one of the Pratchett adaptions (Cohen being a parody of Conan the Barbarian, presently being played by Jason Momoa, aka Khal Drogo), was in Nicholas Nickleby (Dickens), Vanity Fair (Thackeray), and been in an adaption of The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer).

It’s an interesting choice, in that the actor is about twenty years younger than Lord Walder is in A Game of Thrones, but his acting credentials can’t be denied, including a 1991 Olivier Award for his portrayal of the Fool in King Lear with the Royal National Theatre. Below is a clip featuring him in a similar role, as Henry VIII’s fool, Will Somers, in The Tudors:

As an extra note, in the comments to his post, GRRM notes that Castle Black’s one-armed blacksmith, Donal Noye, is not appearing (at least not in the first season). I’ve heard that Tyrion Lannister will be getting much of his role in the first novel (don’t worry, he’s not losing an arm!)

New clues have appeared on George R.R. Martins’s “Not a Blog”, and it seems clear they’re for a role that’s been much speculated: Lord Walder Frey. The clue is as follows:

This is one I’ve been asking for for awhile, and boy, am I happy to see it. HBO’s Making Game of Thrones has posted a brand new Artisans video, this one featuring weaponsmaster Tommy Dunne as he discusses—and shows—a number of weapons made for the series. Among them, one can see Ser Gregor Clegane’s greatsword standing next to Eddard Stark’s Ice, Ser Waymar Royce’s amber-encrusted sword, and more:

Look particularly closely at the weapons behind Dunne at the opening. There’s one balde that looks as if it has ring guards on it, and it’s quite slender and long… is that Arya’s sword, Needle? I am suspicious!

Edited: My speculation is confirmed by a little bird—it is, indeed, Needle.

Natalia Tena, cast in the role of the wildling spearwife Osha after wowing the producers with her audition, is off to Belfast to film more scenes for HBO’s Game of Thrones. This news comes via the official Twitter account for Molotov Jukebox, the band which Tena is lead vocalist for. You can watch their latest video for their song “Laid to Rest”, with a saucy performance from Tena, right here:

Tena has also resumed her supporting role of Tonks in the latest installment of the Harry Potter saga, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.

Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain that Rides, has climbed over the corpses of his enemies to reach the championship of Suvudu’s Villains Cagematch 2010. His final opponent? The Reaper, from the works of Terry Brooks. Suvudu has a great write-up of how they think the battle would go… except for the fact that they have the end result wrong. ;)

Want to weigh in? Vote now!

Although filming in Malta has already wrapped, the latest “Dispatches from the Seven Kingdoms” post by Bryan Cogman is from nearer the start of shooting. He discusses an important showdown in Episode V that features some impressive swordsmanship. The walled medieval town of Mdina serves as the locale for a number of King’s Landing exterior shots, and is one of many locations to be used by the production on Malta and the neighboring island of Gozo.

One notable part is his description of what the various directors were doing at that time. While we already have the precise breakdown of which director is directing which episode, getting a sense of when the blocks were overlapping at various stages is interesting:

I’ll be here for about three weeks for the first block - Episodes III through VIII (Brian Kirk and Dan Minahan directing).  Filming on Episodes I & II continues in Belfast (Tim Van Patten at the helm) and Alan Taylor has begun prep on Episodes IX and X.  Needless to say, it’s a lot to keep straight.

It’s amusing that he’s re-read A Clash of Kings five times so far (as of that post)—quite a lot of cramming involved in his role as the keeper of the mythos.

In his latest “Not a Blog” post, George R.R. Martin discusses his catching up on the football games he’s missed over the last few weeks while overseas. At the very end, there’s a small note regarding A Dance with Dragons: “Meanwhile, in Westeros, I am wrestling with krakens.”

HBO’s Making Game of Thrones site has a new photo up from the set:

Click through to see our discussion of just what we’re seeing, but lets just say it’s an important dagger, and an equally important book on which it lies…

They also ask fans to share their views as to what other props they’d like to see. Here’s Westeros.org’s list:

• Dragon egg (one or all three)
• A dragon skull
• Notable weapons (Longclaw, Needle, an arakh, a dragonbone bow)
• Notable armor (the Hound’s helm, Gendry’s helm, Loras Tyrell’s armor)
• The Iron Throne
• The heart tree at Winterfell

Entertainment Weekly‘s print edition has hit the stands today (with this fetching series of covers that should be hard to miss), and inside it contains a bit more information (rather spoilerish, but so it goes) and several new photos from their exclusive. Below, we’ll discuss the new pictures, using the captions EW provides with each image.

Mark Addy, playing King Robert Baratheon (featured in one of EW’s new photos), is profiled in the York Press for his part in a Kidstory fund-raising event. However, there’s quite a lot of Game of Thrones commentary to start with, with Addy noting that he had just completed his last day of filming and is soon looking for a new gig (at the Moot, I asked him when he was done filming, but with all the noise it seems he thought I was asking when filming in general would wrap.) He reiterates that the series will film into December (we’ve been told by production members and GRRM that December 18-19th is the planned wrap date), and that he’s been told it will start airing in April.

He provides some insight into his role as Robert. Here’s some choice quotes:

Description sparse on this, as it appears to be region blocked so only those in the U.S. (and possibly Canada) can get a look at it. In any case, here’s an amusing interview with actress Amanda Peet, who happens to be executive producer David Benioff’s wife, trying to explain what her husband’s latest project, HBO’s Game of Thrones, is about. Because it’s off-the-cuff and because Fallon is a joker, well, there’s a few amusing stumbles.

Starts at the 25 minute mark:

Following up the amazing gallery of stills from the production, Entertainment Weekly now has a new report by Jennifer Armstrong with some details. There’s a reference to a “pivotal scene” being moved from Catelyn’s bedchamber to a meeting place, which we suppose means they’ve moved her receiving a certain message to the scene corresponding to her first chapter. If true, this is a rather interesting change, immediately introducing the main mystery of the first several novels.

Also, Jason Momoa is apparently naked more often than he talks (hah) and there’s references made to unicorns (which do exist in the setting, but probably aren’t anything like you imagine!)

Here’s the opening paragraph, clearly describing the scene in the godswood. I actually saw the heart tree’s face in the prop room at Belfast, but it was in fact from the pilot and they had redone it for the reshoots:

An exclusive gallery of stills from HBO’s Game of Thrones, complete with short blurbs from the actors, has gone on-line. A fair warning for those followers who haven’t actually read the books, though: there are spoilers. EW’s newsstand edition will have more information (and possibly additional photos)!

Lets comment (and link) those ten images:

• Night’s Watch Recruits: Here we see Kit Harington, John Bradley West as Samwell Tarly, and Josef Altin as Pypar in the courtyard of Castle Black. Now you, too, can see how muddy the grounds are! They’re dressed in a padded armor for sparring practice, as one can see other recruits going at it in the background.



• Men-at-arms of the Vale: Though Mark Addy is quoted on the horse riding scenes, this particular one comes from the Vale of Arryn, as one can tell by the blue banners. These appear to be the same men-at-arms as seen here. The figure in the lead is Ser Vardis Egan, captain of Lord Arryn’s guard, who we’ve been told has been given some of the role of the Blackfish in discussing matters of the realm and the Vale when Catelyn first arrives. Played by Brendan McCormack, you’ll see more of him later in EW’s final still.



• King Robert: Here we see Mark Addy at Winterfell, with a number of Stark guards behind him with the snarling direwolf of Winterfell on their shields. Their round shields, one notes, much as we’ve noted with the Valemen. A departure from the books, but a minor detail. Addy looks terrific in leather here. In the blurbs, he remarks on some early fan concerns that he’s best known for comedic roles, but having met him, I think fans are likely to be pleased with his depiction of this once-mighty king.



• Queen Cersei: Can’t have the king without very well having the queen. Here’s the beautiful Lena Headey (of The Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles fame) in costume, at what happens to be Winterfell’s Great Hall for the welcoming feast that the Starks throw for the royal party. That decorative piece in the background is quite impressive, I can say, having seen it up-close. as per the recent Artisan’s video, one can see that the Stark’s table is not so bounteous as that of King’s Landing (meat, meat, and more meat is the order of the day), and a lot more rustic. Cersei has quite a beautiful shawl, and light blue gown that we haven’t seen before.



• Ser Jaime Lannister: The Kingslayer in the flesh. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau plays Queen Cersei’s twin, one of the greatest, handsomest, and reviled knights in the realm. Despite this infamy, he is a knight of King Robert’s Kingsguard (although EW gives away the fact that he’s not very good at it), and wears the Kingsguard armor which we’ve discussed before. One extra detail? We’re told that his armor is gilded in ways that that of the other Kingsguard isn’t, which should be apparent in scenes, as a nod to the quite different gilded suit of armor he wears in the novels (eschewing the Kingsguard’s traditional armor). He’s wearing his equally-infamous sword, with an ostentatiously gilded lion’s head pommel and a very graphic hilt wrapping that I’ve never seen the likes of before. I had a chance to speak with one of the lead armory smiths for the production, and a lot of time and thought has gone into producing weapons like this.



• Lord Eddard Stark, Hand of the King: Here we have the incomparable Sean Bean as Lord Eddard at the small council’s chamber in King’s Landing, in a scene we suspect is the same as this teaser shot of what turns out to be a fairly tumultuous event in the novels. Julian Glover can be seen here as the aged Grand Maester Pycelle, one of the king’s councillors. For the uber-fans out there, you can just glimpse a part of his chain through the decorative carving of the king’s chair to the right.



• Jon Snow and Bran Stark: Lord Eddard’s bastard son watches his young half-brother Bran Stark (played by Isaac Hempstead-Wright at archery practice. This was possibly taken at Castle Ward, where a good deal of filming of Winterfell exterior scenes have been filmed.



• Daenerys Targaryen: A terrific profile photo of Emilia Clarke as the young Targaryen princess Daenerys, who is now also khaleesi of a barbaric Dothraki tribe after her wedding to Khal Drogo (played by Jason Momoa). Here we get a great look at the rough materials that the Dothraki wear, as we’ve seen before. The Targaryens are “the kingsblood, the old blood of Valyria, the blood of the dragon,” and so are marked both by an almost inhuman beauty, with purple eyes and silver-gold hair.



• Tyrion and Mord: Here we have Peter Dinklage as the Imp, Tyrion Lannister. The dwarf brother of Queen Cersei and Ser Jaime, he gets caught up in the webs of intrigue that develop through the series. Behind him is the gaoler (as it’s spelled in the books) at the Eyrie in the Vale of Arryn, Mord, played by Ciaran Bermingham. I can say that George and Parris were both very impressed with Ciaran in this role, having nothing but good to say. I’ve stood in the sky cell set—it’s a long, long way down… in the series, in any case!



• The Eyrie: And at last, I think the very watchful can figure out that here we’re in the High Hall of the Eyrie in the Vale of Arryn ... and it’s not a narrow, rectangular hall, but rather a great circular chamber. We marvelled at it as we were there, as it looks quite terrific. Besides Dinklage is Michele Fairley in the role of Catelyn Stark. A better shot of her can be found here. The armor of the Vale guardsmen is rather nice, but it’s Ser Vardis’s armor that really stands out here. It’s a full suit of plate armor, much as Ser Vardis is actually described as wearing, although McCormack is rather younger than the novel’s original version of the character, and his armor certainly looks amazing with these hammered bumps or pyramids (referencing the mountainous Vale?) all over it. It’s an exceptional example of the armorer’s craft.

We’ve been told that these images are exclusive to EW for the time being, but we should expect high-res versions at HBO.com in the future.

IDW’s first issue of George R.R. Martin’s Doorways should be available in local comic shops today (tomorrow in the U.K.). Personally adapted from his original pilot script, Doorways is drawn from a science fiction television series GRRM originated for network television. The series involved a young woman on the run from a parallel world, who ends up meeting an emergency room doctor and embroiling him in her race against those who are out to get her. The pilot was not picked up at that tume, but has been revived for this six issue miniseries. According to Martin, if the miniseries does well for IDW, an ongoing (or more miniseries) are a possibility, starting with adaptions from the other scripts that were written in preparation for an initial order of episodes.

Here’s a preview of the comic, courtesy of IDW:

A new anthology from John Joseph Adams, Way of the Wizard, contains a reprint of a classic GRRM story, “In The Lost Lands”, as well as reprinted stories from Ursula K. LeGuin, Robert Silverberg, Neil Gaiman, and many more.

A tweet from Jonathan Chang, Digital Media Coordinator as HBO’s Studio West, mentioned some interesting details regarding HBO’s Game of Thrones.

While tweeting back and forth, he offered this interesting detail for those who really want technical details on the production: the production is being shot digitally, using something like nine on-location Arri Alexa cameras. This is a change from the original pilot filming, where we reported that ARRICAM Lite and Arriflex 235 cameras were in use. As Chang noted (and as we’ve previously reported), much of the pilot has been reshot using this new system. Looking around, it seems like the Arri Alexa system went into production in late 2009. The Alexa is described as a system aimed at competing with the RED ONE system, shooting greater than 1080p resolution and aimed squarely at major theatrical and television productions.

By way of comparison, HBO’s Boardwalk Empire—with its first episode directed by executive producer Martin Scorsese—uses 35mm film with Panaflex cameras.

Some various tidbits from around the web:

• As of the 12th, filming in Malta seems to have wrapped, given this tweet indicating that much of the cast and crew had departed.


• GRRM has confirmed that the planned wrap date of filming is December 18th. Which is what I heard while in Belfast, but didn’t feel free to say. This means that we’re just a little over a month away to seeing the last scene filmed for the season!


• Reports from the Days of Ice and Fire, some of them touching on the HBO production, can be found at the So Spake Martin collection, and more have been shared over at Winter is Coming. Some notable details: we can confirm George told us that his cameo—shot in Morocco (IIRC, it was in the manse scene where Daenerys meets Drogo, not the wedding as others have been reporting)—was cut with all the rest of the Morocco footage, and has not been reshot; we can also confirm that the cast is huge, the biggest HBO has ever done ... and very possibly the biggest ever assembled for a regular hour-long series in the U.S. (bigger than Boardwalk Empire‘s 200 speaking parts? Yes.); don’t expect huge battle scenes ala Peter Jackson’s LotR (David Benioff mentioned much the same to a group of reporters I was tagging along with at Magheramorne), but do expect what they do show to be very well done (and not so light as Rome‘s first episode); and much more.


• Actor David Scott revealed via tweet that he played the role of Lord Beric Dondarrion in recent filming. It’s a small role this time around, but who knows what future seasons will bring.

For those wondering where the rest of my Belfast set visit reports have gotten to, there’s been a bit of a delay. This is, however, a potentially very cool delay, as it involves whether I might in fact be able to share some photos from my visit. But naturally, this takes time to get sorted out, so ... they’ll start up again as soon as things are worked out. Keep an eye out. :)

The So Spake Martin collection has been updated with a number of reports from the recent Days of Ice and Fire event. You can find them here, under the section for reports from signings and events.

Suvudu’s Villains Cage Match continues, with the Mountain that Rides against victorious after having smashed Gaius Baltar’s head in for him. Now his next challenge: the Terminator (T-800 model)! Suvudu’s own experts have made their prediction that the Mountain will prevail… but only votes from fans and readers can really decide the outcome, so vote now!

Our gallery has been updated with 34 new screencaps from three of the four Artisans behind the scenes videos released via HBO’s Making Game of Thrones website. We have added our commentary when we have something substantive to remark in, such as how certain costuming choices reflect Martin’s descriptions, details of heraldic depictions, or how architectural elements can be placed to specific historical architectural styles.

We hope to add the fourth of the Artisan’s video shortly.

Reports from Fantasy Flight Games‘s Days of Ice and Fire event, featuring GRRM, have started to come in thanks to Ice and Fire forum member the Mastiff. First off, we have non-spoiler Q&A discussion, with some amusing anecdotes. This will be added to the So Spake Martin collection soon.

And then… big, honking spoilers here, because this is an exhaustive report of GRRM’s reading of a chapter from A Dance with Dragons, featuring the onion knight, Davos Seaworth: Davos 2.

Thanks to the Mastiff, and everyone else who is likely to put in additional reports both from the event and the Brotherhood without Banners lunch with George.

Set decorator Richard Roberts provides a look into a particular sort of cuisine: prop cuisine, sometimes real food, often not. This new video at Making Game of Thrones is particularly rich in visual details, featuring images from the feasting tent at the tourney grounds outside King’s Landing, the Red Keep, Winterfell, and Castle Black. Having had a chance to visit the Castle Black set two weeks past, I have to say these shots of the mess hall and the courtyard outside capture spot-on the flavor of the locale. Particularly noteworthy for us is the description of King’s Landing as being towards a Mediterranean climate and cuisine, which while not strictly in keeping with the novels is certainly not very far off the mark. We’ll just imagine that couscous dish is a Dornish speciality that someone at court has a liking for (paging Ser Aron Santagar…)

For those interested in a look at food as described in the novels, check out this section of our Concordance, a project of ours that attempts to catalog every factual thematic detail revealed in the published books and stories so far.

Fans of the A Song of Ice and Fire series around the world have found inspiration in GRRM’s series, whether it leads to cosplay, fan art, game mods, and more. One area fertile for inspiration are songs inspired by the novels, and certainly several metal bands have taken up the cause, as have instrumental composers.

Songs directly taken from the novels, on the other hand, have been less common. Presented below are two very fine examples, however. The first, from the second Belfast Moot (my report on it can be found here), is a rendition of “The Last of the Giants” from A Storm of Swords, by Brotherhood without Banners and A Song of Ice and Fire forum member lilsisorcha:

When she started singing, I have to admit, the emotive lament of the song sent a shiver up my spine. Beautiful.

The next is a truly amazing rendition of “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” ... but in Spanish! It’s a remarkable version, not least because it’s such a lively song that seems absolutely right for a crowded feasting hall, with men and women slamming their fists down in time with the jaunty tune:

Have pointers to any other songs developed directly from lyrics in A Song of Ice and Fire? Note them in the comments!

In his latest “Not a Blog” post, George R.R. Martin reminds us that the anthology he’s co-edited with Gardner Dozois, Songs of Love and Death: All-Original Tales of Star-Cross Love, should be on bookstore shelves very shortly. Among contributors are Jacqueline Carey (with a story about Anafiel Delauney and Prince Roland, from her Kushiel series), Tanith Lee, Neil Giman, Jim Butcher, M.L.N. Hanover, Robin Hobb, and more. Martin provides a foreword.

In a similar vein, Tor is releasing a new edition of Wild Cards with a gorgeous cover by Michael Komarck. The first novel in a seminal shared-world anthology series created by GRRM and fellow writers, this new edition features three all new stories by Carrie Vaughn, Michael Cassutt, and David Levine.

There’s a couple of Game of Thrones relevant articles out of the U.K. press this morning that may be of interest. The first, reported at 4ni, covers a set visitmade by Northern Ireland’s First Minister and Deputy First Minister. Naturally, it refers to the economic value of having the production in Northern Ireland, but adds the detail that the production could be present for as long as a decade if it’s a success (this is probably drawn from GRRM’s remarks to UTV, and so were just off the cuff). Some of the other details—such as the reference to a move to Malta “soon”—are erroneous.

Besides that, the Essex Echo has an article about muscian Wilko Johnson, who was cast in the role of Ser Ilyn Payne, the King’s Justice. The article states:

Thanks to ninepennyking for the pointers.

Here’s a different sort of Malta report from Ty Franck, George R.R. Martin’s assistant. In it he discusses the things in his life that are, from his perspective, quite surreal in part due to his association with GRRM, including his trip to Malta. Drinking and having lunch with actors, discussing Converse shoes with an award-winning costumer (Michele Clapton), looking at hundreds of years old plate armor, and the following which he describes as the most surreal thing he experienced while there:

Franck’s debut novel, Leviathan Wakes (co-written with Daniel Abraham, under the shared pen name of James S.A. Corey) is due to be published in June of next year.

For fans in Minnesota, Fantasy Flight Games’s upcoming November 12 - November 14 “Days of Ice and Fire” event will be a great chance to meet George. A schedule has been published, including signing sessions on Friday and Sunday, plus a reading, seminar, and panel on Saturday including fellow authors (and Wild Cards collaborators) Melinda Snodgrass and Ian Tregillis.

Members of the Brotherhood without Banners have been working to organize a get-together at the event, more details of which can be found here.

HBO’s Making Game of Thrones website has been updated with a few choice quotes from the set, provided by Bryan Cogman. Among them is a new phrase in Dothraki (without a translation) and some corpse feng shui. Only on a set!

Suvudu’s latest cage match series focuses on villains, and representing George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is the Mountain that Rides, Ser Gregor Clegane. He’s defeated Dracula and Morgan le Fay in his last two matches, but now he faces his biggest challenge yet:

Gaius Baltar, the sleazy, self-aggrandizing celebrity scientist of Battlestar Galactica.

Voting on the result of the cage match continues through Thursday. The winner of this contest—and we’re sure it’ll be the Mountain, right?—will go on to face the winner of the contest between the T-800 Terminator and Fenris the Feared. The Terminator seems to be winning that one handily, but if you have the time to vote, we urge you to vote for the Feared, one of Joe Abercrombie‘s more memorable villains.

In any case, go and vote for the Mountain!

Stuart Levine at Variety interview HBO’s co-president Richard Plepler and programming president Michael Lombardo (who’s been a good source for Game of Thrones information) about their programming plans. Much of it deals with the challenges of programming when they have so many high-quality original series, mini-series, and documentaries, and having to turn away interesting, high-quality projects because they simply don’t have the room in their schedule.

They do discuss Game of Thrones to some degree towards the end of the interview, where they confirm it will air in the 2nd quarter. Here’s a few quotes:

Three new pieces of casting have been confirmed by HBO. First up, they have confirmed that Brian Fortune has been cast as “Night’s Watch Officer”, but that his role will basically fill that of the First Steward, Bowen Marsh, from the novel. Fortune has an official site here, and a showreel .wmv file here.

Besides this, the roles George had hinted at as being near to being announced—the wildling Stiv and Ser Kevan Lannister—are now filled. Stiv is played by Stephen Don, a Northern Irish actor. As to Ser Kevan, the younger brother and right-hand man to Lord Tywin, he’s played by Ian Gelder, who U.K. viewers may recognize from a number of genre TV show roles such as Torchwood and Robin Hood.

Here’s Gelder in a tribute video to his notable turn as Mr. Dekker in Torchwood: Children of the Earth:

ETA: Oh, and missed one, Hugo Culverhouse is cast as a stableboy. One with a brief, but rather final, scene.

Just have word in from HBO that the focus groups, which were scheduled to assemble next week, is now postponed. Everyone who has been scheduled to participate will be on the top of the list to be contacted to see if they’re available on the new date. So, if you’ve been selected, hang tight and wait to hear back from the market research group.

Subterranean Press is selling a limited, illustrated edition of Jeff Vandermeer’s story (published by WSFA Press) for George R.R. Martin’s and Gardner Dozois’s award-nominated anthology in tribute to Jack Vance, Songs of the Dying Earth. This is the original form of the novella, titled The Three Quests of the Wizard Sarnod, that Vandermeer wrote as the published version in the anthology was somewhat shortened. As Vandermeer explains:

Subterranean reports there’ll only be 500 copies of this book, and that Vandermeer limited editions tend to go fast.

This is a detour from my set visit reports. You can get to the last segment before this by going here to Part 3.

I had made grand plans to go out for dinner at a well-reviewed restaurant after getting back from Magheramorne ... but after witnessing the traffic and realizing just how much I wanted to share with Linda (including uploading some photos for Linda to oogle over), I grabbed a quick bite at the Subway near my hotel instead. A couple of hours later, refreshed and ready, I took the short walk to Robinsons Bar where the Brotherhood without Banners had taken over the basement bar, dubbed BT1 (after the street code for the City Centre). Outside, I saw HBO’s representative with a reporter and cameraman from UTV who were waiting for George. A slight miscommunication led to a little delay prior to his arrival, and I soon joined Parris and some of the other BwB members to collect decorations and prizes for the charity raffle which the BwB was holding.

We got things set up just in time for George’s arrival, with many cheers and applause from the crowd. There were many extras present, many fans, and one very noticeable actor: Kristian Nairn, who plays Hodor. I ended up meeting some of the fellow GoT-watching fans, who were all very hospitable and pleasant! Among them was Joe Campo, an American actor/filmmaker and Belfast resident who’s made a quest of getting cast on the show, and it sounded to be like he was getting closer thanks to advice from GRRM. At some point in the evening, a number of actors started to arrive, and after this point I sort of start to get fuzzy on the conversations I had and their order. So what I’m going to do is just try to run through the actors I spoke to, and my impressions of them, as well as anything interesting regarding the production they mentioned. This will be in very rough order:

Voyager, George R.R. Martin’s publisher in the U.K., has informed Westeros.org via via Twitter that they’re going to have a meeting with Sky (the U.K. broadcaste with rights to Game of Thrones) with the intention of sorting out plans to re-release A Game of Thrones with a media tie-in cover, much as Bantam will be doing in the U.S. in March. This edition would also feature brand new typesetting. They also noted to us that “properly proofread” ebooks (unfortunately, the U.S. editions—at least in the Kindle format—have introduced many typos into the text) are in the works, and clarified that these would be coming out well before Spring. They explained that usually, the process of converting to e-book is done out of the sight and hands of the editors, but that in this case Voyager is making a special effort for George.

This was all prompted by this tweet: “Also v busy prepping for THE George R. R. Martin on Mon. Building a fort of A Game of Thrones books around my desk. I think he’d be proud.” It looks like George will be in London for a day or two after taking leave of Malta, and doubtless will then be headed back home. His next public appearance will be at Days of Ice and Fire, a Fantasy Flight Games-sponsored event in Roseville, Minnesota.

Continued from Part 2.

Before we headed off to Paint Hall, though, we dropped by Fire and Blood production office. There, I finally got to meet Bryan Cogman, script editor for the series and right-hand man to the executive producers, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. I’ve sort of seen him as a kindred spirit, as he’s basically of keeper of the lore of the setting for the production, and is responsible for envisioning many of the little details that show up in the nooks and crannies (like a certain hefty book with a rather dry text). Bryan was very warm and welcoming, and didn’t seem to notice that I was looking past his desk at the concept art on his wall featuring things such as designs for Winterfell as well as a part of a storyboard of a very important scene (Bryan would later tell me that in many cases these were very early concepts and were no longer what was envisioned, but he kept them around because he liked how they looked).

George R.R. Martin has a “Not a Blog” post discussing the filming in Malta. It is a bit spoilerish for those who’ve not read the first book! He discusses where he’s watched filming set in King’s Landing involving Maisie Williams’s Arya Stark, as well as a scene featuring Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen “at the edge of the Dothraki sea”.

Not all has gone well. GRRM confirms reports we’ve had that a unexpected, massive rainstorm washed away a Dothraki encampment set. Also, a little tongue-in-cheek, he claims two actors have taken a “dislike” to one another and one was left bloodied after a fight ... which we’re guessing may be a reference to a fight scene mishap rather than any genuine hard feelings (we hope!)

Recently, reports in the Maltese press have been concerned with possible environmental damage caused by the production of HBO’s Game of Thrones at a protected site in Dwerja, which is where the famous Azure Window can be found and where a major Dothraki scene has been filmed (as previously reported). The location has certain fossil beds which were to be carefully protected by the use of tarps on which sand was poured, and that sand was then to be removed by manual equipment (spades and brooms). However, recent heavy rains hardened the sand and led a sub-contractor to bring in heavy equipment to remove it, which was contrary to the permit and could potentially damage the site.

When Fire & Blood Productions learned of this, they immediately called a halt to the use of heavy equipment. They have since issued an apology for the error, taking full responsibility for the sub-contractor’s error, and they intend to rectify matters. They also emphasize their “positive experience of filming in Malta” and their intention to continue to adhere to all the requirements placed on them for the benefit of the cultural and natural heritage of Malta.

Via the Rabbit, there’s a list out there of some of the sites where filming for HBO’s Game of Thrones will have taken place in Malta. We’ve already previously reported on the Azure Window location, which is also known as Dwerja.

Besides this, other sites include the medieval town of Mdina, Fort Ricasoli (which we’re told has a famous gate which has been used for the entrance into the Red Keep, or possibly into Maegor’s Holdfast), Fort Saint Elmo, the San Anton Palace and Gardens, the Verdala Palace, Fort Saint Angelo in Birgu (as an aside, this was also the location of a significant part of Dorothy Dunnet’s third novel in the Lymond series of historical novels, Disorderly Knights; we heartily recommend this series to fans of A Song of Ice and Fire), Fort Manoel, and the medieval walled city of Cittadella on Gozo in the Maltese archipelago,

The area of Rdum id-Delli was also considered, but then the production appears to have sought permission to film in Mtahleb instead, although that is still pending.

Continuing my Belfast trip report. Here’s Part 1.

At breakfast, we met none other than Isaac Hempstead-Wright, the younger actor playing Bran Stark. It seemed he had just wrapped filming at Castle Ward and was to head back home, though his mother, Helen—who was absolutely lovely to speak with—said she thought he had two or three scenes left to do for the series. Isaac was incredibly sweet and polite, making a point of getting my name exactly right and using it. They left us to get ready to go, and not long after Parris departed to layer up for the Paint Hall and Magheramorne visits. George and I discussed the world book (during which I learned something about one of the characters who’ll appear in the three Dornish chapters he’s moved to The Winds of Winter) for a few more minutes before moving on ourselves, and I went downstairs to wait for them and our transportation. Fortunately, Isaac and his mother were also in the lobby, waiting for their pick-up, and I had a great conversation with them.

I was off in Belfast when this report came in from a Russian fan who happened to be in Malta when filming of Dothraki scenes were taking place. 7kingdoms.ru shares the report, with Westeros.ru providing Westeros.ru the English translation. It’s a terrific piece of reporting as they paid close attention to some of the details we’re all eager to know about, such as weapons and clothing. Regarding their description of the arakh, I believe we’ve glimpsed one previously.

Funnily enough, Linda sent me a text message about this report while I was visiting with Bryan Cogman, and I told him about it. He confirmed that they had been filming the wedding scene around that time, though on that particular day (Thursday) they had moved on to something else.

One last detail I should note is I have a separate report in from someone who was at the Azure Window who confirmed that they were, indeed, shooting right down by the shore.