Westeros

Not a sneak preview, but something potentially just as cool. The Studio Booth, a company specializing in “multidisciplinary event photography company specializing in customized interactive photo experiences”, has tweeted that they’re going to be at Wondercon in San Francisco from April 1st to April 3rd, and they’re clearly going there on behalf of HBO to promote Game of Thrones.

Looking at the Exhibitor’s List at the Wondercon site, we notice HBO is listed as having booth #341, so we’re guessing where that’s going to be. In the S.F. area, or planning to be at Wondercon? Go check it out and report back!

Edited to add: Someone working at Wondercon—probably in getting it set up for tomorrow—has spotted the Iron Throne!

6 hours left to go in the Suvudu cagematch between Jon Snow and Vin! Vin’s 4,000 vote lead has whittled down to just under 1,000, but Vin’s supporters are rallying more support and the rate of gain has slowed down. Time to redouble our efforts in a final push to get Jon over the top! Despite the current standings in the Quick Ben vs. Perrin match, it seems to us that once Jon contest is decided, WoT fans everywhere will turn their attention to that contest and quickly swamp the wily, many-souled mage…

Which would then mean Perrin could face Jon in the final, a contest so even, so well-matched, that it seems like destiny!

In the first Cagematch, Jaime Lannister only had his wits and his not-very-good swordhand to deal with the Dragon Reborn himself, Rand al’Thor, and that was neck and neck until it ended in Rand’s favor. The following Cage Match, Gregor defeated all the villains ... only for The Powers that Be to decide Rand could go out a second time, and it simply was no surprise whatsoever that the Dragon Reborn crushed the Mountain that Ride.

Are we going to let that happen again? I didn’t think so. Take the black and defend the Wall:  Vote Jon!. Get your friends, family, co-workers in on it—and casual strangers, people you accost at the local internet café, captive audiences in the elevator, and anywhere else you can find them, for that matter…

Vin delenda est... because Winter is Coming.

(Image © Jenny Dolfen)

HBO has been giving fans a lot of new things to look at! First up are these house wallpapers, featuring the Great Houses that figure in some significant fashion in the first season—no Tyrells or Martells… yet. We rather love the Arryn, as it gives us a less stylized design. There’s no moon, of course, where there ought to be, but that’s pretty good; now, if only they’d just do it as George intended…

And besides that, there’s a number of videos at the GameOfThrones Youtube/ that appear to either have been quietly updated or uploaded. Arya and Sansa can now be seen in their full, 720p glory, and most significantly of all, an 8+ minute video on the costumes that’s very insightful regarding the thinking behind Michele Clapton’s approach.

Over at the Daily Beast, George R.R. Martin has been invited to share his top 10 science fiction films. It’s a pretty good list, and at the end GRRM includes a number of honorable mentions. Although calling 2001 boring, and not mentioning Gattaca at all, strikes me as black mark against him! Forbidden Planet is, on the other hand, definitely worthy. As is The Empire Strikes Back, regardless of those who claim that it’s not actually science fictio (*shakes fist*)

Check back to the Beast next week, when George shares his top 10 fantasy films. If Hawk the Slayer is on it and Excalibur isn’t, we’ll have words…

I was invited back to the second “Guys Night Out” podcast from the fine folks at the Podcast of Ice and Fire, along with Apocalypse Dan of the Movie Night Podcast and Winter is Coming’s Fire and Blood (aka FaBio), joining regulars Amin, Kyle, and Chase.

We cover a diverse range of topics: beverages in Westeros, some actual news discussion concerning Cyandie Studio‘s RTS and RPG, various characters and events, the TV show, and ... well, a lot more. Quite a lot more; it ran some 3 hours, I’m told (haven’t dared listen to the whole thing!)

Being a “guys night out”, I suppose it’s fair to say it may on occasion be crass, bawdy, and occasionally juvenile… but all in good fun, and there’s some interesting theories and speculations bandied about.

After having crushed all of his competition, Jon Snow faces his toughest challenge in the Final Four of Suvudu’s 2011 Cagematch… and it’s not going well. Supporters of Vin—rallied by Brandon Sanderson’s Wheel of Time-inspired followers—have surged into the vote, adding thousands of votes in mere hours and swamping the competition in her favor! We’re now chipping away at it ... but we could do more!

Even Sanderson once remarked he would like to see a Jon and Perrin final, which seems very likely to happen as Perrin’s likely to trounce his Final Four opponent. Two heroes, friends to wolves, sword to ax (or is the hammer, at last?), to decide the fate of ... well, the 2011 Cagematch, anyways. Fun, yes, in a pure, unadulterated geeky way? Yes. Yes, it is. Support the dream!

Are you going to let the Wall fall because you couldn’t muster fifteen seconds to go to the page and vote? NO! Good to hear…

... and go vote now!

Videos that were earlier Comcast exclusive are now starting to appear on the official Youtube channel, including profiles for Jon Snow, Queen Cersei, and King Robert, plus a 3.5 minute long “Invitation to Westeros” piece. For those who’ve had trouble seeing the profiles on HBO’s own site, this is an excellent option for seeing them! Unfortunately, some of the latest videos are not in the 720p we’re accustomed to; those are probably exclusive to Comcast Xfinity for the time being.

Via Twitter, @Brandon_Postal shared a word cloud made of A Game of Thrones, which he noted showed quite how significant Jon was ... or at least the word; we rather suspect that many mentions of Jon Arryn added to the imbalance. The font size of individual words show their frequency, with the largest font size used for the most used word (that isn’t an article and other such things).

He provided further word-clouds for A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows, which shows word frequency in each of those novels.

This led me to wonder at a progression series, that could show the shifting prominence of certain characters or things based on frequency of mentions, starting with AGoT, then AGoT and ACoK, and so on until the last cloud covered all the novels published to date. He happily obliged: Books 1 and 2, Books 1 through 3, and A Song of Ice and Fire published to date. Some interesting data can be mined from it, if you stare at it long enough (Robert and Stannis are almost equally mentioned in the whole series, at this point), but it’s mostly some fun trivia.

HBO has heeded the call, and have now placed the main one-sheet plus the additional character posters up for sale at the HBO Store. Want Ned, Dany, Jon, Robert, or Cersei on your wall? This is an excellent way to make it happen. I’d suggest figuring out some order of precedence so that no one’s at anyone else’s throat… which is probably a tall order, all considered. Or is it?

One supposes Dany, Ned, Robert, Jon, Cersei would be relatively uneventful…

Yeah, okay, that was geeky.

Back in September, Northern Ireland Screen, who played a leading role in bringing Game of Thrones to Northern Ireland, had a board meeting where it was revealed that a “2nd series for Game of Thrones was already under strong consideration.” It went on to state that “securing” that season to be produced in Northern Ireland could well depend on the NI Screen hurrying along the process of expanding studio space by Summer 2011.

The fifth and final puzzle of the Maester’s Path has now gone live! With each of the previous puzzles having covered four of the five senses, this one deals with the last sense left: taste. And it ties in, thematically at least, with HBO’s taste experience that’ll be playing out in New York City and Los Angeles over the next couple of weeks, as award-winning chef Tom Cochillio of Top Chef has planned out the menu.

And just in time for that, today happens to be the first evening for the food truck in New York City. At last report, it will be somewhere in the vicinity of Union Square at 6PM. The menu for today is inspired by King’s Landing and features trout, rabbit, and (of course) lemon cakes, a brief video describing it that we’ve embed below, plus the full menus for all five days of the experience… which are necessary to solving the puzzle!

ETA: Steve Coulson of Campfire says to read the clue very carefully. And then he noted that “before the fold” was very important. Which leads one to folding… and look, each menu has fruits, some of which are sliced and some of which are not. And the slices line up pretty well, as if directing you how to fold… Once you have the answer, type it in after the test starts and you should see quite a nice scene!

We had it as unconfirmed, but it’s now confirmed that the Orbit Showtime Network—leading provider of television and film by satellite to most of North Africa and the Middle East—will be carrying HBO’s Game of Thrones beginning April 20. Notably well ahead of some other markets, including major European markets! According to the release we’re linking to, it will air at 22.00 with what seems to be a repeat in the early morning at around 3.00.

We have updated our International Air Dates listing accordingly.

GRRM has given an update on the current state of A Dance with Dragons (US, UK), noting he’s finished two more short chapters (with more on the way), and that the book has now grown to just over 1600 manuscript pages. By my estimate, this means the book would—with standard font and gutters—be over 1,000 pages in length, easily making it the longest book in the series. How many more chapters left? We’re not sure, but given that he hears the biplanes approaching “Kong”, it’s looking good.

In comments, he notes a few other things, such as emphasizing the fact that most of the chapters of the manuscript are already fully edited, so it’s only the new chapters that will need work from his editors, and that the fact is that publishers can turn around a book very quickly indeed if they a mind to do it (and in this case, they do), so the July 12 date remains quite firm. Until then, here’s a blog post at Suvudu from his U.S. editor, Anne Groell, holding the completed-to-date manuscript. Now, Anne’s not tall, by any means, but that should give a pretty good idea of just how many pages there are in the book.

After the press release with two new screen shots from A Game of Thrones: Genesis, we thought there’d be news for a little while ... but we were wrong. Factornews in France, who shared the first preview with screenshots of the game, have now posted a similarly extensive preview of the real-time-strategy game.

Dark Sword Miniatures have released a flurry of new figures by Tom Meier in the George R.R. Martin Masterworks series, and these are particularly terrific: Bronn, Benjen Stark, Lysa Arryn, Maester Luwin (already previewed by GRRM), and perhaps best of all, young Robert at the Trident. George notes in his post about the new figures that more are already under way.

Publisher Focus Home Interactive have released two new screenshots from Cyanide Studio‘s forthcoming A Game of Thrones: Genesis real-time strategy game for PC. Featuring the Wall and the Eyrie, the images give more of a sense of the scale and style of the game. Also included was a promotional image by Marc Simonetti, who GRRM recently announced as the 2013 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar artist. The full press release can be found below, while our fully gallery of available images can be found at the All Sorts of Weird Stuff gallery.

Variety has a very interesting report on film and television production in Northern Ireland which touches on HBO’s Game of Thrones, and includes some interesting facts and figures. As we’ve previously discussed, the show’s budget has always been impressive, probably in the top quintile of all of HBO’s regular hour-long dramas (Rome certainly being at the very top end), but it seems it may have been even bigger than we were led to believe.

The HBO store has been keeping itself busy, releasing more products out there. We knew that the shirts featuring the posters would be inevitable, of course. And there had been rumors of steins of sort being produced, featuring house imagery, to be released to coincide more or less with the launch of the show…

But it looks like they’re here early! The main body being either in black or white, the steins cover House Targaryen, House Stark, House Lannister, House Baratheon, House Tully, and House Greyjoy (which, for our money, looks particularly sharp!) What more does HBO have planned in the coming weeks? We shall see…

Absolutely terrific news from George at “Not a Blog”: Roy Dotrice, world record holder for his A Game of Thrones reading performance, and the very popular reader of the first three A Song of Ice and Fire audio books, is signed to read the next book, A Dance with Dragons!

As GRRM mentions, when Dotrice did not read the fourth book due to scheduling conflicts, hundreds of e-mails found their way to him asking after him and pleading for his return to the series, which helped make this possible.

Now, just to get him back on to Game of Thrones after health issues forced him to withdraw from the role of Grand Maester Pycelle at the last minute…

We’ve updated our international air dates listing now that reports are coming in from Israel that Yes! has revealed Game of Thrones will be airing April 21st, just four days after the U.S. premiere. According to a remark from Winter is Coming, this is an exceptionally fast debut for a foreign show in Israel, which is a good sign.

So far, not much more movement on many of the announced broadcasters with no solid dates, but we’re keeping an eye out. If anyone in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, or Italy could contact national cable and broadcast networks to see if they’re picking up the show and when they’ll air it, we’d be very interested in that information!

Rumors abounded of HBO preparing something very special, something that tied into the final link for the Maester’s Path, which had up to now covered four of the five senses. The last left? Taste.

According to HBO, Top Chef host and award-winning chef Tom Colicchio prepared special foods for five different regions covered in the series. Food trucks in NYC and L.A. would be going out, serving 300 portions of each dish over the course of two weeks, from the 28th to the 1st in NYC and the 4th to the 8th in L.A.. And how do you find them? You have to follow the Twitter or Facebook official pages to learn where the trucks will be each day.

Below are some additional details, an embed to a special HBO Buzz video with Chef Colicchio, as well as copies of the PDFs featuring his lemon cake(!) recipe as well as a sample menu.

It looks like Cyanide has been giving some sneak peek at the mysterious A Song of Ice and Fire roleplaying game they’re creating, to go along with the A Game of Thrones: Genesis RTS that we’ve reported on previously (disclosure: Linda and I have consulted for the game at an early stage, and are involved in some of the writing for it).

Two commentaries on what has been seen have been published, one by well-known French fan Evrach at La Garde de Nuit and the other—with some images!—has been posted by Factornews. Both are in French, but Evrach and Charles-Louis de Maere of Factor has provided us English translations which can be found below:

This week, we’re pleased to be able to share our interview with Kristian Nairn, the 7’ tall, Northern Irish actor, musician, and DJ who plays the fan-favorite role of Hodor. Almost 40 minutes long, the podcast interview covers a wide range of topics. We’ll note that at a couple of points, including one early on, Kristian’s voice gets rather fuzzy because of technical issues, but bear with it and it’ll clear up.

Listen to our interview, and if you haven’t visited before, poke around the Features section for additional interviews with John Bradley (Samwell Tarly) and Finn Jones (Ser Loras Tyrell), as well as articles on various topics related to the production.

Sky has announced a contest, with the grand-prize being:

The winner will enjoy unique accommodation for a week at the Killyleagh Castle Towers as well as a trip to Castle Ward and Tollymore Forest Park which was a major location while filming the show.

Sky HD’s tweet adds that the winner gets to take along three companions. By the looks of it, you’ll need to be a subscriber to Sky with a Sky ID to be able to enter the competition, which means unfortunately that this is limited to U.K. residents. That’s going to be an amazing trip we have to say! Castle Ward was the site of much of the post-pilot Winterfell filming, while Tollymore Forest Park was used for several different locations, including the haunted forest beyond the Wall.

HBO has snuck out a new Artisans video, this one with Gorden Fitzgerald, the props master. Some new shots from various locations, including a late-AGoT scene at Castle Black, and more glimpses of the Hand’s tourney, the Dothraki encampment, and more. Embed below:

HBO has sent along the hi-resolution of some of the amazing landscapes and buildings created with visual effects magic, which at 1080p should be perfectly suited to usage as wallpapers. We’ve added them—King’s Landing, the Wall, and two Winterfell images—to the Locations section of the Game of Thrones Gallery, the most extensive collection of screen caps and other images related to the series.

Also, I had not announced this previously, but the screen caps from the House Targaryen featurette are now in the Previews gallery, starting from this image.

Not only is Amazon.com carrying the A Dance with Dragons unabridged audio book (still no word on who’ll be reading it, although GRRM has made it clear that Roy Dotrice is his very strong preference), but it looks like April 12th will see the arrival of a re-packaged set of unabridged CDs for A Game of Thrones (less the article), featuring the TV show tie-in box art. Best of all, not only will it be available in the US, but it looks like Amazon.co.uk has a pre-order in place as well.

If you’re a fan of audio books, this is definitely one worth getting, not least because it netted Mr. Dotrice a Guinness-recognized world record for the huge number of characters he voiced in an individual and distinct fashion.

In other news, it looks like Voyager UK is preparing to release special edition of A Game of Thrones on July 12th, in conjunction with the release of A Dance with Dragons. The notable thing? Well, besides the price at £40, it’s a hardcover… which Voyager hasn’t produced of A Game of Thrones since the initial edition back in 1996. A sort of 15th anniversary edition? Perhaps.

HBO’s on a tear, promoting Game of Thrones with its character profiles and previews. Adding to the character bios, they’ve now added the Catelyn Stark profile video (which was already available via Youtube) to her character bio, Daenerys’s profile video featuring Emilia Clarke and some shots of the character we haven’t seen before via HBO’s good offices, and (last but not least) the “Power” preview, which covers a lot of the ground we’ve seen before ... but adds a pounding drum soundtrack (again, we’re certain this is not from composer Ramin Djawadi) and another few snippets that are new. Including a couple of scenes from the novels we’ve not yet seen.

See below for the embeds of the Dany and “Power” videos:

The immediate question that comes up after our reporting that Canal+ Sweden is showing the first two episodes of Game of Thrones in a Stockholm theater is… what about theatrical sneak peeks in the U.S.?

As if on cue, the Studio Movie Grill CityCentre theater in Houston, Texas has proved that, yes indeed, these will be coming. Via this image posted on Twitter, we have received one of the first looks into what one of these events would look like. So if you’re in the vicinity of Houston, check the image and submit your entry into the drawing for two reserved seats for the showing on April 12th, fully five days before the premiere on HBO.

As to other cities? Well, word is HBO has some plans afoot for some other major cities, so keep an eye out…

Canal+ Sweden is pulling out all the stops to promote its airing of Game of Thrones beginning May 4th ... including a sneak peek in a theater in Sweden’s capital city, Stockholm! According to the schedule for April-May, on May 3rd the first two episodes will be shown by Stockholm’s Cinemateket in the Bio Filmhuset Victor, starting from 6 PM.

Entry is free, according to the program. This airing is in collaboration with the Swedish film magazine Cinema. This is not the first HBO original program they’ll be playing in a theater, though—we couldn’t help but notice that the Kate Winslet-led miniseries, Mildred Pierce, is getting a sneak peek on the 19th.

Also, amusingly, on May 8th, Cinemateket has gotten it into its head to mark the occasion by having an 80’s fantasy film marathon: The Princess Bride, Legend, and Ladyhawke will play back-to-back.

It’s now live, and boy, it was a tough one. There’s really two parts to this puzzle, as you try and put pages from a journal observing the seasons back into some sort of order. Here’s some hints:

• It really does look like you can sort of decipher the texts—weird characters and all—if you know the names of the various houses represented on the pages, which the Heraldry section of the Citadel could reveal ... but we’ll just note them because, in fact, you do not in fact need to decipher the text: Baratheon, Bracken, Frey, Florent (although it’s the Florent fox, it seems what was in fact intended was Prester’s ox, because that’s the actual name under the shield), Greyjoy, Lannister, Mormont, Redwyne, Stark, Targaryen, Tully, and Tyrell.
• BUT, if you can take the time to decipher them, do so. The Tully text is a particularly nice to the recent history of Westeros!
• The easy part of the puzzle is figuring out which page should be uppermost between the front and back pairs. Look at the moonphases, and set them out so that the earliest part of the cycle is towards you.
• The hard part is deciphering the order of the various pages. The key to them? Look down at the bottom. Those are numerals, and given the fact that each pair shares the same numeral, we can guess they are not page numbers. Instead, they are probably years…
• And if they’re years, we know that the first digit—which is the same between all of them—must be either 1 or 2, making these pages covers the 100th-odd or 200-odd year since Aegon’s Landing (remember, it’s not quite the year 300 AL).
• Could the digits under the weather symbols be helpful? Maybe, if you can guess the season based on the weather, you can make a stab at what sort of temperatures (hot or cold), and narrow down the possibilities.
• There’s just seven digits in total used for the years, so you might be able to eliminate some from contention on that basis…

Not an easy puzzle, by any means, but a satisfying one to figure out!

HBO’s on-line schedule has reached May 3rd, and it reveals the title and run time of the third episode of Game of Thrones: “Lord Snow”, running 58 minutes. The title suggests a focus will be Jon Snow’s place at Castle Black.

HBO has just unveiled the character bio page at their official site, featuring short blurbs about each characters, some new character photos, and (best of all) short, 1-2 minute character feature videos. These seem to have been some of the Fancast exclusives, and are now becoming available more widely via the HBO site. Below are embeds of the currently available videos, covering King Robert, Ser Jaime, Tyrion, Jon Snow, and Bran.

Playing catch-up, we’ve now added screencaps from the Baratheon and Lannister featurettes, with commentary, to our Previews gallery, beginning here with the map of the Seven Kingdoms as the first image. A lot of great shots in this one, including a glimpse of what might well be Arya’s last scene in the first season (hopefully the first of many!), Lyanna’s effigy, and our very first look at Charles Dance as Lord Tywin Lannister.

Besides that, other areas of the gallery have had some additions, such as the Various section with the character posters HBO has released and the Characters section with some new shot of some of the leads.

Next up will be the Targaryen featurette as well as the Comcast-exclusive On Location video which Comcast made available via Youtube.

Check this out, folks!

The other day, a sharp-eyed fan noticed that Maester’s Path briefly revealed that this coming Monday’s 4th link was symbolized by a hand, which—given the sense-based theme—seemed a sure sign that “touch” would be a theme. And now it looks like they’ve rolled out an iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch app to go with it. Here’s a hint of what it’ll provide:

Choose a location in this weather-driven storytelling app (or use your built-in GPS locator) and view a scene from Westeros (and beyond) that matches the current weather of that location, whether snow, rain, sun or fog. Users also can select multiple locations and simply swipe between them to see a range of scenes, accompanied by onscreen temperature and time.

Suffice it to say, we’re jealous of those who happen to own a compatible Apple device. If you’ve got one, check it out, and report back on what you see when you play with it!

For those who might be concerned, this is a bit of entertainment to whet the appetite—it will not be necessary for successfully completing the Maester’s Path 4th link, which Campfire‘s Steve Coulson has promised will be the toughest challenge yet.

Canal+ Spain has released two interviews, with executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss in one and actor Peter Dinklage in the other, to go with their other efforts to publicize the show for the Spanish audience. See the videos below!

We’ll note that this past couple of days, U.K. (and possibly other, international) press were at a press junket in London with quite a few of the actors (Jason Momoa among them), and we expect to be seeing a lot more quick sound-bites and images like this blurb about Alfie Allen as Theon Greyjoy, which gives our very first look at the character with the bow he’s so skilled at using.

The flood gates are just about to open, folks.

IGN recently had an exclusive of the next four posters from HBO’s Game of Thrones, and now the Making Game of Thrones site has released them widely, and in super-high resolution. And as you can see to the right, they added a bonus fifth poster to the roster, featuring Jon Snow and a line from the vows of the Night’s Watch, “I am the watcher on the walls.” Great images, all, especially Daenerys with her dragon egg, and of course Cersei with that rather ominous dagger. The quote for Robert is a brand new one, not from the books, but it does rather seem to fit the Baratheon king.

In other, image-related news, George has a “Not a Blog” post featuring the HBO Shop display in New York City (photos sent by a fan or friend; he’s only in NYC “in his dreams”, he notes), which was rolled out yesterday morning. Featuring costumes, armor, and props from the production, it’s a great opportunity for visitors to the shop to get a close look at the production. Esc-Key on Livejournal has also posted some photos, with a nice commentary to go with it.

Finally, it seems Canal+ Spain has begun to release a few dribs and drabs for its promotion for Game of Thrones, which airs on May 9th in that country. Their Facebook album contains several promotional and behind-the-scenes shots we’ve not seen published anywhere else. The shot of the prop store brings back fond memories of my visit to the set; if you go all the way to the shelving in the back, that’s where the all the rolled-up banners I mentioned in my report were located, as well as the early prototype for the Iron Throne (with swords blazoned with “Kingdom of Heaven”, clearly originally props for Ridley Scott’s film).

Here’s Esquire’s interview with actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays the part of Ser Jaime Lannister. The Danish actor discusses fashion, the fact that he quails at the price tags of some high-end fashion items, and of course there’s a few remarks concerning Game of Thrones:

You walk on the set, and from the set designer to the costume designer, the whole thing transports you into this other world. So yes, it definitely helps you get into character. We were shooting in Belfast, it was raining and we were outside on horses, and I’m sitting there wearing my big armor. And someone brings you a coffee and you’re sitting and having a cigarette. It struck me how ridiculous my job is, at times. You know? All these grown-ups dressed up for Halloween.

There’s also a couple of pictures of Coster-Waldau in the April fashion feature from Esquire.

This morning, HBO’s GameOfThrones account tweeted that the HBO Shop on 6th Avenue & 42nd had a new display window featuring costumes, banners, and other items from Game of Thrones. We can see costumes belonging to Littlefinger, Cersei, what we suppose to be Jon (or a Night’s Watch recruit, anyways), and what we’re supposing to be Ned. Banners we can make out are Arryn, Clegane, what we assume to be the Mallister eagle, and a somewhat different design for the Greyjoys.

If you live in the area, make sure to drop by and check it out. And maybe pop inside, see what GoT memorabilia they have on sale, and maybe ask if they know about what’s going to be coming to the shop in the near future…

Edited to Add: In a new post at “Not a Blog”, GRRM shares some great pictures of the display, both outside and inside the store. Kingsguard armor, the Hound’s helmet, dragon eggs, and more!

The appearance of a smorgasbord of videos at Fancast was a tip-off that Comcast and HBO had decided to partner in releasing a lot of exclusive information to U.S.-residents (the clips are available only in the U.S.) and particularly to Comcast subscribers (with a number of special, extended-length videos available only on Comcast On Demand’s Top Picks). Comcast now makes it official, however, with this post indicating that it’s kicking-off a new partnership with all this Game of Thrones material, with the promise of more (including a video discussing the creation of the Dothraki language).

Comcast has released one of the videos to Youtube. This “On Location” piece has a few familiar scenes and interview clips, but there’s also quite a few new images and scenes to be seen as well!

Valyrian Steel, official producers of A Song of Ice and Fire-based weapons such as Longclaw and Needle, are now hard at work on the fourth weapon in the series while Ice is being manufactured. They announced earlier that next up was Robert’s warhammer…

... and now they’ve unveiled the concept art which GRRM has approved. To quote them:

In making this, GRRM typically had one piece of feedback for us “It needs to be bigger.” He said, so we kept making it bigger, the hammer head itself ended up pretty massive. So big in fact that it posed some manufacturing issues for us… George R.R. Martin says that this design is his favorite of the now 4 items we’ve done. I don’t remember the exact words, but he wrote something along the lines of “Yes yes yes!” when he first saw this concept art with the hand in for scale.

It’s an amazing design, and we can see why it’s George’s favorite. Wow.

Our second interview focused on HBO’s Game of Thrones is now live... and it’s audio, rather than written. Ulp. This is the first time we’ve ever done this, so be gentle in your critiques! Any faults in the interview naturally lie with ourselves, rather than Finn, who was very gracious in being our guinea pig!

Go ahead and listen to it here.

Although we’ve already reported the titles of the first two episodes, this new press release from HBO provides more detail, especially in terms of an extensive synopsis for “Winter is Coming” and “The Kingsroad”. The first two episodes were directed by Tim van Patten. There are some spoilers in these write-ups.

The Fear and Blood teaser has now been screen capped, with our usual commentary. Over fifty images from this one, with only a handful which closely duplicate anything we’ve captured before. Of particular note in this video are our first look at Winterfell from a distance, a beautiful shot of King’s Landing, and more. We have quite a bit to say regarding the Winterfell shot in particular, in relation to the books. All in all, this show is obviously going to be a feast for eyes!

You can find the start of the images here, and the first shot here.

HBO has now released several of the new featurettes which we’ve previously posted about as being available at TV.com, both the Baratheon and Lannister featurettes… and one that was not available there, featuring House Targaryen, which you can see embedded below. 720p is always nice to see!

To keep on top of the latest Youtube videos, we very highly recommend subscribing to GameOfThrones, the official Youtube account for the series

George R.R. Martin has just announced that plans are already under way for the 2013 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar, with French artist Marc Simonetti—known by fans for some of his beautiful covers for the French editions of the series—set to provide the art. An example of his art can be seen below. As we posted yesterday, the 2012 calendar by John Picacio is available for pre-order, and GRRM notes that Picacio has fully completed eight of twelve pieces, with two nearly complete and two at a rough stage.

In other, interesting news, George mentions that there are discussions at HBO to possibly create a Game of Thrones calendar which would feature photography of actors, scenes, locales, and the like.

And now there’s a veritable bonanza of new videos, as Fancast has many videos up in a clips section. Many of them are described as portrait pieces, highlighting a number of the significant characters of the series, including Daenerys, Jon Snow, and King Robert. Others are behind-the-scenes pieces, including 7 minutes on weapons and 7 more minutes of stunts and fight choreography.

Although it was suggested you had to be a Comcast subscriber to see the videos at this time, although some reports claim that’s not the case. Whatever the truth, it certainly seems those outside of U.S. (e.g. us) can’t see them, so here’s hoping that there’s a short exclusivity window and HBO will be releasing them soon! But for those in the U.S., or at least those who are Comcast subscribers, here’s a couple of embeds to whet your appetite

Oh, man, Christmas has come very early indeed, as TV.com has the first look at two of the forthcoming featurettes, featuring House Lannister and House Baratheon. See them below. The Lannister featurette gives us our first look at Charles Dance at Lord Tywin(!) and the Baratheon featurette gives us our first look at Gethin Anthony as Lord Renly and a brief glimpse at Eugene Simon as Lancel Lannister… at the boar hunt scene.

IGN has posted an exclusive gallery containing four, brand new official posters for HBO’s Game of Thrones. The posters feature quotes from each character. Ned gets, “Winter is Coming”, of course. Daenerys’s picture—which shows her with a dragon egg—has, “I do not have a gentle heart,” which is a new line (though may be referencing a line from Jorah in the novel). Robert’s is a new line, “Killing things clears my head,” as is Cersei’s, one which we’ve heard before, “Everyone but us is the enemy.”

It looks like these were taken at the same photo shoot where they shot the Iron Throne teaser. Terrific shots, and great quotes, that help give a sense of the characters.

I’ve received permission from HBO to post a few more photos that were taken by Parris McBride, GRRM’s wife, while we were visiting the production in Belfast. The image to the right may be of particular interest, depicting as it does the Scottish actor James Cosmo—probably best remembered by many film fans from his role a the elder Campbell in Braveheart—in full costume as Lord Commander Mormont. There’s also a photo of John Bradley-West and Mark Stanley together in the Castle Black set.

You can see these images from my set visit here. An index of my full reports, which feature some of these images as well as some choice selection of official images and screenshots, can be found here.

The L.A. Times pop culture site, Hero Complex, has a new story featuring Game of Thrones. With an extensive look at executive producers and lead writers David Benioff and Dan Weiss, this is certainly one of the most interesting articles we’ve read of late concerning HBO’s new series. We particularly like the suggestion at the end that both appear keen to remain as showrunners for the duration.

The Suvudu cage match challenge continues! Jon Snow put the hurt on Richard K. Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs, and now it’s on to the next challenge: Beowulf, the great Geatish hero of the old Anglo-Saxon epic. A worthy opponent, but can he stand up to a son of Winterfell with Valyrian steel in his hand and a direwolf at his side?

I don’t think so.

Go here if you’d like to vote, and read the commentary from Suvudu and their comments!

The U.S. tie-in cover for Game of Thrones now revealed and is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com and other retailers. Again, featuring the official poster art with Ned on the Iron Throne, it’s a strong image, although purists may take issue with the title losing the the article to match the TV series.

Taking a look at the entry also reminded us of the fact that the 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar is up for pre-order, featuring the stunning art of award-winning artist John Picacio.  We’re hoping that the next couple of months will provide us some more previews, but that image of Ned Stark with Ice in front of the heart tree of Winterfell is pretty amazing in and of itself…

And, via Olaf, it’s been noted to us that there’s a four book set now available, featuring the four new covers with some HBO trade dress on them. Rather handsome. You can see a mock-up of the box with the books in it here, from Random House’s catalog.

The third link in the Maester’s Path is now online! This is another great puzzle from HBO and Campfire, featuring the Night’s Watch and the Wall!

We’ve screen captured and commented the latest featurette introducing the Starks, and there’s certainly some great images of the characters, the locations, and some other odds and ends. Winter is coming indeed…

You can see the gallery (totalling 40 new shots—we avoided duplicating images we have from prior previews) starting here in the bottom row, with the first image being this image from the very cool map (hope they sell posters of these at some point!) that shows some of the locations in the Seven Kingdoms that fans all know and love.

We’re holding off on the screen capture of the “Fear and Blood” trailer for a bit, to see if HBO will release a 720p version.

Voyager has announced that the U.K. tie-in cover for A Game of Thrones—retitled Game of Thrones to match the HBO series’ title—can now be seen at Amazon.co.uk. Much as expected, they’re using the official poster art from HBO, featuring Sean Bean as Ned Stark on the Iron Throne. A great, moody image that’s sure to help sell books. HBO has recently released t-shirts featuring the image.

Big Download has a good interview with Regis Robin, the designer of Cyanide’s Game of Thrones: Genesis real-time strategy game. Some interesting details come out, such as the role that misdirection will play in the game and more about the historical setting of the game, which starts off 1,000 years prior to the time of the novels.

Making Game of Thrones has posted up two brand new videos, a teaser and a House Stark featurette! See them below:

Jamie Sives, who plays Jory Cassel, has been interviewed by SweetSigma, a fan of the actor and Sigma Films, with which he has been associated. Some interesting tidbits regarding his familiarity with the books, his fellow Scottish actors on the production, and more.

We had rather expected that HBO would find a way to get the official poster art into the hands of fans, but we had expected that to be ... well, with a poster. It turns out they have a better idea: a brand new t-shirt. It’s certainly a great shirt concept, with the Iron Throne and Sean Bean. You can find it, and some other terrific t-shirts, over at the HBO Shop.

Hopefully the wait won’t be too much longer for a poster, as we suspect that one will do brisk business for HBO.

GRRM has shared a couple of updates to his “Not a Blog”. Amusingly, the excellent actor (and friend of GRRM) Roy Dotrice has been awarded a Guinness Book of World Records entry for having voiced 224 unique, distinguishable characters for a single audio book: the unabridged Game of Thrones. George notes that Roy has almost certainly already broken this record, if not with A Clash of Kings, then certainly with A Storm of Swords.

As to A Dance with Dragons (US, UK), George has apparently vanquished a kraken… only to have another one “swarm up from the depths”, suggesting he’ll have to write at least one more chapter having to do with the ironborn. He notes that A Dance with Dragons has now surpassed the page count (in manuscript) of A Storm of Swords by some 30 pages.

HBO has released a new(ish) video to TV Com, iTunes, and possibly other videos. Using a lot of material we’ve seen before, it does also include a handful of new clips—including our very first look at Lysa Arryn and her son Robin on the weirwood seat of the Eyrie, a new shot of Khal Drogo, and a look at the men-at-arms of the Arryns riding up towards the screen.

This has been a pretty busy week for news on all fronts Game of Thrones, so we thought we’d write up one of our irregular recaps for those who fear they have missed something of interest.

Known as Samwell Tarly on the show, John Bradley is among a troop of young actors who’ve landed a role in one of the biggest television productions ever seen in Europe.

We had the opportunity to interview him concerning his budding career, his approach to acting, and his landing and playing the role of Jon Snow’ss best friend on the Wall. A gifted young actor practically fresh out of drama school, at the same time that he landed a significant role in Game of Thrones, he’s also playing a part in in Canal+‘s Borgia, in the role of Giovanni de Medici, and we’ll discuss some of his experiences there as well.

Read the interview!

Do we really have to say anything else? This is a gorgeous image, and sells the series very well indeed! A wistful, melancholy Ned, the Gothic Iron Throne, the sword, Cersei’s line, “You win or you die”... Perfect. This official poster will be used to publicize the series in the run up—just a bit over a month away - to the premiere of the show.

Any thoughts? Share them below! The one curiosity we have noticed is the fact that the sword is not Ice. It’s the arming sword that Ned uses instead, when he isn’t using the ancestral weapon. It would have been nice to get that in there. However, we’re guessing its size did not suit the composition very well, and it’s an excellent composition.

Oh, and it’s been pointed out to us that the crow… has three eyes (you see two, but one happens to be in the middle of its head!)

As we mentioned recently, Tor.com ran a poll asking for the best SF/F novels of the last decade (more or less), and A Storm of Swords landed at the #6 position. Tor sent out to various people to write appreciations for each of the selected works, and they very graciously approached Linda and I. You can read it here.

Focusing a bit on one particular event in A Storm of Swords, we tried to distill a bit of a sense of what it was like to first read that moment, and to be carried through it by one of the best authors working in the field.

For those who’ve coveted the Maester’s Path scent box sent out to a few lucky people (including ourselves) a few weeks ago, HBO and Winter is Coming have teamed up for a contest, a rare opportunity to get a hold of one of these exclusive items! Unfortunately, for legal reasons, the competition is for U.S. residents only (before you ask, that is also why Westeros.org—run by two people in miserably rainy, windy Sweden—won’t be offering any similar contest.)

Go over to WiC to earn more, and good luck to the contestants. We hope whoever wins will share a report of your impressions when you get it!

The Abducted web-comic, fun for geeks and nerds the world over, has a special A Game of Thrones installment today that’s rather amusing, especially for those of us wrestling with the question of how to deal with spoilers in relation to the TV show (Linda may have been too traumatized to finish A Storm of Swords, but she’s thoroughly spoiled on it, so not quite the same thing!) One of the co-creators, Aldrin, adds some additional thoughts on the subject, concerning an ultimatum to get the series time in done for A Dance with Dragons (US, UK).

This is not the first web-comic to reference the series, though, and we doubt it’ll be the last. Two of our favorites of the past can be found at Least I Could Do and Ctrl+Alt+Del, as well as M. Luisa Giliberti’s amazing series of chibi-inspired comics (note: contains spoilers from throughout the series).

The 5th and final part of my report, stemming from visit to Paint Hall and Magheramorne, is now up. It covers a long car-trip I shared with GRRM and Parris, in which we discussed several topics, and then my time spent watching some of the filming—and meeting executive producer David Benioff and several of the actors—at Magheramorne quarry, where Castle Black has been raised.

Below is a full index of the parts, from events from before the set visit (such as breakfast with George and first meeting Bryan Cogman) on through the whole visit, as well as a link to my Moot report from the same evening.

Subterranean Press—after a good deal of discussion, consideration, and canvassing opinion—has gone ahead and signed contracts to publish the first two volumes of the A Song of Ice and Fire limited edition. Full details are not yet available, but this is a very interesting turn of events.

When Miesha Merlin first published A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings as limited editions, few would realize at the time that the company would close down and the production would shift to Subterranean. In the course of the move, an incredible amount of numbered sets were “broken”—left incomplete—through various issues related to documentation and the like. The first two novels—illustrated, respectively, by Jeffrey Jones and John Howe—have become quite rare, especially when trying to match them up to broken sets; the numbered Game of Thrones has now hit four figures in value on EBay and at specialist booksellers.

In related news, the excellent artist Marc Fishman has over 30 interior illustrations completed for the limited edition of A Dance with Dragons, and will complete the rest of his work—including several full-color paintings—when he receives the finished manuscript for the novel, which is due to be published on July 12.

Suvudu has started its latest cage match series, this with a host of science fiction and fantasy favorites, and as has become a tradition, a character is once again championing A Song of Ice and Fire: Jon Snow.

In his first match-up, he’s paired off against Richard K. Morgan’s character Takeshi Kovacs, a man with a past in a future where a mind can be downloaded and placed in just about any body, introduced in Morgan’s amazing Altered Carbon (if you’re a fan of science fiction or of noir-style, gritty stories, definitely give this a try).  Personally, Jon Snow has Ghost… it’d have to be one hot, military tech-level “sleeve” (bodies in which one can be downloaded) to give Kovacs any chance in hand-to-hand. Suvudu’s write-up seems to agree. Do you? Go and vote!

You can see the rest of Suvudu’s cage matches at the bracket.

It’s gone live, and it features heraldry! Very pleased with this one, which is a “spatial audio experience” that moves you through the Inn at the Crossroads as you unravel a story and get hints towards where the various coats of arms should be placed.

Some hints:

• Notice the floor—the tree of arms is there, with each branch leading to a different table.
• Listen carefully at each station. Each one can give a hint about what region goes to what branch. They may clearly refer to one region, or they may refer to one of the sigils which can then tell you what region goes there.
• One of the hints is very important, because it associates a specific sigil to a very specific place. If you don’t place it there, you won’t solve the puzzle, even if you have it in the right branch. There is only one sigil that has to be placed that particularly. The other two branches, it only matters that you have the correct sigils for each of them.
• Sigils from four different regions are present, but only three regions are ever mentioned at all in the audio (directly or indirectly).
• Heraldry matters. Figure out which sigils belong to each region, and remember, one of the regions is a red herring.
Great fun, and great work by Campfire and HBO!
Posted at 16:52 CET by Elio
Game of Thrones | Comments: | PermaLink

For those in the U.S., the schedule at HBO.com is going to prove a regularly-visited place each Sunday, as it appears HBO will be revealing quite a few things that way…

For example… a 27 minute “Making Game of Thrones” program is scheduled for multiple airings, starting April 6th. We expect this to feature at least some new footage, while possibly mixing in some things from prior videos such as the Artisans (which, we believe, have never aired on HBO-proper).

And then on the 17th, Game of Thrones‘s first episode—apparently titled “Winter is Coming”, according to the listing—will be aired three times, from 9 PM EST through to 12 AM, giving potential viewers plenty of chance both to catch the show ... or, if you’re the die-hard fan we expect, to re-watch it a couple of times to make sure you have your fill.

Not too much longer, is it?

Hat tip to Winter is Coming for reminding us about the schedule.

We’ve put together a comprehensive list of air dates, covering every country we have an inkling of(or think we soon ought to have some knowledge of) in regards to the air date for Game of Thrones. We’ve broken it into several sections, from those that have locked in dates all the way through to those we have no information about at all. Each section is alphabetical (except for the first, where the U.S., U.K., and Canada are given precedence), in the hopes it will make finding a specific country easier.

If you have any corrections, clarifications, or additional information regarding broadcasters or air dates, please feel free to comment or to e-mail us directly.

For those who are Kindle fans, Bantam and Amazon.com now have the Kindle edition of A Dance with Dragons available. It’s just $14.99 now, lower than the hardcover. I’m told that if you pre-order, it will automatically download to your device when it is available. Like the hardcover, it will be available on July 12th.

Although there’s no word yet on the U.K. Kindle edition, we can’t imagine Voyager will let the opportunity slip. As we’ve reported, A Dance with Dragons is already available for pre-order in the iBooks store, for those who prefer to use native apps for their Apple devices.

Screen captures from the latest trailer are now available, starting with the gorgeous image of the Wall you’re seeing to the right. Big, isn’t it? Some other exciting images are a glimpse of the silhouette of Winterfell as seen from a distance, and the (rather controversial) first look at an

white walker. I expect April 3rd’s 15 minute sneek peek from the 1st episode will convince those who are dubious that that really is an Other.

If anyone wants to try and estimate how large Winterfell is supposed to be from that image, by the way, please feel free to add a comment onto the gallery page for the image. I’m stumped as to whether it can be estimated in any reasonable fashion.

After the recent word that A Dance with Dragons (US, UK) had reached #4 at Amazon.com’s bestseller list, we decided to drop by today and see if it had fallen… and quite the contrary, it’s risen to the #2 position, making it Amazon’s #1 fiction title. It also seems to have somehow been in their top 100 list for 256 days, which we can’t quite make sense of given that pre-ordering had been disabled until recently, but there you are.

A hop over to their Science Fiction & Fantasy bestseller list also reveals that A Game of Thrones has been on the Top 100 list for over a year. Pretty amazing!

In other news, the audio book is now being solicited for a release on the same day as the hardcover. I’ve recently heard that there hasn’t quite been a decision yet as to who will be reading it, but Bantam’s aware how much GRRM and the fans would like to see Roy Dotrice reprise his reading from the first three books. We’ve also heard, just yesterday, that the health issues the led him to having to leave his role as Grand Maester Pycelle have largely resolved themselves, which is something we were very pleased to learn.

A report earlier in the day noted that HBO Canada stated that April 17 would see Game of Thrones premiere on April 17th. This caused a great deal excitement, especially as it seemed likely the U.S: would do the same… but it turns out it was an error. HBO Canada’s listing was incorrect. HBO has confirmed that HBO Canada will only be running one episode on April 17, and has corrected its listing to reflect that. HBO in the United States will also be premiering with just the first episode.

The penultimate part of my Belfast set visit report is now posted, featuring my tour of the production offices, where I saw a great deal of art.. Just one part left, covering my trip to Magheramorne, the site of Castle Black. Enjoy!

HBO has just sent out a press release revealing that there’ll be a 15-minute sneak peek of Game of Thrones on April 3rd! We had an inkling that something was up, but we had no idea it’d be this. It’s a great piece of news for the fans eagerly anticipating the show. You can find the full release below the cut.

Fans who’ve been able to make it out to Belfast while Game of Thrones was filming have had the pleasure of taking part in the Belfast Moots with GRRM, Parris, and many of the actors (see my report from the second Moot). They’re terrific events, and many have hoped another Moot would be possible, but various uncertainties—such as when, or even if, Game of Thrones would be filming a second season—has led to the realization that a third Moot simply isn’t something that can be arranged well in advance.

So, instead, the Brotherhood without Banners, Studio NI, and The Others (a Belfast-based SF fan group) have decided to put together TitanCon. Here’s their announcement:

I’m not one to prognosticate, but I would guess that even if Game of Thrones were to fail to get a second season, it seems fairly probable some of the local Northern Irish and Irish cast and crew members may still be on hand. And, who knows? If there’s a second season, there might be an even more significant presence… The cost is very reasonable indeed, at just £10 for a full membership or £5 for a supporting membership.

With the big announcement, now’s a good a time as any to get your pre-orders in on both sides of the Pond, as both Bantam and Voyager UK intend to publish A Dance with Dragons on July 12th. Amazon has now made it possible to pre-order ADwD here, and Amazon.co.uk offers pre-orders here.

Currently, pre-ordering the Kindle edition is not yet an option. However, the big news out of Apple—that Random House was joining iBooks—means that you can now buy the whole series (including pre-ordering A Dance with Dragons) if you’re an owner of one Apple’s fine gadgets such as the iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.

This is a busy, busy day—and though I’m still sick as a dog, I just had to share this,  a full trailer for Game of Thrones which is an EW Exclusive. A lot of great things here, including some dialog from a Littlefinger and Varys scene that we haven’t seen before, and a very brief glimpse of the Wall in its full majesty—this is the bit Linda and I saw in the 15-minute-reel, and we’re pretty sure everyone’s going to be very pleased with how it looks here!

By the way, for those wondering, no, this trailer does not feature final music by composer Ramin Djawadi—it’s stock or sourced from a third-party music composition group, as with previous trailers.

A brand new video from the Making Game of Thrones site, this time featuring Paul Inglis, the supervising art director, and a great deal of concept art:

Right after the announcement of the A Dance with Dragons release date went up, the main question we received was when it would be published in the U.K. Thanks to Voyager, the UK publisher, we now know: July 12, 2011, as well.

For those in the U.K. and Europe, you can pre-order at Amazon.co.uk.

No, the book isn’t quite done… but George and his publisher now feel they can give an absolutely firm publication date for the novel: July 12, 2011. Preoder today! As we’ve previously noted, the book is very large, possibly the longest novel in the series.

Now, it’s just a matter of time for GRRM to announce that he’s wrapped up the final chapter and has sent it on to Bantam.

Over at his official site, GRRM also updates, indicating that short of world wars, asteroid strikes, or tsunamis, this date is locked in!

The next part of my set visit report is up in the Features section, featuring a great deal of armor geekery, a visit to the throne room, and more. Pictures courtesy of HBO and Parris McBride.

I hope to get the next part out tomorrow… but I am coming down with something and so may have to delay it a day. Fingers crossed.

HBO has released a fantastic new series of T-shirts at their HBO Shop storefront, and suffice it to say, we’re pretty excited (and somewhat sad—U.S.-shipping only right now). Male and female designs cover a range of houses with their mottoes: Lannister, Targaryen, Stark, Baratheon, Arryn, and even Tully and Greyjoy(!)

Our personal favorite is the Targaryen dragon, we think, especially since they have corrected it from their initial filming, possibly because we noted the fact that the dragons are in fact supposed to have two legs.

The first interview with Cyanide Studio concerning A Game of Thrones: Genesis, the Real-Time Strategy game they’re developing, has been published over at RTS Guru. They discuss some of the aspects of the game, and give us a shout-out for Westeros.org’s help in matters of continuity and theme. The game will let players control a kingdom over a thousand year span of history, from the arrival of Nymeria and the Rhoynar in Dorne through to the invasion Aegon the Conqueror with his dragons, with an emphasis on military, economic, and political means to victory.

Two weeks ago, Cyanide sent out a press release with additional images and information, announcing their official site for the game and a Summer 2011 release date.

Via a tweet from karmamule, we’ve just discovered that Bantam will be offering a four-book Kindle set of all four “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels from March 22nd, at a 50% discount—definitely a bid to get the series onto more devices. These will presumably be the re-keyed, re-proofed editions that Bantam has been busily releasing following complaints about the initial Kindle editions being typo-prone.

If March 22nd is a familiar date, it should be: it’s when Bantam will also be re-releasing A Game of Thrones with a new cover featuring art from the HBO TV series, due to premiere on April 17. We’ve reported on this previously, though bear in mind that the solicitation cover shown there is not actually the final art.

As promised, you can find the second part of my set visit report here. This features my visit to the prop store, where I saw a big direwolf, and various other odds-and-ends that may be of interest before I had a close-and-personal look inside a sky cell of the Eyrie. Enjoy! Part 3 is coming tomorrow.

A very busy past week on several fronts. Here’s a quick recap of some notable items for fans of A Song of Ice and Fire:

• In his latest “Not a Blog” update, GRRM points out the newest trailer from HBO for Game of Thrones (our screen captures and commentary are linked here) and also notes that of the two “krakens” he was wrestling with,  one is down and one was “down to the last tentacle.” Sounds like one chapter done and one nearly done. After them, he said he had a “wolf” to see to. In comments, when asked about page count, he says it’s at present a toss-up whether A Dance with Dragons or A Storm of Swords will be the longest novel in the series.
• Speaking of A Storm of Swords, it took the #6 place in Tor.com’s Best SF/F of the Decade. Tor.com has a series of guest appreciations of the top ten novels lined up, and we were very graciously asked to provide one for A Storm of Swords, which is set to be published on the 10th. To commemorate the list, Tor.com is also running a contest with one lucky winner recieving copies of each of the top ten novels.
• And speaking of ourselves… If you missed it, HBO.com very kindly asked to interview me about George’s fandom, the origins of Westeros.org, and my visit to the sets and production offices of Game of Thrones back in October. You can read the interview here, and the first set visit report if you’re interested.
• Dark Sword Miniatures has revealed that Tom Meier sculpted a bonus diorama for his figures of Jojen Reed, Meera Reed, and Hodor with Bran Stark, and this is being sold as part of a figure pack. Though the diorama isn’t on display, some great pictures of the miniatures can be seen. Meier’s a legend among miniature sculptures, and you can see why from these.
• Finally, Voyager has followed through and released both A Storm of Swords and A Feast for Crows for the Kindle in the U.K. Newly proofed, these texts should be superior to those that were available earlier. We’ve also heard from Voyager that mid- to late-March should see the re-release of A Game of Thrones with art from the HBO series (airing on Sky Atlantic in the U.K.)

An e-mail from Canal+ Finland has confirmed earlier reports we’ve had, namely that the Canal+ channel in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden will be airing Game of Thrones beginning May 4th, at 9PM. This substantially fills in the picture for much of Europe—April 18 in the U.K. on Sky Atlantic and at least part Central Europe and Eastern Europe served by HBO (Hungary and Czech Republic seem confirmed, although a comment below states that HBO Slovenia is undecided), May 4th in the Nordic countries (no word on Iceland yet), May 9 in Spain, and doubtless more announcements to come in the next few weeks.