Westeros

We’ve previously covered Mike the Pike Productions, who are developing George R.R. Martin‘s award-winning horror novella, “The Skin Trade” (found in Dreamsongs Volume 2, which also contains the first Dunk & Egg novella “The Hedge Knight”, set in Westeros, and many other excellent stories) for film. Now they’ve decided to ratchet up the visibility of the project by launching an official site.

The site offers hints as to the story and the production team currently in place, including noting that Filmworks FX—a post-production company that’s worked on Red Riding Hood, Knight and Day, The Tourist, and other Hollywood film projects—is on-board to handled VFX and is intimately involved at an unusually early stage in development.

Besides the official website, Mike the Pike Productions have also launched a Facebook Page—named Blackstone Manor, after a key location in the novella—which features news, updates, and the occasional query to readers. Right now, the page asks fans who they’d like to see direct The Skin Trade, and I’ve chimed in with British director Neil Marshall, who recently wrapped up filming on the penultimate episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones... and who first rose to the attention of horror fans thanks to his cult classic, Dog Soldiers.

The Hollywood Reporter exclusively reveals that Wild Cards had been optioned for development by Syfy Films—the theatrical division of the Syfy channel—and Universal Studios, with the screenplay set to be handled by there-from-the-start author Melinda Snodgrass, who (like GRRM) has TV writing experience.

We’ve been waiting for the first details about the Iceland leg of the filming of Game of Thrones, where scenes beyond the Wall will be shot… and it looks like we’ve finally got them.

Back in early September, the news swept the fandom that French/Canadian game company Cyanide Studios, creators of the real time strategy game Game of Thrones: Genesis and a then-untitled RPG based on A Song of Ice and Fire, had basically turned that RPG into the official HBO Game of Thrones game, with access to actors from the show (for voice acting), music, and more.

Dynamite Entertainment’s George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones continues! The second issue hits shelves tomorrow in the U.S., featuring art by Tommy F. Patterson and scripting by author Daniel Abraham.

The cover for this issue features more art by the famed Alex Ross featuring Tyrion Lannister, with a special incentive cover by fan-favorite Mike S. Miller that revisits his depiction of Robert fighting Rhaegar at the Trident.

You can find your nearest comic shop using Diamond’s Comic Shop Locator.

The increasingly social nature of the internet has begun to invade all aspects of life for many users of the internet, whether it’s watching TV shows communaly via Get Glue or Hulu, rating sporting events interactively while they’re going on, or forwarding and commenting news articles.

Now that invasion has gone a step forward, thanks to a company by the name of Subtext (link to the app in the iTunes store—US only presently) and check out the previews of thebooks they currently provide Subtext social features for… including A Game of Thrones, of course!

The Big Bang Theory featured Valyrian Steel’s Longclaw, presented there as being a replica of the sword from the TV series. Not long after,  the executive producer of BBT, Bill Prady, tweeted that the sword would now become a permanent part of the show’s set.

And now we can see it, in the very next episode, “The Rhinitis Revelation”. For those in the U.S., you can actually watch the video of the episode here, where the best glimpse of the sword—on the wall with its decorative heraldic crest featuring a white direwolf and the words “Winter is Coming”—can be seen at about the 6:30 mark. And for those who aren’t in the U.S., here’s a quick screen grab.

We’ve all been waiting for the first signs of the Game of Thrones first season DVD & Blu-Ray box set… and it seems to have arrived with strong suggestions that the discs will role out in at least several countries in March 2012, approximately 1 month before the premiere of season 2 of the series. First off, in the UK, the British Video Association notes a March 19 date for the release over there (UK Preoder: DVD, Blu-Ray). And France appears to be even luckier, with Warner Brothers France indicating a March 7th date—quick work!

What does this mean for the US? It really does seem that the ides of March, give or take a week, are what we should be looking at for the release of the DVD and Blu-Ray sets (US Preorder: DVD, Blu-Ray). We can be sure that there’ll be a lot of extras on the sets, including some audition tapes for actors, behind-the-scenes footage never seen before, and episode commentaries—and from what we’ve heard, that may just be the start!

An interesting interview at NY Magazine cropped up. It starts out discussing Game of Thrones—revealing for the first time that while Sean Bean may have been the first choice for Ned, the producers hedged their bets (probably due to uncertainty at the actor’s availabiity) by auditioning additional actors—but then shifts to some very interesting questions regarding A Dance with Dragons... particularly one bit in it which appears to have given Martin significant pause before he answered it. Hrm….

Well worth reading, and not just because Westeros.org and the in-progress World of Ice Fire world book are mentioned! Also, for those new to the site, this interview—and many, many others over the years—are linked at the So Spake Martin collection.

Two new opportunities for fans to show their appreciation for HBO’s Game of Thrones. First off, the People’s Choice Awards are currently canvassing for nominations… and everyone’s favorite fantasy drama is eligible in two categories: Favorite Sci-fi/Fantasy TV Show and Favorite Cable TV Drama. It looks like you can vote once every day, so make sure to mark your calendar.

And via GRRM, there’s also a TV Guide Poll to select which show will feature on the cover for the final, December issue of the magazine. Naturally, Game of Thrones is in contention. To vote, just “Like” the Facebook page and then you can put in your vote. There’s also a sweepstakes to win special Comic-Con covers of the magazine.

Everyone’s been talking about Salman Rushdie’s remarks in which he opines that The Wire “is just a police series” and that Game of Thrones is “well-produced trash” (hey, everyone’s got an opinion—but do read the whole interview, it’s an excellent conversation) ... but on a happier note, geek favorite actor Ron Perlman was interviewed at the Scream Awards by Access Hollywood’s Jolie Lash, and she got him to make some remarks on former Beauty and the Beast colleagues George R.R. Martin and new-to-Game of Thrones actor Roy Dotrice.

See the video below!

The SPIKE TV Scream Awards ceremony was filmed last night, to be televised on October 18th, but you don’t have to wait to hear the results. With voting open to the public, fans across the web urged others to make their vote heard… and it sure looks like it paid dividends, as the popular fan-given award gave nods to Game of Thrones not once, not twice, but ... uh, thrice!

With Sean Bean and Lena Headey in attendance for the production, actors Peter Dinklage added another award to his bookshelf for Best Supporting Actor (this curious image is described as Peter “speaking on stage”... which would be creepy!) and Emilia Clark won Breakout Female Performance. And then, the big one: HBO’s fantasy show beat out other genre productions such as The Walking Dead, Doctor Who, and True Blood for Best Television Show. Quite a coup!

If you have SPIKE TV, make sure to tune-in to watch the show!

For those who missed the news as it coursed over the social web, George R.R. Martin revealed that the last of the major roles for the series had been cast in a post discussing both Rose Leslie’s casting as Ygritte and his announcement that actor Simon Armstrong was cast in the role of a legendary ranger of the Night’s Watch, Qhorin Halfhand.

Armstrong has been in a number of productions for film, television, and theater, including playing Claudius in the The Globe’s 2011 production of Hamlet and in the BBC Films The Edge of Love. Looking over his CV, Game of Thrones seems to be his first work in the fantasy genre.

Not one, but two acclaimed TV comedies made references to Game of Thrones last night, showing that the writers out there appear to be fans of HBO’s series. And best of all, we’ve got some clips to prove it thanks to fans on the interweb! See below for the video links to the Parks and Recreation and Big Bang Theory clips.

Hot on the heels of George R.R. Martin confirming that John Stahl is playing Lord Rickard Karstark, a significant northern lord, we have a bunch of confirmations of some of those smaller roles (though as they say, there are no small roles—only small actors). All of these have leaked over the last weeks, but until now HBO has not given official confirmation. So, here we go:

George has updated his post to confirm our speculation: Scottish actor John Stahl is now Lord Rickard Karstark. Lines for Lord Rickard were given guest actor Steven Blount last season, but it appears Karstark has been upgrade to being a “major role” this season. Stahl is a veteran of stage and screen, and should do very admirably in the role.

And speaking of major roles? George reveals that “the major roles” for this season are now all cast, with various “smaller roles” still being cast in London, Belfast, and Dublin. What’s left? Qhorin Halfhand, certainly. Beyond that, I couldn’t say, but I’m starting to worry about the Tullys being excised entirely this season (not just the Blackfish, who seems to be a goner for sure, but also Hoster and Edmure), and ... when are we going to hear about a certain smelly servant?

We recently noted the fact that Valyrian Stee  had learned that their authorized replica of Jon Snow’s sword, Longclaw, was going to appear on the October 13th episode of Big Bang Theory...

And as it happens, one of the newly-released sneak previews of that episodes? Features the sword itself, although in this case it’s being treated as the replica of ... well, “a sword on pay-cable”, but it’s unclear if they will actually name Game of Thrones. In fact, Valyrian Steel’s sword is based on the description as given in “A Song of Ice and Fire”, and has Martin’s direct input, much as their Needle, Ice, and King Robert’s Warhammer have.

See the clip below, as Sheldon and Leonard barely keep from drooling all over the weapon!

It’s been awhile, but as Martin writes, “once more into the breach”! Here’s the clue:

So, a Scottish actor, a list of roles, and I’m guessing some hints as to what that particular role is. Have at it!

UPDATED: Linda and I have done some sleuthing, and we think it’s John Stahl. Been in Loch Ness, in a play based on Frankenstein, “The Kingdom of Bones”, “The Slipper Slope”, and “The Malingerer” are episodes of various TV shows he’s appeared on, he’s Scottish, has played an inspector, and a fisherman (in Loch Ness), and a minister as well. As to the role, bits of the clue make me wonder if they haven’t bumped Lord Karstark up to a full-on role… but otherwise, the only other character that really comes to mind at the moment is Qhorin Halfhand.

When the news broke revealing Rose Leslie (formerly of Downton Abbey) had been cast in the role of Ygritte, I had made an effort—as I usually do with the casting announcements—to try and find a nice clip online of the actor, whether in a role or in an interview, but I had to do without for Ms. Leslie. Yesterday, however, Leicster Square TV released just the thing: an interview with the actress, filmed during a premiere of the Ewan MacGregor-Eve Green film, Perfect Sense.

And not just any interview… one from October 4th, nearly a week before the announcement, in which she spoke rather extensively about her involvement in HBO’s Game of Thrones.

I’ll note that there’s an implied spoiler in the interview, so if you haven’t read the books, I’d strongly suggest not watching the interview. We’ll provide a spoiler-free recap after the video:

EW has the scoop: British actress Rose Leslie is playing the role of Ygritte, a red-haired wildling spear wife who’ll meet Jon Snow when he joins Lord Mormont in ranging north beyond the Wall. Ygritte is one of the last major roles to be officially announced, we believe.

Leslie is a graduate of LAMDA, and may be recognized by fans of the hit British mini-series Downton Abbey due to her role as Gwen, one of the housemaids, in the first series. The coincidence of her involvement in that show leaves us hopeful that next season (*knock on wood*) Dame Maggie Smith might be wooed over from the show to play the Queen of Thorns…

A fine photo of the actress in her role as May in Nell Leyshon’s Bedlam which we think might give a nice sense of how she might look with wilder, more unkempt hair, which we’d expect for Ygritte. Ygritte’s red hair is considered lucky among the wildlings, who say it’s “kissed by fire.”

Swedish fans—you’ll be interested in this, I’m pretty sure. Stockholm’s famed Nalen night club is playing host to the Nalen TV Club’s second themed party, and—you guessed it—this time around the theme is HBO’s Game of Thrones!

Not just by one artist, but by two! First off, Tommy F. Patterson—the penciler for Dynamite’s A Game of Thrones series—has pages from A Game of Thrones #1 up for sale over at Cadence Comic Art. These are all original pencils, uninked and uncolored.

Also involved with Dynamite’s Cover is Mike S. Miller, best known by fans for his exceptional work on the adaptations of “The Hedge Knight” and “The Sworn Sword” (and, we hope, “The Mystery Knight” in the next year or two). At his Facebook page, Miller offers both original art and prints of his cover work for A Game of Thrones, as well as other “A Song of Ice and Fire” related work.

Make sure to check them both out!

After many years of hoping and praying, fans in the UK are finally getting their wish: Voyager is re-releasing the first four novels in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series in matching hardcovers.

The U.K. hasn’t seen a wide-release hardcover of A Game of Thrones since the book was first published in 1996. The same can be said for the lack of re-release of A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords.  Unlike in the U.S., the U.K. market meant that it did not make sense for Voyager to re-release hardcovers on a wide scale, even as Martin hit #1 on both sides of the pond with A Feast for Crows.

The new editions are due to hit shelves on November 11 for the first two volumes, and December 5 for the last two (just in time for the holidays, one notes!)

We should add that these are not, technically, the first hardcover re-releases from Voyager. That belongs to the “special edition”, slip-cased copies of the books that Voyager quietly began to release shortly after A Dance with Dragons: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and A Dance with Dragons. These special editions are more limited runs, however, and may only be available for purchase on-line, so far as we’ve been able to discover. And, while slip-cased, they lack cover art beyond a stamped sigil for each book.

What can we say? The production’s decision to be quite open with local press has paid dividends for fans—to the point where some fans are feeling like the proverbial kid in the candy shop who’s sick to the stomach. We can’t say if this is too much of a good thing, all this photography and film of the Game of Thrones filming in Dubrovnik, so we’ll let you decide by sharing a few more pieces… including an excellent 1080p video showing some filming from pretty close up.

Author Peter Orullian has been interviewing some of his fellow fantasists, and thanks to Tor.com we have a new interview added to the So Spake Martin collection.

The first of two parts (the second has not yet been posted), the interview discusses A Dance with Dragons, the purpose of fantasy, and the old adage of “writing what you know”.

George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois have once more teamed up as editors to put together a new, themed anthology, and it’s hit shelves today!

Down These Strange Streets (US Hardcover, UK Hardcover, US Kindle) features more than a dozen authors writing urban fantasy short stories, including such notables as Carrie Vaughn, Patricia Briggs, Diana Gabaldon, and Martin’s fellow HBO-adapted author, Charlaine Harris. Other contributors include Melinda Snodgrass, M.L.N. Hanover, Simon R. Green, and Lisa Tuttle.

A complete table of contents can be found below:

Dubrovnik continues to be a leaky sieve, as far as photographs go—the production just doesn’t seem too bothered by it, when they’re shooting in public locations often frequented by tourists. There are some interesting—and spoiliery—photos to be found below, and we’ll provide a bit of context for them based on the second novel, A Clash of Kings.

We’re experimenting with a new nameserver host for all Westeros.org sites. We’ve switched to Cloudflare, which uses its nameservers to cache static content (images, scripts) on its servers distributed across several continents, and to serve that content from the server nearest to the user. This should, in theory, improve site performance and marginally improve server load, as the server will spend less time pushing images and scripts and have more time to churn through the database which powers Westeros-proper, the wiki, and the forum.

For most of you, this change should happen in the background and will require no action from you. However, in some cases your ISP’s domain name server may change in an incorrect fashion, or your own computer may be holding on to outdated information. This may lead to your not being able to reach some Westeros sites but not others.

In this case, we recommend flushing DNS on your computer (if on a Windows PC: Start -> Run -> cmd -> ipconfig /flushdns; for Mac OS X users, please see this.) That should correct the problem in many cases. If your own ISP’s name resolver is at fault, usually they will update their records in anything from 2 to 4 hours. Please be patient and try again after that time (making sure to use ipconfig /flushdns again).

If problems persist, please e-mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and we’ll try to help you resolve them.

Valyrian Steel has placed the very first “Damascus steel” replica of Ice—part of an extremely limited edition of this version of the officially-licensed, George R.R. Martin-approved—on Ebay. And, well, you can see where things stand: from an opening bid of $700, it’s hit $1625 in just over 20 minutes.

How much higher will it go before the auction ends in a week? We’re very interested in finding out!

The Subterranean Press limited edition of A Dance with Dragons is about to open its pre-orders widely after having an exclusivity period for customers who had purchased the previous book, A Feast for Crows. And just in time for that, if you’re on the fence… award-winning artist Marc Fishman has posted a great deal of art from the book, featuring both some of the color pieces he’s created as well as a number of black-and-white work which will head each chapter.

Go and check it out—but two notes: some of the art is marginally NSFW, and given that it depicts events and scenes in A Dance with Dragons, there are definite spoilers.  But if you’re concerned about spoilers, here are two of our favorite images which aren’t really spoilery at all: Varamyr Sixskins and Daenerys Targaryen.