Westeros

Tonight was the official launch party for the season one DVD and Blu-ray set, and it was a star-studded affair over at the Old Vic Tunnels in London. A great deal of work and planning went into it according to all accounts, including the hiring of top-notch caterers, bringing in all manner of props, performers ranging from Masai drummers to bellydancers, and more.

As to those stars? Getty Images has a fine gallery of all the actors who were present. A bit of confusion with Harry Lloyd (labelled as Richard Madden) and Richard Madden (labelled as Kit Harington), but all you can really say is that it’s full of a lot of really, really pretty people.

I suspect a leak of this image earlier today had something to do with this… but fans can rejoice, now that it’s official. EW has the exclusive first look at the poster, that art of which will be gracing the tie-in editions of A Clash of Kings in both the U.S. and the U.K.

The image features an upraised, bloodied fist gripping the antlered crown of King Robert—and a nice detail is that the golden metal reflects what looks like a scene of battle or, in any case, quite a lot of soldiers and knights with spears. Some had expected the second season official poster to feature another character, as with the iconic image of Ned Stark on the Iron Throne, but this more example of graphic design seems to fit the idea of the clash of kings very well indeed.

The annual Saturn Awards—which focus on genre television—have just released their nominations. Some oddities here and there… but Game of Thrones did pretty well for itself, nominated in the TV Presentation (10 episodes or less) category, best actor for Sean Bean, best actress for Lena Heady, and Best Supporting Actor for Peter DInk

... wait a minute; Kit Harington? Interesting! Not that he doesn’t deserve it, not at all, but Dinklage was certainly the one that first came to mind in this category for other awards.

The awards will be presented on June 20th.

Bigpoint, creator of various free-to-play, browser-based games, has opened up its official website for the licensed Game of Thrones massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. At present, all it features is a place for interested fans and gamers to sign up for their e-mail updates…

But Venture Beat has the very first images from the game, showing off the third-person 3D action. According to the article, Bigpoint will be offering a sneak peek of the game at next week’s Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco.

All in all, the graphics look pretty good, though the images seem small. But they’re fairly generic—nothing recognizably from Game of Thrones, not yet in any case, and we still know nothing about the gameplay. Something to keep an eye out on, though!

The interviews keep on coming in! This time it’s the Daily Record, talking with Emilia Clarke about her role as Daenerys Targaryen. Topics such as nude scenes, imaginary dragons, and her character’s journey are covered.

Also of interest, Clarke names two other projects she’s involved in: Overdrive (also starring Karl Urban and Ben Barnes—that’s a pretty cast all right) and Spike Island, a UK film set in 1990 about an indie band traveling to see the Stone Roses in concert.

For those who’ve eagerly been waiting for the chance to see the new trailer—dubbed “Power and Grace”—from HBO, you’re in luck:

For our scene-to-scene breakdown and speculation on what we’re seeing, see our original post when the trailer was released on Friday evening.

Shadowlocked has a great interview with the terrific Gethin Anthony, who plays Renly Baratheon, the youngest of the Baratheon brothers and the first to claim the crown after King Robert’s death. Good stuff!

Thanks to @manders555 for pointing this interview out.

Via HBO, the titles of the first two episodes (missed the first last week while we were on a trip) have been released through their on-line schedule. The first episode is titled, “The North Remembers”—an interesting choice, as that phrase comes only from A Dance with Dragons

A Storm of Swords (and becomes iconic only with A Dance with Dragons, where it has a lot of meaning and resonance)—and the second is, “The Night Lands”, which refers to the afterlife of the Dothraki.

Dark Sword Miniatures has unveiled their latest addition to the George R.R. Martin Masterworks series of miniatures. This time, the incredible Tom Meier has sculpted all six of the Stark direwolves, four of which are now available and two more (Lady and Shaggydog) are being prepped for production. As always, these miniatures come at 28mm scale (sometimes Dark Sword puts them out in 54mm, but not in this case), which makes the level of detail just stunning (human-size figures are not much past an inch tall!)

Speaking of the miniatures, George has a poll asking fans to share which of a set of characters they’d like to see made into figures. Among the options? Khal Drogo, Ser Barristan Selmy, Prince Doran Nymeros Martell, Olenna Tyrell (the Queen of Thorns), Margaery Tyrell, and Davos Seaworth.

As we run the largest English-language wiki (and the largest wiki, period, in terms of total number of articles) dedicated to A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, it seems appropriate to point out that efforts are being made in a number of other languages to bring the wiki content to as many fans as possible. Some of these are very far advanced, and are already part of our interwiki scheme, while others are just starting up and could really use more help.

First, the two wikis that we’re already interwiki linking:

• French: Le Garde de Nuit, which until very recently was the largest wiki out there, and is hands-down an amazing resource that helped the Wiki of Ice and Fire get off the ground as quickly as it did.
• Russian: 7kingdoms.ru

And now lets mention three nascent wikis that we’d love to see more support for:

• Spanish: Hieloyfuego.wikia.com
• Chinese: Zh.asoiaf.wikia.com
• Brazilian Portuguese: Geloefogo.com.br
• German: de.eisundfeurer.wikia.com

Those that are being hosted at Wikia.com could not only use active participants, but we’d be glad to interwiki link them if Wikia would add the Wiki of Ice and Fire to their list of acceptable interwiki sites. Anyone who wants to learn more about that, or who would like to get advice about improving or even starting a foreign-language wiki is very welcome to visit the Wiki sub-forum where our wiki editors are happy to answer questions and provide advice.

It’s now HBO Go! And boy, this is full of new material, that’s to say the least. 1:50 long, it contains new lines from the season, and new images—including our best look at Nonso Anozie as Xaro Xhoan Daxos, our very first look at a CGI Direwolf, our first scene featuring Qhorin Halfhand, a hot and heavy moment featuring the mysterious Jeyne, and a lot more.

Here’s a scene-by-scene breakdown of the clip. Spoilers ahoy:

Thanks to Manu at Fantasy.fr, we’ve got another taste of what Ron Perlman—star of Beauty and the Beast and Sons of Anarchy, and much, much more (including a great turn in the beautifully-directed Drive)—has to say about his old BatB colleague George R.R. Martin, and whether he’d like to be part of Game of Thrones himself.

Sounds like his role on SoA means he hasn’t been approached, and that it’s unlikely that he will so long as he’s committed to another regular TV series. Shame, that, as I’m convinced he’d be an amazing Tormund Giantsbane or Magnar of Thenn (he looks completely wrong in terms of the looks of the characters, maybe, but he can definitely get their different personas across quite well). He also has some terrific praise for GRRM, citing his episodes as the ones he most looked forward to as an actor on Beauty and the Beast.

We’re getting nearer to season 2, and with each day new interviwes with cast and crew seem to be coming out. Following up recent interviews with Rory McCann and Carice van Houten & Aidan Gillen, My Fanbase has a fresh interview with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Van Houten provides a tantalizingly brief summary of just who Melisandre of Asshai is in an interview with Tribeca Films regarding Black Butterflies.

And while there’s a very brief quote or two from Kit Harington (whom we’ve previously interviewed during Season 1), this Men’s Health Journal pictorial is a lot more about fashion than Game of Thrones, as they give a few casual looks modeleld by Harington. But, hey, for those who like that sort of thing, he’s shirtless in one shot, and in his boxers in another…

Yeah, lets see if MHJ can handle the rush of traffic!

We started seeing this buzzed about—a 64-page art book showing concept art and sketches, apparently printed to quite high standards, that will be included with pre-orders of the Game of Thrones RPG from Cyanide. Among those sellers is Amazon US, so mosey on there to pre-order the PS3 or XBox 360 editions (for some reason I can’t track down PC preorder links…) It’s unclear whether this initiative will also take place in Europe, as Atlus USA is the one putting out the press release… so, sorry folks, this may be North America-only.

For more information about the game, visit the official game site or our previous coverage.

Here’s the official press release from Atlus USA:

Via HBO, it looks like the HBO Go streaming service (for HBO subscribers only) will be getting the first look at a brand new trailer for season 2 of Game of Thrones. It will be premiering on Friday night, Feburary 24th, at midnight (Eastern time).

An interesting move from them, and doubtless a fine way to get a good measure of what portion of their audience are Game of Thrones hard-core fanatics. We’ll try to get the details on the trailer as soon as it’s out, though it will likely be a day or six before HBO releases it through other, legitimate channels, so hang tight those not in the U.S.

Access Hollywood continues its series of interviews with Game of Thrones actors, this time talking to Rory McCann, who plays Sandor Clegane (and whose audition—one of the hidden dragon eggs on the Blu-ray—has a remarkably powerful moment in it that really sold me on his having the power needed for the character). In the interview, McCann reveals that he’s gotten through A Storm of Swords—deciding he wants to stay “just ahead” of the story—and he even mentions that he’s visited forums (surely our forum must be one of them!)  to read fan views on the character and maybe pick up a few good tips about him. He gives a little hint or two about what he’s up to this season, including jousting while wearing a “gold helmet” (that must mean he’s in his Kingsguard gear at some point—on the show the character seems to move back and forth between that and his regular equipment).

Also? He’s learned that his name actually derives from “wolfhound” or something like—Wikipedia seems to support it. Rather neat coincidence!

Two fresh interviews with Game of Thrones cast members have cropped up today, and they’re both quite interesting. First—and most substantial—is an excellent interview with Aidan Gillen (Littlefinger) that covers a range of topics, including the TV show, his last work with HBO on the Wire, and more. We love the fact that he says he’s read all the novels of the series—as far as I know, he’s the first actor in the production to have done so (though I would not be surprised if Ron Donachie had done so as well).

The other is a brief video interview with Carice van Houten (Melisandre of Asshai) regarding her latest project, the film Black Butterflies, but just before the three minute mark it turns to Game of Thrones. Most notably, she states that she appears in four episodes (#1, #2, #4, and #10), and she means to come back in season 3 (*knock on wood*) with a vengeance.

Heja Sverige! Game of Thrones premieres tonight at 10PM on SVT1, and at the same time you’ll find TV-circkeln ready to discuss the episode. It’ll air immediately after the show on SVT Play, and then—wonders of wonders, because I’m still fairly sure SVT has never done this before—the program will air on SVT1 as well at 11:25. Looking forward to it!

HBO’s got the full-court press going to promote the Blu-ray and DVD launch, it seems, and given the price-war... well, this should add fuel to the fire. In the Blu-ray review we linked in our last post, we praised some of the added features in the Blu-ray… especially a couple of items in the In-Episode Guide that just blew our geeky minds. And now, HBO and MTV are bringing a taste of one of those items, an excerpt from the Charles Dance-as-Tywin-Lannister narrated House Lannister history:

It’s region-locked, I’m afraid… but if you’re in the U.S. (and maybe Canada?), do check it out—it’s worth it. And that’s just an excerpt—it runs for about three or four minutes in the guide, I believe!

And right after we posted about HBO UK’s efforts to promote the March 5th release of Game of Thrones on Blu-ray and DVD… Amazon US and Best Buy decided to go to war on the price of the season set. Best Buy cut prices first—but Amazon US price-matched with remarkable alacrity, and now the Blu-ray can be had for 56% off(!) at just $34.99… and the DVD price has been driven down, as well, to 50% off and a $29.99 price.

Just $5 dollars separating the two… and if you missed it, we’ll note that we point out the great value in the added content for the Blu-ray in our review.

Ahead of the March 5th release of Game of Thrones on Blu-ray and DVD (Pre-order: UK DVD, UK Blu-ray, US DVD, US Blu-ray), HBO UK has started promoting the launch in various ways. First there was an iOs soundboard app featuring quotes from numerous characters in the first season. Then, they noted that they had a new site just to promote the release, filled with the familiar strains of Ramin Djawadi’s theme, video clips, images, and a countdown to the release.

And that’s not all, as they say. Via their Facebook page, they revealed that the Iron Throne will be in London on March 5th! Per their post:

Sounds like it’ll be fun! We know for a fact that HBO UK has one or two more things up its sleeves to promote the release—which is one reason why Linda and I were in London this past weekend…

Another new video giving a behind-the-scenes look at the production of the second season of Game of Thrones... and this one’s particularly interesting as it contains a few glimpses of some things (and people) we haven’t seen before:

The most notable bits? They’re toward the end. First, Robb is speaking with a woman whose back is to the camera… and that’d be the Jeyne, played by Oona Chaplin. And the other? That’d be Tyrion Lannister holding up a glass container holding a mysterious green liquid that actually looks like it’s glowing; that must be the show’s take on wildfire.

Oh, and unless I’m mistaken, we see Roxanne McKee in an earlier shot—which suggests Doreah is surviving rather longer on the TV show than she is in the novel.

That, and more, can be found in the video, which is certainly worth watching through a couple of times, if for nothing else than some more glimpses at the Harrenhal set.

Hollywood.TV caught up with executive producer David Benioff and his wife Amanda Peet at the Writers Guild of America Awards, where the show was nominated in the Best Drama Series and the Best New Series categories. Benioff apparently expected that this wasn’t Game of Thrones‘s year, from the sounds of it—and he was right, as Breaking Bad and Homeland took those awards, respectively. However, he was in a cheerful mood, as was Peet (who seems to have used marital privilege to get a look at the season already—or at least the scripts!) and he shared some thoughts on the second season:

Nothing really new here, as such, but Benioff does think this season will look even better than last season, and he feels the actors have had more time to get their characters and push them to another level. Amanda Peet focused on just how “tortuously suspensful” it was in her remarks, and claimed it was a problem in their marriage, which one could certainly understand! Benioff was also asked about faithfulness to the series, and he indicates that it’s still very much George’s world and story and characters, though of course, as an adaptation some changes need to take place, and they’ve moved some thing from later in the series into this season.

Here’s a 30 minute interview with Ted Nasmith, one of the celebrated “Big Three” Tolkien artists who has recently (and very successfully) turned his hand to depicting George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, with his series of castle paintings for the 2011 calendar (and The World of Ice and Fire book that Linda and I have co-written with GRRM). He’s presently working on the new A Game of Thrones limited edition. Among the topics of discussion are Nasmith’s approach to depicting the setting, and his career in general.

Thanks to the Tower of the Hand for sharing it!

Two new interviews with Game of Thrones actors have surfaced in the last couple of days. First, Access Hollywood has a fun interview with Alfie Allen,  aka Theon Greyjoy, regarding the second season. Funniest of all? Check out which Game of Thrones actor he was working with the day before! He sounds very enthused about his involvement in the series.

The other interview cropped up last night, thanks to Marcelo Cordova pointing it out. At 1883 Magazine, Richard Madden (Robb Stark) talks his status as Scotland’s most fashionable man, fitness, and gives a little hint about what’s going on in the 2nd season, among other things. Another good interview.

And for something completely different: here‘s Oona Chaplin (Jeyne) randomly on the way to the Vienna Opera Ball. Yes, she took that in the airplane’s lavatory. Yes, she changed in the plane. Made me laugh when I figured out what the picture was about.

Two new interviews have been added to the So Spake Martin collection of correspondence, chats, interviews, and signing reports. The first was brought to our attention by GRRM himself, at the Feather Factor where he discusses his vices, his looking into buying a new car (Gullwing > SuperSports, George!), and more. It’s a nice interview, different than the usual interviews with Martin.

The other one is an audio interview with the gentlemen at Sidequesting, and starts about 8 minutes in. They discuss the series, the world-building, whether GRRM will return to science fiction some day, and football, among other things.

The arrival of the Game of Thrones season 1 DVD & Blu-ray sets (Pre-order: UK DVD, UK Blu-ray, US DVD, US Blu-ray) is a pretty big event, given the buzz we’ve seen on the internet. And not without cause: one of the most celebrated new shows of 2011, adapting one of the most popular novel series in the fantasy or, indeed, any other genre, with a host of award nominations and a few wins, which is pretty good for a show in its freshman year. And HBO has started to turn up the buzz for season 2 with photos, teasers, posters. It goes without saying that Linda and I were well-primed to be excited when a special delivery arrived at our doorstep, containing within it the Season 1 Blu-ray set. We’ve now taken a few days to rewatch a few episodes, listen to commentaries, explore the bonus features, and hunt dragon eggs… and we figure we can now share some of our thoughts on it.

But before going long-winded, lets just say this: if you’re a fan of Game of Thrones, if you want to show HBO just how much love and appreciation there is for the series, get this set. The show? It’s terrific, but you know this. The extras? Some of them are mind-blowingly good if you’re prone to geeking out over the show. The quality? Start to finish, this is one of the most handsome, well-produced sets we’ve seen for a TV series, right up there with ... well, with some of HBO’s other past offerings, such as their Deadwood boxed set. Before we get into the meat of the review, though, credit has to be given to Bryan Cogman for writing the entirety of one of our favorite features (Histories & Lore), giving people unfamiliar with the novels a great overview of ancient and recent history (and giving those who are familiar a thrill to see it articulated on screen), and Herzog and Company, the company involved with putting the package together. In particular, I’m not sure who they hired or who came up with it, but there are some segments in the In-Episode Guides that left my jaw on the floor. But more about those later!

ther digital download services.

This is a nice, new production video from the Making Game of Thrones website, this time following popular demand I believe: a look at extras, the unsung heroes who can turn a scene featuring two lead characters having a chat into a living, breathing environment with people going about their days:

Canadian band Irish Moutarde has turned their Celtic punk rock stylings to George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series ... and they did it using the lyrics to “The Bear and the Maiden Fair”, a song that appears in snippets throughout the series. They just premiered it yesterday, and have even gone ahead and made it available for download from their site. Here goes:

Amazing!

Two sets of territories announced their air dates the other day. First off, HBO Latin America has given fans in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean a wonderful surprise: Game of Thrones will premiere on April 1st, exactly the same as the premiere date in the U.S.! Ah, the wonders of being a corporate subsidiary. This goes for Brazil, too, for the Brasilianos out there. ;)

And over in Scandinavia, Canal+ has revealed their air date: May 2nd, about a month after the U.S. premiere. Sadly, this is actually a long span of time than their first season premiere in relation to the U.S. air date, and we can only assume the problem lies in Canal+ being unable to change around its scheduling for the particular day and time they’d like to run the show on. It’ll be a long, hard wait for those of us in the frosty North, but it does dovetail beautifully with Sweden’s SVT airing of the first season beginning next week; the finale should be almost exactly a week prior to the premiere of the second season on Canal+.

Back in November, we shared the news that Dark Horse—best known by many for their comics, but also a top-notch producer of collectibles—had received the license from HBO to create collectible items for Game of Thrones. And now the first product has been unveiled.

Per their original release, Dark Horse’s license extended to, “statues, busts, and action figures; prop and jewelry replicas; and barware, stationery, and other collectibles.” I guess we know what they went with first. The bust has already been unveiled at the International Toy Fair, will be appearing for pre-order in the March Previews (the leading catalog for the direct market), and will subsequently be released on June 20.

You can find the full press release below.

We’ve previously reported on Green Ronin‘s plans for their Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying system. One of the details they revealed was that they had hired Michael Komarck to return and provide the cover for their new “Game of Thrones” edition of the main rule book.

And now? They’ve unveiled the cover, and lo! it is good. Amazing piece of work, and yet another depiction of one of the most iconic moments of Robert’s rebellion. Now if only they had been on horseback (and Robert beardless), it would have been utterly perfect…

Preorders for the book will become available in April, after the premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones.

George R.R. Martin shares the news that Gary Gianni will be illustrating the 2014 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar. Better yet, GRRM reports that the sales on the 2011 and 2012 calendars have been so strong that Random House has also contracted to create 2015 and 2016 calendars. Gianni is an Eisner-award winning artist, perhaps best known for having taken over the Prince Valiant comic strip in 2004 and for his artistic interpretations of Robert E. Howard’s oeuvre. Some truly beautiful artwork, both in color and black-and-white.

The 2013 calendar (Preorder: US, UK), with art from Marc Simonetti, will be published on July 31st and will be unveiled at San Diego Comic-Con.

Thanks to Adam Whitehead, we’ve learned that the UK’s Sci Fi Now magazine has published a special look at season 2 of HBO’s Game of Thrones, with never-before-revealed details. Adam’s kindly summarized some of the highlights over at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum.

Here’s some of the highlights:

Gamespy has a good interview with lead game designer Sylvain Sechi and project manager Thomas Veauclin regarind Cyanide’s forthcoming Game of Thrones roleplaying game (Pre-order: X-box, PS3). The game is due to hit shelves in North America on May 15, and should be in Europe around that time as well.

They go into some detail about how they developed the story for the game, and the degree to which George R.R. Martin has been involved. According to them, when they presented their plans with some trepidation, Martin looked it over and told them he had been planning even bigger events to take place in later novels, so their plans were just fine. They also discuss the difference in philosophy between sandbox games such as Skyrim and more narrative-driven games, such as those produced by BioWare.

You don’t see this every day…

Apparently HBO will be promoting the launch of Game of Thrones season 1 in Australia through a unique menu of food at Sydney’s Gastro Park restaurant. Sci Fi Australia has been sharing photos of the food being presented at an early taste for the media, and… well, “unique” doesn’t get the half of it. “Eyeballs” and rare meat skewered on arrows, anyone? How about ravens claw broth or dragon eggs?

It’s a nifty promotion, to say the least. Game of Thrones begins airing on Foxtel’s Showcase channel from April 10.

We sent this around on our social sites at Twitter, Westeros, and Google+ yesterday, and it’s been spreading like wildfire ever since. For those who’ve missed it, then, take a look at Chirtopher Bishop’s Valentine’s Day cards inspired by A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s Game of Thrones.

In a similar vein, someone running a Robb Stark fan Tumblr had these  Robb-centric Valentine’s Day messages to offer, which we thought rather cute.

HBO’s released a nifty new poster teasing the April 1st premiere of Game of Thrones, which we’ve placed in our gallery:

I could only wish that they had green sparks and flames, just to tease the wildfire as they did with their graphic tease many months ago.

And speaking of videos, HBO has also released the Iceland production video onto Youtube in high definition. Check it out for another glimpse of Night’s Watch goodness amidst the gorgeous, frozen landscapes of Iceland.

HBO’s released a follow-up to its In Production: Croatia video, this time giving us all an extended look at the production’s filming in Iceland. Some gorgeous scenery… and our first glimpse of Simon Armstrong as Qhorin Halfhand:

For the Swedish fans out there, SVT will begin airing the first season of Game of Thrones on February 22nd… and, coolest of all, they’re following the tack of Sky Atlantic’s Thronecast—and one upping it, because they’re doing something that, so far as I know, they’ve never done before: they’ll be airing an after show half an hour after each episode ends (and just five minutes afterward on the SVT Play streaming service). This should be good fun.

Among the presenters? Radio presenter and writer Johanna Koljonen, who revealed her fandom for the show last year when she helped arrange the Nalen TV Club’s Game of Thrones-themed party>.

For those who decided to wait patiently for Cyanide’s Game of Thrones: Genesisstrategy game at a lower price point, the game’s become part of Steam’s Daily Deals, with prices reduced 75% ($9.99 in the US, 9.99€ in Europe). Currently the deal has about 19 hours to go before it’s back to its regular price point.

UPDATE: There are some significant corrections to this story. We’ve learned that some of our report was based on a faulty transcript of the interview, and along the way we were informed of some additional details that may be of interest.

Brazilian media website POP has an interview with Vince Gerardis,  founder of Grok! Studio and a co-producer on Game of Thrones who helped bring GRRM and Benioff & Weiss together, while he visits the Campus Party technology and media exhibition (this event, unfortunately, did not turn out entirely as planned—technical difficulties prevented GRRM from participating in a streamed web chat with attendees, for which Campus Party has issued sincere apologies).

There’s some fascinating bits of material, although some serious issues in translation and transcription appear to have left a lot lost in translation. We’ll correct the record below.

Blackwell, an imprint of leading academic publisher John Wiley & Sons, will next month be releasing a new entry in its Pop Culture and Philosophy series: Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts Deeper than the Sword (Pre-order:  US, UK). The book is due to hit shelves on March 13th.

The series uses popular culture to give philosophers a platform to delve into topics of philosophical interest in a way that’s relevant and relatable to a general audience. Part of a series edited by William Irwin, editor Henry Jacoby has gathered together twenty essays covering a wide range of topics from a distinguished group of philosophers. Also included? A short foreword from Linda and I, which we were very honored to be asked to provide.

It’s fun to see how Game of Thrones is starting to be woven into the fabric of popular culture… and, sometimes, into actual fabric. Helmut Lang revealed—through Creative Directors Nicole and Michael Colovos—that the fashion house’s Fall 2012 ready-to-wear collection was inspired by HBO’s series. When we spot the interview, we’ll share it. Until then, watch the runway show at New York’s Fashion Week, and check out Women’s Wear Daily’s full gallery showing the many looks.

There were so many positive remarks at the glimpses of the maps in Harper Collins Voyager’s enhanced e-book of A Game of Thrones that we decided to pass on the praise to Voyager… and they kindly decided to release all three maps to us as PDF files. They’re watermarked, of course, but that’s no hindreance to getting the pleasure of looking at them, and they may well be useful for those with e-readers who’d like a reference:

• Westeros & the Free Cities
• The Wall
• King’s Landing

And if you have an iPad, and happen to reside in the UK? Get a hold of the enhanced A Game of Thrones directly, which includes a dynamic map of Westeros showing the progress of characters as well as a character glossary.

Notified that a “photo blast” was coming, I had thought that it might have to do with a Game of Thrones Bluray launch event, or perhaps something to do with HBO Nederlands premiering and its launch event featuring Carice van Houten as a guest…

But no, this was much cooler than that: seventeen shiny new images of cast members both old and new! They’re now in our gallery, beginning on this page of the character gallery. The first image up? The familiar face of Arya Stark, with Joe Dempsie as Gendry asleep in the background, as well as what look to be Hot Pie and Lommy Greenhands.

A lot of movement, a lot of upcoming things of interest to fans of ASoIaF, this year. Among them? The 2013 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar with art by Marc Simonetti has been up for pre-order a bit… but now a cover has shown up over at Amazon.com (Amazon UK preorder), and it’s very nice indeed.

Also vaguely spoilerish, as it represents a scene from A Dance with Dragons, but without context it should be fine.. Great choice of scene, though, and we’re eager to see what else Simonetti has in store!

Or, at least, the actor portraying Podrick Payne is interviewed. Access Hollywood talked with Daniel Portman about his role as Tyrion’s shy, tongue-tied young squire, touching on the character’s background, his own familiarity with the novels, and his weightlifting regiment (or, rather, lack of it) to get into the part.

Portman notes he’s quite different from the character in the novel, in his personal life, but he seems to have aimed to capture a lot of it in his performance. Yes, Podrick’s a bit older for the TV series, but otherwise, it’s sounding pretty good. We’re certainly looking forward to seeing his performance, and we’ve hopes that some of his best parts in A Clash of Kings will make it through.

Back in March of last year, it was announced that Subterranean Press was going to normalize its limited edition of the A Song of Ice and Fire series by going back to the first two novels and publishing them; they had previously skipped those two, having taken over the license from the defunct Meisha Merlin. A few months later, we learned that Ted Nasmith would illustrate the first novel, A Game of Thrones.

And now GRRM has announced the artist for A Clash of Kings: Richard Hescox, a past winner of the Chesley Award, among other honors. It’ll be awhile before we see his work, but in related news, George noted that Marc Fishman had turned in all of his art for the limited edition of A Dance with Dragons... and you can see most of it, or perhaps even all of it, at his Facebook gallery (naturally, spoilers galore!)

HBO’s Game of Thrones may not have had quite enough momentum to land the majority of awards it was nominated for in most of the awards given out these last couple of months… but the Visual Effects Society seems to feel differently. Nominated in three categories, the results are in. “Winter is Coming” won the Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Broadcast Program award, and “The Icewall” scored a win for Outstanding Created Environment in a Broadcast Program or Commercial.

The other category for animated characters in a broadcast program or commercial, where the dragons in “Fire and Blood” were nominated, lost out to this commercial from Canal+. Can’t argue with it, that’s a pretty terrific effect!

We’ve noted this via social media, but forgot to post about it: through February 27, Amazon.com is offering selected HBO programs at special prices, with savings of as muc has 60%. And, yes, Game of Thrones is part of it with 42% and 44% off the DVD and Blu-ray complete first season sets. It must be doing pretty well, because presently the Blu-ray is #3 on Amazon’s Blu-ray bestseller list.

But the other thing we noted at social media, as we were heading out for a day on the town, was that something had arrived: courtesy of HBO, Linda and I now have the Blu-ray set. We couldn’t watch any of it yesterday, but we’ve just started today and it’s as gorgeous and high-end a compilation as you can imagine. The very first thing we looked at? The Complete Guide to Westeros, and specifically the Histories & Lore section which I do believe were written by Bryan Cogman, whom we’ve interviewed previously.

SFX, the U.K.‘s biggest magazine devoted to science fiction and fantasy, runs a yearly award with readers of the magazine nominating among a number of categories. They’ve now announced the results, and they are very nice indeed: A Dance with Dragons took Best Novel (with Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes a well-deserved entry on the short list), and A Game of Thrones landed Best New Show while being shortlisted for Best TV Show (which, I suspect, is perenially won by Doctor Who).

And in a nice touch, SFX managed to get George to accept the award:

Redeye Chicago has a long interview with Natalie Dormer about her roles in The Fades,  Madonna’s W.E., and (of course) HBO’s Game of Thrones, where she plays the role of Margaery Tyrell.

The Game of Thrones questions start on page 3, where Dormer proves to be quite coy about her character and her role in the story. However, she does say this:

Not to say that the thirrd season is a go, but that at least pins down their views as to when Dormer’s likely to be doing the bulk of her work if a third season is commissioned by HBO… and given the numbers it’s starting to feel like less of a question of “if” and more of a question of “when” and “how many”, if there’s the chance that HBO will commit to a two-season order this next go-around.

EW’s Spoiler Room provides some new information regarding season 2 of HBO’s Game of Thrones, thanks to Alfie Allen, who plays Theon GreyjoyTheon Greyjoy. Getting a chance to chat with him at the SAG Awards, this is what he had to say about what he got to do, who he loved working with, and what his favorite episode is. Mild spoilers, if you really don’t want to know anything about the story lines or new characters for season 2!

To quote:

HBO has partnered with social TV app creator Miso for the Game of Thrones Superfan Sideshow Challenge, inviting fans of the TV series to view, vote on, and even create Sideshows, a “second screen” experience which allows fellow fans to watch an episode of the series while viewing the Miso for iPhone app to see interesting facts, notable quotes, and polls that get fans to become more engaged in what they’re watching. The top producers of Sideshows—according to votes through the app or

HBO got in touch with Linda and I, asking us for Westeros.org to help launch the availability of Game of Thrones Sideshows by providing one for episode 2, “The Kingsroad”, which we were all too glad to do. It was an interesting experience, and we hope the fans of the series find some of the details we point out interesting or amusing!

Big news for fans of replica memorabilia has just come down the pipeline: Valyrian Steel, producers of officially licensed weapons based on “A Song of Ice and Fire”, have nowannounced that they have secured the rights to produce weapons and armor based on HBO’s hit Game of Thrones series. The first items they plan to produce?

Best of all, Valyrian Steel means to continue to producing replicas based on the novels at the same time. They have a Night’s Watch Survival Kit in the pipeline, each one featuring a unique, hand-made obsidian dagger, and King Robert’s Warhammer is on the way to join Longclaw, Needle, and Ice. All the weapons made under the “A Song of Ice and Fire” license are done with the direct input of GRRM, unlike the Game of Thrones replicas.

The Huffington Post’s television critic Maureen Ryan runs an annual auction for charity called “Swag for Charity”, with items covering the range of swag she gets from studios and networks in her role as a critic. This year, GRRM contacted Mo and offered to throw in a number of signed books to the cause, so there’s an excellent chance to fans of his work to get their hands on a complete signed hardcover set of “A Song of Ice and Fire”, an amazing collection, the start of a superhero saga that’s lasted decades, and much more (including some Spartacus: Vengeance items).

Bid early, bid often, because all proceeds goes to deserving charities, including Partners in Health! The auction on the George R.R. Martin items ends on Sunday.

A new month, and now a new teaser from Atlus for XBox 360, PS3; PC forthcoming). This one features one of the new locations created for the game, Riverspring, the seat of House Sarwyck. One of the two playable characters from the game, the red priest Alester, hails from there.

The teaser certainly seems to be suggesting that political intrigues and currents are going to be an important part of the game’s narrative. More information about the RPG can be found at the official site, and in our earlier report.

That’s what Kit Harington teased to MTV’s Kara Warner at the SAG red carpet.  You can watch the video (US only) of the discussion below:

A write-up of the interview can be found at MTV’s site, for those who can’t see the video.

Thanks to Cunningham’s hint followed by Jolie Lash’s prompting, we now know what Cunningham was doing yesterday—getting interviewed by Access Hollywood about his role as Ser Davos Seaworth! In fact, there’s an excellent video interview with the actor (who’s awfully charming, if I may say so) as well, which covers the same material

Hopefully no one will seriously take issue with their changing the hand from which Davos’s is lacking a few joints!