Westeros

For those who’ve wondered, it seems that Varese Sarebande and HBO have announced that they’ll be releasing a Season 2 soundtrack for Game of Thrones, due to be published on May 29 (Pre-order: US, UK). With a number of new themes for Dragonstone, Pyke, and others, plus re-worked renditions of various themes from the first season, it certainly seems like a season 2 album is a no-brainer.

What I’m really wondering? Will Blackwater introduce a new theme or two…

As usual, our full coverage of the latest episode is now online, featuring our complete recap, analysis, and chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the episode. 

The one thing is missing is the video extras we’ve done for prior episodes—that will be available some time tomorrow, didn’t quite have time to film in advance this week!

Suvudu has posted the first fifty pages of George R.R. Martin’s Antebellum vampire horror novel, Fevre Dream (Amazon: Paperback, Kindle).

It’s one of Martin’s best novels outside of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, and especially recommended for those who are fans of horror fiction. With a then-unique take on the vampire myth, the novel takes place largely on the Mississipi, and features meticulous research on areas such as New Orleans and Nachez in that era, as well as on the all-important steamboats; the title of the book comes from the fictional steamboat that features in the novel.

Fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones and its source material, George R.R. Martins A Song of Ice and Fire, have a chance to weigh in and make their voice heard in the development of Big Point’s official Massive Multiplayer game based on the TV series.

Bigpoint has put together a survey that they hope fans will spend some time with, to share their thoughts and feedback on what’s important to them in bringing the series to life in an MMO environment.

Completed surveys will be entered in a drawing for an Amazon gift certificate, but really, 10-15 minutes of your time to help the game be the best possible game it can be seems to us to be a no-brainer—if you love games, if you love Game of Thrones, you’ll want to take the survey!

Each year, leading business magazine Forbes, publishes a list of the richest fifteen fictional characters, using various criteria. And this year, for the first time ever, the Lord of Casterly Rock, Tywin Lannister, has entered the list. According to analysis from Forbes, Lord Tywin is worth $2.1 billion. How did they come to that conclusion? Beats me, but being put on the list—alongside Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, and Richie Rich, among others—is certainly yet another example of Game of Thrones entering the cultural zeitgeist.

And speaking of that, so is this from last night’s South Park episode.

Thanks to fiendebass for pointing out Tywin’s presence on this year’s list.

For those who’ve always wondered a bit what the series might have looked like at various stages during conceptualization of the people and places, Kimberley Pope—a concept artist who’s worked on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Agora, Elizabeth: the Golden Age, and of course Game of Thrones—has shared a number of examples of concept art, both for this season and last. There’s some spoilers in the season 2 material, rather mild… but there’s also a lot of amazing material, including various iterations of the Dragonstone and Harrenhal designs, good looks at the Eyrie with a kind of cable car (instead of a winch cage), and more.

Very much worth a gander.

The licensed Game of Thrones action roleplaying game, developed by Cyanide Studio and published by Atlus USA (in the US) and Focus Home Interactive (Europe), is approaching with a June 1st release date. The PS3and XBox versions have been available for pre-order for awhile, and include an incentive in the form of an art book… but finally, the PC version can be readily ordered thanks to Steam’s pre-purchase option.

We’ve given the game extensive coverage in the past, that’s worth checking out, plus make sure to visit the official site for more information!

Thanks to Adam Whitehead for pointing out the pre-purchase option now being available.

Besides our analysis and recaps posted in the Episodes section, Linda and I provide commentary in various other places: our Youtube channel, Sky Atlantic’s Thronecast, MTV News’s Watching the Thrones covers the video angle. But besides that, I provide a bit of additional commentary on the episodes, and the setting and story in general, via Random Houses’s SF/F/H portal, Suvudu.

Each week, an additional review—generally focusing on and providing a bit more detail on thoughts raised in our own analysis of each episode—but, perhaps of more interest, brief essays touching on various topics relevant to the past episode. You can find all of these posts by keeping an eye on the Game of Thrones tag over at Suvudu. Next essay will be up later this week, focusing on Melisandre of Asshai, and the magic she performs.

One of the key deviations from the novels this season is that Robb Stark, played by Scottish actor Richard Madden, will be followed in his journey through the narrative when the book pulled away and kept him in the background.

In past interviews, the executive producers have said a large part of the reason was that they loved Madden and his presence on the show, and they wanted to see more of him. It’s difficult not to see their point: handsome, capable of playing stalwart and naive by turns, and charismatic, Madden draws the eye whenever he’s on screen portraying Eddard Stark’s son, who is now the King in the North.

We had a chance to speak with Madden on the phone while he’s in L.A. doing the press thing, and decided to ask him questions (and, in one case, make a proposal) based on what fans submitted to us.

Read the interview!

With the episode just completed, we’ve posted our full coverage of episode 4 of Game of Thrones, “Garden of Bones”. A detailed recap, a lengthy analysis, and a breakdown of transforming the book to the screen are all available, plus a video Linda and I made in the “Extras” section to provide some additional background and share our thoughts on the best and worst scenes.

Check it out!

Gold Derby has a mass of pictures and details concerning HBO’s “for your consideration” package that they’ve sent out to the 15,000-strong Academy of Television Arts & Sciences to help provide material for them to decide their Emmy nominations. Of particular note to fans will be the Game of Thrones actors and actresses that HBO has submitted for consideration with the academy:

• Best Actor/Actress: None. Which is interesting, to say the least. Is it because the ensemble cast suggests there’s no single lead actor? That’s fair enough, but it does seem strange to not have Dinklage here when he’s now heading the credits…
• Best Supporting Actor: Peter Dinklage, of course, joined by Alfie Allen, Kit Harington, and Richard Madden. As Gold Derby notes, eligible performers can submit on their own, so nothing is stopping Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Stephen Dillane, Liam Cunningham, or others for submitting themselves.
• Best Supporting Actress: Maisie Williams, Michelle Fairley, Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey, and Sophie Turner.
• Best Drama: Game of Thrones joins Boardwalk Empire, Luck, and True Blood.

Thanks to a post at our forum, we’ve learned of a report at Variety that discusses just how well HBO’s Game of Thrones has done for itself. The most salient detail:

These are very strong numbers indeed. From a bit of Googling, at its height True Blood managed 12.7 million viewers per week… and it feels like there’s room to grow, both in the overall averge and in the initial airing ratings as well. After the very strong “What is Dead May Never Die”, it’ll be interesting to see how “Garden of Bones” performs. Will it climb a little thanks to the buzz? Will the weekly average pick up a bit more quickly?

TV Guide has an exclusive story looking at the many women of HBO’s Game of Thrones, with what seems to be quotes from interviews with a number of the actresses, as well as the executive producers. Nice idea, and I suspect there’ll be some juicy bits of information in there. It’s a digital exclusive, as well, or at least it’s showing up first on their digital platforms for those with access to the Kindle Fire or the Barnes & Noble Nook.

Ah, this reminds me of the late 90’s, when web and IRC chats were the way to chat with authors on-line. These days it’s all interviews with a few sent in questions at times, which has its advantages and disadvantages, but it certainly feels a bit less participatory. I wonder if HBO might ever borrow a page from Starz, where at several points

In any case, Empire Onlne—the portal of the UKs Empire Magazine, which covers film and television with a particular interest in genre—will be hosting a live web-chat with George R.R. Martin this coming Monday at 1PM British time (that’d be 8AM Eastern, 5 AM Pacific). Only room for 500 people to sit in on the chat, which will be moderated by Empire Online’s staff. Some of them have even read the books, so one hopes they’ll grab some excellent questions which aren’t so often asked (please, please, Empire: skip the “Which character is most like you” and “How did you start the series” questions that seem to be a staple of these things!)

There was more than one interview conducted during Eastercon with A Song of Ice and Fire writer and creator, George R.R. Martin. While George took part in various panels and an official interview for the convention, he took time out to talk with Geoff Lloyd, the host of Sky Atlantic’s Thronecast.

Here’s what he had to say on a number of topics—including which characters in the show are quite different from his own representation of them in the book (one of them is somewhat of a surprise to me!)

Speaking of Thronecast, you can find every episode for this season linked in the Extras section of the various Season 2 episode guides, as well as our own videos plus our contributions to MTV News’ “Watching the Throne” program.

Word just in on the ratings for episode 3, “What is Dead May Never Die”, and the results (as reported by EW) are rock solid: a 3.8 million rating, just like last week.

Now lets see if this episode and the next, and the buzz we expect them to generate—it’s really good television!—will start seeing the ratings climb.

Almost a year ago, we first had a long chat with writer and keeper of the mythos, Bryan Cogman, about his role in the first season, which included writing the episode, “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things”.

Bryan was there almost from the ground floor, helping during the time of the pilot, and becoming the right hand man to David and Dan as they developed, wrote, and produced the show. Going into the second season, he received the title of story editor… and he wrote the extremely well-received third episode of the series, “What is Dead May Never Die”.

In the interview below, Bryan discusses various aspects of the episode, his overall role on the show, and more. Insightful as always!

Read the interview!

While everyone’s still reveling in the great episode, “What is Dead May Never Die”, HBO’s decided to be generous and put out a couple of new videos filling in background related to the religious environment in the novels. It certainly provides more context to what Stannis was doing on Dragonstone when he burned the statues of the Seven!

And as a bonus—and since we missed it when it was initially put up, HBO decided that Maisie, Isaac, and Sophie signing along with the Game of Thrones theme—which you can find on their commentary on the DVD/Bluray—was worthy of being a video in its own right. We agree!

HBO has released its recap and inside look into the latest episode, “What is Dead May Never Die”, with executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss discussing several of the key scenes and characters. We’ve added the recap to our own recap section, and the Inside the Episode to our analysis section—check them out!

And because we forgot this last night, we’ve also made public our “Bonus material” for episode 3 in the Extras section of the episode page, where Linda and I provide some background that isn’t apparent in the novels for those who’ve not read them, as well as discuss what we consider the high and low points in the episode.

While HBO was at it, they also released the preview for the fourth episode, “Garden of Bones”, which will see the return to Daenerys Targaryen’s story and that of Stannis Baratheon. It’s a good one, written by new staff writer Vanessa Taylor. We’ve written up our own brief preview of next week’s episode, as well, which teases some of what you’ll see.

We’ve posted our full recap, analysis, and scene-by-scene breakdown of the latest Game of Thrones episode from HBO, “What is Dead May Never Die”. Great episode, our favorite so far—and it contains our favorite sequence in all four episodes (in fact, it’s probably one of our favorite sequences in the whole series to date!)

Once you’ve looked that over, please feel free to join fellow fans in discussing the episode—both from the perspective of those familiar with the books and those who aren’t, in separate threads—at the A Song of Ice and Fire, and rate the episode while you’re at it! Membership at the forum costs nothing and, hey, you can use FB or Twitter logins to make it easier.

In the wake of the announcement of Game of Thrones being renewed for a 3rd season (which George R.R. Martin also commented on), Northern Ireland Screen has confirmed that the production will continue to be based in Northern Ireland. Th show will receive funding from the Northern Ireland Screen fund supported by Invest NI and part funded by the European Regional Development Fund. Shooting will take place in the Paint Hall film studio, the new sound stages in Belfast, the Linen Mill Film Studios in Banbridge and various other locations throughout Northern Ireland.

George R.R. Martin has posted about the Season 3 renewal, and he adds some interesting information: the number and working title of the episode he’ll be writing for that season, while apparently confirming that it’ll be a 10 episode season:

Having planned to run this last week just before the premiere, and then just after the premiere, and then when we had the renewal news, and then this past weekend… and, look at that, there’s renewal news!

Well, it’s finally live: the last interview from our trip to the international press junket in London in late February, where we talk with executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss. I’d met David before when I visited the set back during the filming of the first season, and I’d spoken to the both of them during an interview around that time as well, but it was the first time meeting Dan… and yes, he’s just as much One Of Us as you can imagine, geek boys and girls; check out the question regarding the shirt he was wearing!

Read the interview!

This just in from HBO:

If you consider yourself a “super-fan” of Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire—if you can recite the names of all of Walder Frey’s sons while standing on your head, or have an amazing costume as Mord the Jailer, or have made up a tune to “The Rains of Castamere”, or have painted Jaime Lannister riding a horse down a cliff while declaiming epic poetry as he plays the high harp with one hand and cuts down a White Walker with the sword in his other hand, have covered yourself in house sigil tats, or had a wedding where “The Rains of Castamere” also featured —then Sky Atlantic’s very cool Thronecast program wants you to get in touch to possibly be featured in a future episode.

And if you’re in the London area? Probably even better for your chances to get on! If you’d like to volunteer and be considered for the program, contact Thronecast at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Please read for more information about the issues the forum and the wiki have been having lately.

As you probably know, the TV show leads to spike in traffic that lead to intermittent outages. We have slowly been working to reduce the frequency of these. However, last Friday new problem cropped up: msnbot spiders were slamming the server with hundreds of requests per second. If you Google, you’ll see that this is a common problem that other webmasters have had to deal with for their own servers, but it was a new experience for us. We thought we had mostly fixed the problem… only to have something new crop up, which may be connected to potential hardware failure.

The last few days we and our host have been spending a huge amount of time trying to track down what is going wrong, but as of yet we have not found a solution. We’ll keep trying, but right now we do not have an ETA for when the problems may be fixed.

The second episode of season two, The Night Lands, pulled a 3.8 million viewership on the initial airing according to James Hibberd of Entertainment Weekly. This is a very slight dip from the 3.9 million for the first episode, and given that it was a holiday weekend as well as typical post-premier drop-off it has to be considered a good sign.

Our detailed recap, analysis, and book-to-screen breakdown—plus some extra material in the form of a short video Linda and I have prepared providing some background for those who haven’t read the books and our take on the highs and lows of the episode—can now be found over at our episode page!

It’s almost done, alas, but catch the last minutes of this panel from Olympus Eastercon featuring George R.R. Martin—as well as David Anthony Durham, Tricia Sullivan, Joe Abercrombie, Genevieve Valentine—as they discuss the nature of heroism in genre literature:

They should be posting the full recorded panel soon after it ends, so we’ll update accordingly when that’s available.

At 2PM Eastern today, CNN’s The Next List will be airing a 30-minute episode focused entirely on the work of David J. Peterson (Dedalvs on Twitter), creator of the Dothraki language on HBO’s Game of Thrones.

Leading up to it, CNN has posted up some clips featuring remarks from executive producers David Benioff & Dan Weiss, as well as star Emilia Clarke, regarding the importance of the language to the show. Here’s one of them:

It’s worth noting that the Next List blog also contains guest posts from Peterson, touching on the topics of creating languages and the history of invented languages in Hollywood. Well worth reading!

More amazing streaming from Eastercon! This time, George R.R. Martin is being interviewed for about an hour and a half, with questions coming from blogger Adam Whitehead of The Wertzone.

The annual World Science Fiction Society awards—the Hugo Awards—are to be revealed in September, and at Eastercon we’ve found out just who the final nominees are in the categories. And of course, some of the nominations will be interesting to fans:

• Best Professional Artist: John Picacio—multi-award winning artist who illustrated the stunning, best-selling 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar—is up for the Hugos yet again. And a newcomer, as well, one that George has championed: Michael Komarck. His most recent A Song of Ice and Fire, a depiction of Robert and Rhaegar at the Trident, can be seen here as it graces Green Ronin’s A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: A Game of Thrones Edition.
• Best Dramantic Presentation, Long Form: After looking at the rules, it was generally thought that HBO’s Game of Thrones ought best be placed in the Long Form category, as it is—after all—an adaptation of a single continuous story. And it seemed a lot of voters agreed, as Game of Thrones gets a nomination. Its competition includes Captain America, Hugo, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, and Source Code.
• Best Editor, Long Form: A Song of Ice and Fire editor-extraordinaire, Anne Groell—our editor, for that matter, on The World of Ice and Fire, and we’ve been working with her on our bit for The Lands of Ice and Fire—has scored a nomination. She actually edits quite a few other books—she’s the editor on Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastards series, for example—but the jewel in the crown is certainly Ice and Fire.
• Best Novel: Last, but not least, of course A Dance with Dragons received a nomination! Not unexpected, but a thrill as always. Adding extra reason to celebrate is the fact that Leviathan Wakes—written by James S.A. Corey, a shared pen-name of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (aka GRRM’s assistant)—has also landed a nomination. There’s stiff competition in this category, with China Mieville’s Embassytown, Mira Grant’s Deadline, and Jo Walton’s Among Others are also in the running.

Congratulations to one and all! For a full list of the nominees, see here.

Tune in now to UStream to watch George R.R. Martin,  his wife Parris McBride, Gail Gerstner-Miller, John Jos. Miller, Pat Cadigan, Paul Cornell, and David Anthony Durham discus the origins of Wild Cards in the old Superworlds RPG, and where it is today.

Good stuff!

This is quite cool—Eastercon is live streaming selected panels via UStream... and right this moment they’re streaming Miltos Yerolemou (Syrio Forel) going through fight choreography (with a friend of ours, no less—Jo, a historical re-enactor, member of the Brotherhood without Banners, and an all-around awesome person). John Bradley (Samwell Tarly) is also on hand!

It looks like the next panel being streamed from Eastercon will be a Wild Cards panel featuring George R.R. Martin, so stay tuned!

So, everyone hoped for word that HBO was happy with Game of Thrones and would announce on Monday morning that it was ordering another season. Or, as last year, maybe it’d be a day or two more - Tuesday or Wednesday.

Now it’s Friday… and nothing. What’s happening?

The return of Game of Thrones to Sky Atlantic heralds many things—among them, the return of Sky’s after-show, Thronecast. Hosted by Geoff Lloyd, it’s a fun—and often irreverent (in a good way!)—show that has a bit of everything. The upcoming episode 2 will feature an interview with the delightful Maisie Williams.

Oh, and every segment contains a few words on various topics from Linda and I, generally explaining arcane bits of background or discussing how fans are receiving aspects of the show this time around. It’s always nice to chat with Geoff.

If you’re in the UK, you can catch Thronecast at the official site, where you’ll also find interviews with a number of actors that Thronecast got a hold of during the press junket at the end of February. The show also available via iTunes, for your iOS devices or Mac/PC.

Joystiq has published a good interview with GRRM regarding the work being carried out by Cyanide Studio to develop the Game of Thrones action RPG (Pre-order: Amazon US Xbox, Amazon US PS3)  that’s due to be released May 15th for XBox, PS3, and PC.

Some interesting thoughts, and GRRM reveals his level of involvement (in brief: the plot and dialog is all Cyanide, but he’s been involved in making sure that the story works in a way that works with established canon) in the project. Below, check out the latest trailer from Atlus USA (the publisher in the US; Focus Home Interactive publishes it in Europe) to get a taste of that story:

Here’s some good news to tide us over while we wait on pins and needles regarding the renewal (which is coming, you can bank on it, but the exact details may be getting a lot of scrutiny and negotiation from the producers and HBO): Game of Thrones has been named a recipient of the 71st Peabody Awards. It’s a very prestigious award that’s expanded to cover many forms of electronic media, including television in numerous categories such as entertianment, which is where Game scored a nod. Fellow HBO show Tremé also took the award, as did HBO documentary Earth Made of Glass.

The awards are selected by a panel each year, and the panel changes its membership annually. This year, critic and confirmed fan Maureen Ryan was among the judges for the award this year, and she gives an excellent rundown of all the winners, as well as her comments on both the process (every recipient was selected unanimously as a requirement of the award rules) and the various titles getting a nod. Worth reading.

And of course, congratualtions to HBO, the producers, the writers, and everyone else involved in making the first season such a critical and popular success!

We’ve previously announced the news that Bantam will be publishing a poster map collection titled The Lands of Ice and Fire (Pre-order: Amazon US, Amazon UK) that will provide the most extensive look at the setting yet, all of it based on George R.R: Martin’s own map designs. It’s presently scheduled to be published in October of this year.

Now we’ve some more information we can share, courtesy of Random House :

The maps will be drawn by the experienced, freelance cartographer Jonathan Roberts. Having seen his preliminary layout of Braavos based on a map from GRRM that was done quite early in writing A Feast for Crows and was consequently not entirely consistent with what he described in the novels, Roberts definitely knows what he’s about. Fans will have nothing to worry about as far as the quality of the presentation and illustration goes.

It’s been awhile since we’ve had the opportunity to have an outside contributor—not since last season—but it seems as good a time as any to start now! Marc Kleinhenz—who’s writing you’ve probably seen on gaming sites such as Gamasutra or IGN, or at fellow ASoIaF fan site Tower of the Hand—has shared with us a piece asking various fans and individuals familiar with the cities about what senses they associate with the series. Touching on the novels as much as on the TV show, his piece, “The Seven Senses of Westeros”, has some good quotes. Particularly glad he had a chance to ask artist Ted Nasmith about it, and of course Amin from the great Podcast of Ice and Fire, as well as Johnny from TotH.

Oh, and me! It’s a brief read, but I’m curious what you’d say to the question—what senses do you think about when you read or watch the series?

If you’d like to read about the essay I reference in my own answer, it can be found at George’s site here... Or, better yet, listen to him read it himself:

Via TV By The Numbers, we now have the ratings for the premiere, and they are pretty good—3.9 million first airing viewings (just shy of the 4 million many hoped for), but with a 2.0 in the important 18-49 demographic, which is the highest the show has ever received.

Besides that, additional airings garnered a further 2.37 million viewers, raising that total to 6.3 million, and that’s without On Demand or HBO Go factored in.

I think it’s safe to say that it’s just a matter of time for the pick up of season 3 to be announced!

Following the premiere of “The North Remembers”, MTV News revealed that they’ve developed a post-show program to talk about the show—yes, MTV knows Game of Thrones is a big deal! Josh Wigler hosts for MTV, and sitting with him in the studio are Newsarama‘s Lucas Siegel and the always-insightful Sean T. Collins, who blogs about the novels and TV show at his site Boiled Leather and now writes about the show for the august Rolling Stone (what a gig!) If you’ll recall, Sean joined Linda and I, as well as series editor Anne Groell, to annotate A Game of Thrones for the Subtext app.

Oh, and Linda and I were invited to record a very quick segment for this and the next episode and, hopefully, episodes to come!. Yes, it’s Skype—like the bad old days of Thronecast last year—but we’ll sort it out.

On top of that, we later briefly talked about the final scene of the episode with Josh, and ended up being quoted in this article on the topic.

For those who love what MTV’s doing, make sure to watch. Oh! And last year, we recorded podcasts with MTV Geek if you visit our Episode page and start going through each of the first ten episodes.

Amazing responses to the premiere last night, and fans in the UK are going to be watching the show on Sky Atlantic quite soon—don’t forget to hit the web for Thronecast, ladies and gentlemen! For those who’ve watched the first episode, we’ve updated our massive, massive “The North Remember” page with two new videos from HBO (an official recap and the ever-interesting Inside the Episode feature)...

Plus, we’ve already written up a preview hinting at what to expect in the next episode, “The Night Lands”, including HBO’s official episode preview video. Enjoy!

Enjoyed “The North Remembers”, I hope? Fans at our forum seem to have responded well, and have a lot to say to say the least.

Want a taste of more?

Thanks to our friends over at Sky Altantic’s Thronecast after-show, we have another first look exclusive on longer interview segments they have up with members of the cast and crew. We’ve already posted their Benioff &Weiss and Dance interviews, so let’s close up with my favorite character: Catelyn Stark, and the actor who’s brought her to life, Michelle Fairley.

You can read our own interview with Fairley here, and many others besides in our Features section.

Continuing our series of interviews from the press junket in London that we attended at the end of February—just one more left after this—is with one of the actors who has gotten the most attention from the success of Game of Thrones: Emilia Clarke, the actress who’s brought Daenerys Targaryen to life.

She was as charming and cheerful as you can imagine, meeting with us and fielding questions about her work. Topics range from various aspects of her performance, her familiarity with the novels (on the face of it, she’s probably read them more times than I have!), and a whole lot more. It was a pleasure speaking with her!

Read it here!