Westeros

Over at “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin’s assistant has revealed the cover of the A Song of Ice and Fire 2019 Calendar, with art from the great John Jude Palencar. This continues the trend of award-winning artists gracing the calendar series, making it one of the most vividly illustrated literary universes since Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

Interestingly, Palencar seems to have not done much SF/F genre work for the last four or five years—we’re going to guess he’s done personal projects and private commissions in the interim—so this calendar will mark an exciting return for the artist.

According to Amazon, the calendar has a July 17, 2018 release date.

A brief press release from HBO has confirmed what has long been understood: the final, 6-episode season of Game of Thrones will not air until 2019.

Here’s the press release in full:

Back during the 6th season, the UK’s Royal Mail and Tourism NI collaborated on a series of 10, limited edition Game of Thrones stamps. Now to start off the New Year, the Royal Mail has announced a brand new series of Game of Thrones stamps featuring characters and notable creatures and items from the series:

The ten set of individual stamps feature popular characters such as Arya Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow, and Cersei Lannister, while an additional sheet of stamps feature “the Night King and White Walkers; Giants; Direwolves and Dragons, as well as a stamp of the contested Iron Throne.”

The stamps can now be pre-ordered at the Royal Mail shop, ahead of the January 23rd release date; fans in the UK can visit any one of 7,000 Post Office branches across the UK to purchase them directly, or they can call the Royal Mail at 03457 641 641 and order stamps over the phone.

There’s a dizzying variety of options to choose from for collectors and fans, including some collectable covers and other items that are apparently limited editions with no more than 1,500 copies to be made.