Westeros

HBO has sent out a press release unveiling the existence of Game of Thrones: The Complete 1st Season Collector’s Edition (Amazon US), which will be hitting shelves on November 20th, just in time for the holidays!

Available in both Bluray and DVD editions, the complete set will feature a new, House Sigil display case that features the arms of the Baratheons, Starks, Targaryens, and Lannisters, as well as a Dragon Egg paperweight. Additionally, the Bluray box will contain an exclusive Bluray disc featuring the first episode of the second season, providing a little taste before the probable February or March release date of Season 2 on Bluray.

You can find the full press release below.

Hot on the heels of some programming changes due to a scheduling conflict for Lena Headey and the addition of Rose Leslie to the Game of Thrones panel this Friday at San Diego Comic Con, unfortunate news by way of the official Game of Thrones Twitter: Kit Harington will be missing the panel, due to a broken ankle. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Harington’s broken ankle was unrelated to the production, and will in fact not affect the filming schedule (which suggests Harington’s first scenes are probably weeks away).

According to a tweet from the official twitter for Ballyscullion Park in Northern Ireland, it looks like the first day of filming took place on their grounds:

They later added that the filming was wrapping up right around now, so that’s the first day done. Nice to see a new location—the woodlands at the park seem to have been the focus—added to the mix….

But more importantly, it looks like we now know that returning Season 1 director Daniel Minahan is starting off the third season, because as @ballyscullionpark noted that it was episode 1 that was filming, Cat Taylor noted that “Dan M” was directing:

So, one day down… quite a lot more to go. We’re looking at filming going into November.

According to James Hibberd at EW, it looks like

Game of Thrones panel this Friday due to a scheduling conflict (chances seem good that that would relate to Judge Dredd). However, this doesn’t mean the panel will be down one—instead, the charming Rose Leslie (Ygritte) will be joining the panel, as well as attending the post-panel autograph session.

Following up last night’s post, Red Carpet News TV scored several more interviews at London Film and Comic Con with members of the cast of Game of Thrones which they’ve now put up. You can find interviews with Nonso Anozie (Xaro Xhoan Daxos), Amrita Acharia (Irri), Eugene Simon (Lancel Lannister), Ralph Ineson (Dagmer), Steven Cole (Kovarro), and Ross Mullan (who played a White Walker on the show).

You can find all these interviews embedded below.

A report in the Irish Daily Mirror—the exact text which I’m not able to find, but it’s been reported at second hand by The Independent—claims that Liam Cunningham, who plays Ser Davos Seaworth, has signed on for another six seasons of HBO’s Game of Thrones. This isn’t unexpected news, as such, but it’s interesting as it suggests that Cunningham’s initial contract might have been shorter (which in itself is a bit unusual, since most contracts for long-term cast tend to have five or six year options) and now the production is on a footing where paying more to secure services of second season additions to the cast as far into the possible future as a seventh or even eighth season starts to make sense.

Several members of the Game of Thrones cast were on hand for London Film and Comic Con, and we have a brief video from the Game of Thrones panel—featuring Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister), Rose Leslie (Ygritte), Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth), and John Bradley (Samwell Tarly)—filmed from the audience. We’ve also found several interviews from Red Carpet News that should be of interest to fans of the show. You can find the videos embedded below:

A tweet regarding the Irish Blue Cross horse ambulance service in connection to HBO’s Game of Thrones may raise spectres of HBO’s Luck and its decided lack of luck when it came to horse safety—leading to the critically-praised series coming to a sudden, untimely end—but the fact is that this shows due care for the safety of the horses the production uses. And it seems to hint that some chase sequences are going to feature this season:

Having spotted this already on the shelves in our local SF/F speciality bookstore, I decided to check what the word is on Bantam’s 2013 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar (Pre-order: Amazon US, Amazon UK), with art from Marc Simonetti.

It looks like July 10 is the official release date, though it may well be that some booksellers have already put it on the shelves (as our local shop did).

We’ve only seen a few preview images up to now, so getting a chance to at last look through the whole calendar was quite a pleasure. Particularly noteworthy was a fantastic image of Daenerys in the House of the Undying and a vivid landscape featuring the Rhoyne. Well worth sticking on your wall next year, but make sure to order one sooner rather than later—these tend to sell out their print runs within a couple of months, and after that finding them at reasonable prices can be difficult at times!

Thanks to multiple reports around the web from George R.R. Martin’s reading and Q&A at Town Hall Seattle, we now know that Martin confirmed what we’ve speculated : Morocco will serve as the location for Daenerys Targaryen’s storyline in the new season, the region of Essos known as Slaver’s Bay.

Some have rather hopefully thought it would mean we’d see Dorne in season 3… and while Morocco may doubtless serve as the location for scenes set in Dorne in some future season, it certainly seems that that’s not the plan this year. So Dorne fans will just have to wait.

After a long, long delay—almost a year—Linda and I have finally put up the promised second part of our discussing prophecies in A Song of Ice and Fire in light of A Dance with Dragons...

... only to realize, after we posted it, that our promised second part was supposed to discuss an entirely different prophecy from the one we covered! So, you’ve got part three to look forward to. This, and many other videos about A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones can be found over at our Youtube channel.

In a sequel to their very popular first Game of Thrones 16-bit RPG video game parody, College Humor now takes a look at season 2. Some of it feels a bit more obvious… but it’s worth it just for the regular Littlefinger Dance Party breaks (which are, I suppose, NSFW—so beware):

Bigpoint, whose Game of Thrones massive multiplayer online action-roleplay game we’ve previously reported on, has gotten itself a new name (Game of Thrones: Seven Kingdoms) and some beautiful new screenshots.

Moreover, the first ever trailer for the game will first be unveiled at San Diego Comic-Con, at the Dark Horse booth.

Here’s the press release:

Tonight at 7PM, George R.R. Martin will be reading—almost certainly from The Winds of Winter—at Town Hall Seattle, part of the Summer Reading Series hosted by Clarion West, one of the leading SF/F/H writer’s workshops. George will also be available for a Q&A.

Tickets are already sold out through the official outlet, but according to Brown Paper Tickets:

So, worth a shot.

Thanks to Ben Bella, our essay in Beyond the Wall: Exploring George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (Order: US, UK), “The Palace of Love, The Palace of Sorrow: Romanticism in A Song of Ice and Fire”, is now available in full via the Smart Pop Books site. It’s available for just one week, after which it’ll revert to an excerpt.

And as we posted yesterday, Linda and I discussed the essay with Sean T. Collins and Stefan Stasse for the latest Boiled Leather Audio Hour podcast. You can find direct and iTunes links to it here.