Westeros

For awhile now, we’ve been sitting on some information regarding one of the upcoming, Ice and Fire-related things that George and we are involved in. But now, in the last days, things have been moving quite quickly, and it’s time to pull back the curtain.

Some have seen a listing for a product named Maps of Ice and Fire at Random House’s sites. But this is not, in fact, the final title. We can exclusively reveal that the final title is The Lands of Ice and Fire, which will be a boxed collection of posters featuring quite a few different maps, covering everything from the Seven Kingdoms we all know and love, to the lands Across the Narrow Sea… including the fabled Yi Ti, the lands of the Jade Sea, and the mysterious Asshai-by-the-Shadow. There’ll even be maps of a city or two.

This will be the most accurate and complete maps of the world of the setting ever published, featuring lands and places that we’ve never even heard of before—including long-dead kingdoms, half-forgotten cities, and more. I’m not presently certain as to who the artist(s) is/will be… but I’ve been looking over George’s own, hand-drawn maps (we’ve been asked to help proof them and do some of this and that for the final product—and no, don’t ask us for any details!), and suffice it to say, there’s plenty there to fire the imagination for any artist.

The poster collection is due to be released on October 30th or thereabouts, and you can pre-order it now.

Last month, we reported on the forthcoming release of Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts Deeper than Swords (Pre-order:  US, UK), part of the Blackwell Pop Culture and Philosophy series of popular philosophy books.

This week, we’re offering readers of Westeros.org a chance to win a copy, signed by editor and contributor Henry O. Jacoby.

All you need to do to enter? Leave a comment on this post, and we’ll select a winner at random! The winner will be announced on Friday, and the book will be dispatched soon after.

Keep an eye out in the next day or two, as well, as we’ll have an exclusive interview with Professor Jacoby and a chance to improve your odds of winning the signed copy by leaving a comment on the interview as well.

Really, it’s a full-court press! To start off, here are Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Michelle Fairley, and Kit Harington discussing the first season of Game of Thrones as part of press for the Blu-ray and DVD release… plus, perhaps, a few hints as to the second season.

And then, for something completely different, Wilko Johnson—ace guitarist of Dr. Feelgood and the retiring Ilyn Payne—chats with Nörrbottens Kuriren about his role in the series, including the second season, and a bit about his touring plans. Though he’s not really a fan of the novels (not to his tastes), he seems to have had great fun taking part in the filming, and even proposes a spin-off idea…

And, though not an interview, here’s a couple of photos and a video of Emilia Clarke during a GQ UK photoshoot.

Update: And here are executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss… with a little commentary from an HBO representative on the side. ;)

HBO has quietly been adding a few new items to its store in the run-up to season 2. Besides getting more of the Cersei Lannister posters in stock from season 1, there’s some brand new shirts that are rather cool (including a Westeros map shirt), plus some knick-knacks such as house sigil and character magnet sets. You can find these, and much, much more, over at the Westeros Store.

Busy, busy times. Thanks to an invitation from the excellent Amin of Podcast of Ice and Fire, yesterday I joined him, Alex from Tower of the Hand, Apocalypse Dan, and Stefan Sasse from TotH and Boiled Leather for the latest episode of the podcast (which mysteriously ended up with the episde number of 69… hrm!)

Lots of good discussion about the TV series and the books, but naturally it’s full of spoilers and the occasional off-color humor. Check it out!

Two weeks ago, Linda and I flew over to London to do the tourist thing… and one thing more: meet the team from Sky Atlantic and Koink that put together last season’s Thronecast, and film a special video bringing together the HBO Uk “Sessions” series of DVD/Bluray promotional videos with Sky’s Thronecast! It was great to meet host Geoff Lloyd in person at last, as well as Ben Barnes from Sky Atlantic and Georgie Hobbs, who joined Linda and I in discussing the series. And seeing Miltos Yerolemou again (and introducing him to Linda) was a treat.

I have to say, they all did great… me? Not so much—extemporaneous speaking and getting to the point is not necessarily my strong suit!

In any case, here it is:

Will there be more Thronecast for the second season, you ask? We’ll see what we’ll see…

Boy, the Old Vic Tunnels DVD launch was massive for getting photos and interviews with the actors, wasn’t it? Someone helpfully pointed out that there’s even more in the way of interviews via Getty Images. They’re watermarked, but they feature a massive swath of the cast, including Emilia Clarke, Michelle Fairley, Oona Chaplin and Rose Leslie, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Gwendoline Christie, Isaac Hempstead Wright…. basically, almost everybody!

Plus, Digital Spy has a few more.

Twitter exploded last night with news that The Simpsons made another reference to Game of Thrones in the latest episode… and not just any reference, but a long couch sequence spoofing the TV series’s opening with its clockwork world. You can see it here—and if you’re in the US and have cable or satellite, you can view the episode online at Fox’s official site.

Last night, HBO did a couple of nice things. First, they released the “Seven Devils” trailer in its full, 720p glory, which you can check out below… but they also released a re-cut version of the “Power and Glory” trailer on HBO following the airing of Luck, including a handful of new shots. These include our first look at Robert Pugh as Craster... and our first real look at Grey Wind. Thanks to fan @FittenTrim, we’ve an image that you will definitely want to check out.

It’s just a somewhat grainy still, but it looks really, really good. Hopefully this will lay to rest some of the CG concerns!

Until HBO puts that online in HD to get a better look, though, here’s “Seven Devils”:

James Hibberd at EW has the exclusive new trailer for the second seasons of Game of Thrones, with a decidedly different style to earlier trailers as it uses the song “Seven Devils ” by Florence + the Machine (note: big fans!) over images of war and turmoil in the Seven Kingdoms. Many of the shots are those we’ve seen before… but there’s a slightly better glimpse of Pyat Pree, some new dialog from Tyrion that comes from the novel, and some nice shots from Iceland.

Check it out!

We’ve seen the invite and the red carpet photos from Wednesday’s extravagant DVD launch party in London… but now you can listen in on some of the interviews with many of the show’s actors, and get more of a glimpse of just what was going on inside the Old Vic Tunnels, thanks to this video showing the festivities between clips of the actors being interviewed:

And then there’s this excellent series of inteviews, conducted by Helen O’Hara for the UK’s leading film and television magazine, Empire Online. This one’s nicely edited, with some excellent back-and-forth.

Just a few days away from the release of the Blu-ray and DVD sets of the first season of Game of Thrones on both sides of the Pond (UK DVD, UK Blu-ray, US DVD, US Blu-ray), and it seemed like the right time to give a more in-depth look into the production of the set. If you’ve read our review, the production values of the added features completely blew us away.

Thanks to HBO and Bryan Cogman, we learned a lot of this could be put down to the hard work of Herzog and Company, a creative production company who specializes in producing added content for DVDs and Blu-rays, among many other things they do. HBO put us in touch with Adam Vadnais, executive director of digital design at the company, and he was happy to answer seven (not a coincidence, that) questions for us!

Read the interview!

Access Hollywood continues on its Game of Thrones interview tear, this time talking to Tom Wlaschiha, who plays the mysterious Jaqen H’ghar. Good interview, which reveals that the character’s long hair—dyed red and white—and his penchant for speaking in third person have all been retained for the show (huzzah!)

With any luck, Jaqen will be as much of a favorite character for fans of the TV show as he’s become for fans of the books.

... in another interview, that is, this time with NY Magazine’s Vulture. There’s some spoilers in there, so beware if you want to stay unspoiled. Here’s the most spoilerish bit, and some speculation below:

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.