For Spanish-speaking fans, the Miami-based website Café Fuerte has posted an interview with one half of the Westeros.org duo, Elio (aka me), concerning George R. R. Martin, the fans, and more. Enjoy!
Filming for Game of Thrones in Dubrovnik has continued this week, and Mark Thomas of the Dubrovnik Times continues to deliver with his photo-filled reports on the production. This time, photos include a colloquy between executive producer Dan Weiss, Emmy-winner Peter Dinklage (yes, we’re officially appending Emmy-winner to every mention of Emmy-winner Peter Dinklage from now on… or at least until it gets old!), Jack Gleeson (Prince Joffrey), and Ian Beattie (Ser Meryn Trant).
The report notes that as many as 200 people are working on the production on a daily basis—including extras, stuntmen, and more—and that “more than a million Kuna” (That seems to be about USD $181000) is being paid to Croatian companies directly involved in the filming.
As to Northern Ireland? We’ve had several days of extras reporting they were taking part in a huge battle sequence, and this last couple of days it seems Liam Cunningham (playing Davos Seaworth) has been hinting at some interesting night shoots. The Neil Marshall-directed, George R.R. Martin-scripted “Blackwater” seems to be going forward smoothly, and so far the weather has been playing relatively nice after the gale winds that tore down a catering tent and caused early shut down of filming scenes involving Renly Baratheon’s camp.
Although no professional reviews of the A Game of Thrones: Genesis game have been published yet, gamers have been hot at it, trying the game’s various modes—single player campaign, house vs. house, multiplayer—and opinions seem to vary. But now one fan has helped make it a bit easier to decide before you buy, as he’s put together a few videos following his own play through of the game, starting from the tutorial, extending to a part of the campaign, and on to the house vs. house. Dukely1’s playlist featuring the videos (at least one more is forthcoming, apparently) can be found embedded below.
So, Amazon has announced a host of new products—$79 Kindle, $99 Kindle Touch, $149 Kindle Touch 3G—but the absolute highlight of the press conference was to unveil the Kindle Fire, a $199(!) media tablet. Lots and lots of press coverage… but two funny things, for fans of GRRM, and for fans of some loosely related work as well.
The official release of A Game of Thrones: Genesis is September 29th—tomorrow—but that’s September 29th, midnight Paris time.
According to publisher Focus Home Interactive, this means that those who have pre-ordered the digital download of the game should be able to receive their activation codes some time in the U.S. evening. There’s already reports that those who’ve pre-ordered on Steam have been able to download and install the strategy game (PC only), and just need the activation for the game.
Also, for those who prefer their games in boxed, physical media, it looks like Amazon.co.uk will be shipping it on the 30th (but apparently to UK customers only). We expect other retailers may already have them to ship, so it’s worth looking around your gamesellers of choice.
The launch of the first issue of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones was apparently a roaring success: the first printing has sold out, and we have reports that fans making their way to comic shops found that all the issues were gone. Well, good news: it’s gone back for a second printing according to Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool. According to his post, the book should hit shelves on October 19th, a week prior to the release of the A Game of Thrones #2.
HBO released a very, very short promo for season 2 as part of a special upcoming projects feature before the season premiere of Boardwalk Empire. Here it is:
We’ve been busy with a good deal of behind-the-scenes stuff, but we’ve been collecting a few links from around the web this last week—ever since Peter Dinklage’s Emmy win—and we’re going to hit you with some of the best of the material from the week. Some interesting things here, from glimpses of sets and filming in both Northern Ireland and Croatia, to some hints about the filming in Iceland later in the year, and more. Keep reading!
With a week to go for the release of A Game of Thrones: Genesis, Cyanide and Focus Home have released an official trailer via the game site, and we have it here for your delectation. It gives a few brief glimpses of the game engine, including some examples of a dragon—which I suspect is supposed to be Balerion, the Black Dread—in action:
The game is available for pre-order via Games Planet, and will start hitting the digital site on September 29th. You can read a bit more about the game in our earlier post.
We’ve previously interviewed Daniel Abraham, the writer and frequent collaborator with George R.R. Martin who’s scripting Dynamite’s George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones comic, but we had to point out Comic Book Resource’s new interview. Some good stuff… and one particular bit that stood out for us, and will doubtless send fans scrambling to speculate.
The comic book adaptation of the bestselling first novel in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, A Game of Thrones, is finally hitting shelves today! Dynamite will be publishing single issues, beginning with today’s arrival of issue #1.
Featuring variant covers by Mike S. Miller (of The Hedge Knight) and the famed Alex Ross (Kingdom Come), writing by Daniel Abraham (whom we’ve interviewed about the project when it was first announced), and art by Tommy Patterson, this is the first of a planned 24 issues that would adapt the first novel. Bantam—publisher of the novels in the U.S:—will step up to publish the collected editions as they become available; we’d expect six issues per collection.
Where to find it? You have some options, thankfully! There’s always your friendly local comic shop, which you can find via the Comic Shop Locator if you’re not sure. Other than that, it may take ordering it from a comic shop online, waiting for the collection, or seeing if digital distribution (via ComiXology or Graphic.ly) will become an option, as it presently doesn’t seem to be.
For a preview, make sure to visit Dynamite’s Game of Thrones #1 page.
On this day 63 years ago, one George Martin was born in Bayonne, New Jersey—and that, I’m sure we’d all agree, was a great thing! Many felicitations and well-wishes, not just from Linda and I, but from fans around the world are going out to GRRM on this special occasion.
With Game of Thrones now having made its mark at the Emmys, with A Dance with Dragons still flying high on the bestseller lists, with “A Song of Ice and Fire” propelling Martin into rare company, with the Game of Thrones comic book from Dynamite Entertainment about to hit shelves tomorrow, and A Game of Thrones: Genesis soon to be on sale (even as an RPG is in development, too), and Martin included on the TIME 100, and his having married the love of his life, and…
Well, lets just say that George has been having a very good year, and deservedly, and we can only wish him many more!
Interest in Game of Thrones is high in Croatia, thanks to the production currently filming there, and that’s led to some interesting reports (both official, via news media, and unofficial by interested fans and maybe the occasional extra). One of the former can be seen below, a short piece depicting extras in costume as Kingslanders and gold cloaks, filming at the Minčeta Tower. Perhaps of greatest interest, however, are the two actors interviewed: Dominic Carter (mistakingly identified as ‘Jonatan Cohen’), who plays Janos Slynt, and Andrew Wilde who plays Tobho Mott.
The video, and some comments on what the actors said (since it’s over-dubbed into Croatian) below:
A press release has just gone out from Amazon.com, announcing that George R.R. Martin is the latest author to move over a million copies of his books via the Kindle Store. The release includes a quote from Martin, and notes that so far only ten other authors (including fellow HBO-adapted writer, Charlaine Harris) have earned that distinction.
You can find the relevant portion of the release below:
About a month ago, John Hodgman tweeted that it looked like he’d be filling in on The Sound of Young America radio show/podcast, and it turns out that this is the week in which the interview airs. Hodgman is a terrific interviewer, and there’s some great discussion about science fiction fandom, the fans of “A Song of Ice and Fire”, some spoilery material regarding death in the series (skip that part if you haven’t read through A Storm of Swords!), and more. The interview appears to have been recorded some time after the end of Worldcon.
(Thanks to Ed for pointing out that the interview has aired.)