A frequent collaborator with George R.R. Martin, Daniel Abraham has turned his sights on epic fantasy in his latest series, which is hitting store shelves today with its first installment, The Dragon’s Path. The novel has been receiving good reviews on the web for those who’ve had access to the review copies. After his brilliant Long Price Quartet (a series we’ve often recommended and consider to be among the best fantasies of the last decade; it begins with A Shadow in Summer), he’s written quite a bit else, from urban fantasy to contributions to the GRRM-led Wild Cards shared-world series, with a science fiction collaboration with new writer (and GRRM’s assistant) Ty Franck forthcoming as well as his scripting of the A Song of Ice and Fire comic book series for Dynamite Entertainment and Bantam Books.
What else can we say? It’s Daniel Abraham. It’s his take on epic fantasy, a subject he discusses at length over at Orbit’s website. He knows what he’s doing. Read it!
Below, find an exclusive excerpt from The Dragon’s Path, published with permission of Abraham and Orbit Books. The book hits store shelves today, April 7th.
Fantasy Flight Games, publishers of the Battles of Westeros board game and its expansions, has announced a miniature figure painting contest with a pretty sweet grand prize: all Battles of Westeros releases, including their upcoming Clans
Tribes of the Vale (I know, I know, nitpicking!)
To learn more about the contest, visit the official site.
Thanks to CountDice for pointing the competition out.
The role of Lord Renly Baratheon was one that many fans were interested in seeing cast. Filling the role is Gethin Anthony, who brings his talents to bear on a character whose role in this season culminates in a crucial decision . . . and who may well go on to become one of the chief players of the game of thrones if a second season is commissioned. Below is our interview with the actor, discussing his early career, the auditioning process, his views on Renly and Renly’s family, and more…
The Lindelof-GRRM “feud”—which was mostly Lindelof sharing some tongue-in-cheek “salvos” while highlighting that he took a bit of issue with some of GRRM’s remarks—seems to have wound up with nary a casualty following some coverage. James Poniewozik shared an excerpt from his forthcoming interview with Martin in which his views of Lost were touched upon when Poniewozik asked him if he watched the show. As Poniewozik notes, he himself has often compared the two, which may have prompted the question.
This ultimately led to James Hibberd’s interview with Lindelof, which cleared the air (such as it was). Particular kudos must go to him for admitting that his appreciation of GRRM dates back to reading Wild Cards (he even remember the Ace-Joker-Black Queen distinction!), which made use start day-dreaming about a Lindelof-Martin co-produced Wild Cards TV series…
In any case, that seems all quite well settled. GRRM himself has made no public remark on the matter, although we’re told he is aware of it.
For a good summing-up of the storm in a tea cup, check out Maureen Ryan’s piece at AOL’s TV Squad.
The re-release of A Game of Thrones in the U.S. has led the book to climb up onto the bestseller lists again, this time breaking into the New York Times and Publisher’s Weekly top 10 lists in paperback, in the highest placement that the first volume series has ever had. Previously, it briefly reached #24 back in January.
Thanks to Olaf Keith for pointing it out.
The San Francisco State University is holding a special advance screening of the first episode of Game of Thrones today, between 6PM and 7PM. First come, first served seating, though they prefer that those attending have an interest in television as an art form. See the Facebook page for more details.
On top of that, the UK’s BAFTA has a free screening on the 15th which sounds particularly interesting, as there’ll be a Q&A with the “creative talent behind the production”. There are limited free tickets available, which you can request via e-mail.
Se acerca el invierno! HBO Latin America—which covers a dizzying array of countries—has just updated their schedule into next month. There, they reveal that Game of Thrones will be airing on May 8th on HBO in the countries it serves. Among them? Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Jamaica, Panama, Colombia, Chile, and many more!
We’ll update our International Air Date listing accordingly. We expect HBO Latin America may soon have a formal announcement, if they haven’t released it already.
Damon Lindelof, one of the producers and writers of Lost, had a turn yesterday when he learned of GRRM’s remarks in the New Yorker concerning his concerns for his series:
Martin knows what it’s like to be provoked by a serial entertainment. He experienced it himself as a faithful viewer of “Lost,” the ABC adventure series about a group of castaways trapped on a mysterious island. “I kept watching it and I was fascinated,” he recalls. “They’d introduce these things and I thought that I knew where it was going. Then they’d introduce and I’d rethink it.” Like many “Lost” fans, Martin resented the series’s mystical ending, which left dozens of narrative threads dangling. “We watched it every week trying to figure it out, and as it got deeper and deeper I kept saying, ‘They better have something good in mind for the end. This end better pay off here.’ And then I felt so cheated when we got to the conclusion.”
In response to this, Lindelof tweeted, “George RR Martin is terrified of “pulling a LOST” by ending Game of Thrones shittily. In related news, my therapist just hit the jackpot.”
Coverage of Game of Thrones is bigging to reach tidal wave-proportions. EW and io9 now have GoT-specific categories, the New Yorker has spoken with George, as has the New York Times, Jason Momoa has given a terrific, fun interview… Lets link some of those up, for those who are eager to get at them:
According to a short piece in Variety, HBO’s Game of Thrones is likely to be HBO’s biggest seller in international markets! Citing that Boardwalk Empire, which was HBO’s best-selling series to international markets (with licenses sold to some 160 countries), the article notes:
Bidding wars broke out among European webs determined to licence the show… Schreger, said, “We knew we had a pair of hot properties in ‘Boardwalk Empire’ and ‘Game of Thrones,’ but buyers’ interest in ‘Thrones’ is phenomenal.”
The article goes on to note some new international market sales that have been eagerly awaited: TNT Serie will air the show in Germany, while Telenet will broadcast it in Belgium. Showtime in Australia is now fully confirmed, as well. The article adds that deals are in the works for Italian, Japanese, and Russian market sales.
We’ve updated our international air dates listing accordingly.
The New Yorker has profiled George R.R. Martin, looking both at his work and his relationship with his fans. It’s a several pages-long piece, including comments from Parris, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss from Game of Thrones, GRRM’s editor, and your humble web admin, among others. There’s also an audio portion to the interview.
Only an excerpt is available on the web, but we note a digital subscription trial is entirely free.
As promised, here’s the first fifteen minutes of the first episode of Game of Thrones, “Winter is Coming”:
Visit the forum to discuss it. The series will premiere April 17 at 9PM ET. Be there!
As we’ve noted, HBO very kindly sent us the six episode screeners that critics received earlier last week, and we’ve rather devoured them all. Linda and I have spent a good deal of time considering and discussing them, and we’ve written an article sharing—in a non-spoiler way—our first impressions. It’s very long, so for those who haven’t the time, here’s our final paragraph that sums things up:
From the point of view of extremely invested fans such as ourselves, the things that we wish were there that aren’t give us a pang, but there’s so much to be joyful about, the gracenotes, the acting, the visuals, the direction, and the writing [or, to put it more clearly, Linda and I loved it even while feeling that some things had to be sacrificed that we’re sorry to not have on the screen]. But we need to emphasize that we don’t believe that viewers unfamiliar with the books will have the same concern. There’s enough meat in the show, there’s enough depth, that those who are entirely new to it will find something to enjoy. It is really well done fantasy, unlike anything ever produced for television. It is a quality drama, a rewarding one, and we think those who stick through the dizzying number of characters, plotlines, and locations in the first two episodes will be appropriately hooked. If you want the full depth and complexity of the world, all the nuances and subtleties, there’s always the books to turn to.
If you want more, read out first impressions.
To add to the media coverage, here’s the U.K.‘s Evening Standard magazine feature on Game of Thrones, interviewing three of the younger stars of the show: Harry Lloyd (who proves the anecdotes we had about geeking out over the books), Richard Madden, and Emilia Clarke. Some excellent material, from the fact that Richard insisted on carrying his “hero” sword (the one out of actual steel) as much as possible rather than the lighter cast resin or aluminum weapons, to Emilia’s efforts to write a movie script of her own.
HBO has unveiled Win the Throne, a social networking game featuring minigames, intrigues, and various rewards. Grand prize? A cool $10,000, plus there’s an additional prize for Comcast subscribers only of $10,000 (only one grand prize per winner). Plus a number of lesser prizes, like gift cards, T-shirts, and so on.
The game sounds fun. The only downside? It’s U.S. only, at least as far as prizes go. Ah, well. The minigames sound like they may be fun to play all on their own, even if you don’t play the game of thrones…