Thanks to the fans who voted in droves, George R.R. Martin’s Jaime Lannister rallied and came from behind to defeat Patrick Rothfuss’s Kvothe. A tremendous battle! Now Jaime’s on to face the final challenge: the Dragon Reborn, Rand al’Thor, from Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series. Rand is incredibly powerful, and the general opinion is that all he needs to do is use balefire. . .
But GRRM wants to even the field. Jaime has demanded home-turf advantage and that the final showdown be a trial of seven, as is his right as a knight under ancient Westerosi custom. What would this mean? If Suvudu’s editors agree, this means Rand will gain six companions—any characters drawn from the works of both Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (who has continued the series following Jordan’s untimely death)—against Jaime’s six allies, drawn from Martin’s works and settings. This would mean that Rand could have Conan on his side (Jordan wrote a number of authorized Conan novels), or Lan Mandragoran, or even Moridin ... while Jaime could potentially have Haviland Tuf, Ser Arthur Dayne, or even the Ice Dragon on his side.
Will Suvudu’s editors go for it? We shall see! We’ll update when a decision is rendered and the polls open.
A small update, as production preparations on HBO’s Game of Thrones begins to pick up pace as the late June start date draws nearer. Over at Extras NI, they’re again recommending that extras avoid cutting or dying their hair, and that male extras consider frowing out their beards and getting a “timeless look”. One funny bit of trivia in the recent past was that for the pilot, members of an Irish heavy metal fan forum were recruited to play extras because they had the requisite look. Seems like Extras NI doesn’t want to be in that position again.
Most notably, they’re recommending that extras stay with this look until January 2011. This fits pretty well with our previous information concerning the many weeks of shooting, beginning in late June and apparently running through the end of the year.
Hat-tip to Winter is Coming for bringing this update from Extras NI to light.
Suvudu’s Cagematch 2010 is in its penultimate round and Ser Jaime Lannister needs your help! Though Suvudu’s editors have rated him the underdog three times in a row, he’s managed to defeat Hermione Granger, Cthulhu, and the dragon Temeraire. But now it’s his toughest match yet: Kvothe, Patrick Rothfuss’s creation in The Name of the Wind. This time, Suvudu’s editors placed Jaime as the victor… but that seems to have jinxed him, because Jaime’s trailing by the narrowest of margins.
Who’ll Jaime face if he manages to pull off the win? Looks like Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn. Who can resist seeing two such titans clash? Besides Kvothe’s fans, that is. ;)
If you want to tip the scale in the Kingslayer’s favor, there’s just one day left: voting ends on Friday at Noon, Eastern Time.
Go to Suvudu.com and vote now!
Green Ronin is proud to announce that A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: Adventures in the Seven Kingdoms has been nominated for prestigious Origins Awards in the Roleplaying Game category. This is not the first time their work on the RPG and its supplements has drawn attention from gaming awards, and we’re sure it won’t be the last.
At his “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin has shared the cover and table of contents for the anthology he and Gardner Dozois co-edited, Songs of Love and Death: Tales of Star-Crossed Love. The title provides the thematic link that connects all the stories together. Contributors include Jim Butcher, Jacqueline Carey, Diana Gabaldon, Neil Gaiman, Robin Hobb, Tanith Lee, and nearly a dozen other authors. The anthology is due out in November of this year.
Variety has a brief report on television success for literary adaptions turning into publishing success. The obvious example is Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series which, boosted by the massive smash hit True Blood, have increased her sales across all her books. The article doesn’t mention the fact that all her Sookie novels were holding on to places on the New York Times Bestseller List (paperbacks) for weeks on end as the series surged in popularity week over week. We’ve had it at secondhand that sales of Harris’s books increased twenty-fold thanks to True Blood:
True Blood isn’t the only example, however. The Dexter series on Showtime has given the original novels (especially the first, which most closely formed the basis for the series) a significant boost, with sales having “have doubled every year since the series debut”. Another genre show, The Vampire Diaries, has helped sell a million additional copies of the series on which it’s based.
Random House is indicated as certainly being hopeful that HBO’s series will prove a success and will help fuel the growing fanbase for A Song of Ice and Fire. However, they do acknowledge that the significant length of the novels of the series—especially compared to the much shorter, lighter, self-contained Harris novels—mean that a greater commitment is needed from readers, and that this commitment may reduce the size of the boost in a series which is already very popular by any standard.
Suvudu.com’s Cagematch 2010, pitting fictional characters in battles to the death, has now reachd the penultimate round before the final. And still standing strong? Jaime Lannister, against Patrick Rothfuss’s Kvothe, the protagonist of the much-lauded The Name of the Wind. It’s Kingslayer versus Kingkiller, and it’s up to you to see who’ll win. The winner—and, being partisan, we hope it’s Jaime—will then face Rand al’Thor or Drizzt do’Urden in the final match to decide who’ll be the last man standing.
Go here to vote now!
Via her blog, visual effects producer Julia Frey has indicated that her professional involvement in HBO’s Game of Thrones has ended. As she notes, chances of her being involved for a full season were slim, so this was no surprise for her, though of course many fans assumed she’d be part a continuing part of the series. Having first come to our attention back in October, Frey has proved very approachable via Twitter and was among the members of the project who joined fans for drinks at McHugh’s in Belfast (where she revealed an impressive poker face).
Where does this leave Game of Thrones? Our guess that the almost exclusively U.K.-based shooting will lead to much of the permanent crew being from the region. If we had to speculate, visual effects supervisor Robert Stromberg is also unlikely to return, given his recent successes (Avatar, Alice in Wonderland) which likely leave him much in demand for other big-budget film work.
Besides Twitter, those who’d like to continue following Julia Frey’s doings are recommended to follow her blog, and also her separate blogging site, Safety Graphic Fun, devoted to weird and amusing safety signs from around the world. Best wishes, Julia.
Over at the Hopeless Gamer, they’re doing yeoman’s work reporting on Fantasy Flight Game’s upcoming Battles of Westeros, a tactical combat game loosely based on the venerable BattleLore system.
This month, they’ve posted two write-ups of what it was like to play the Stark and Lannister sides in a scenario, revealing some of the mechanics of the system, and some discussion regarding various other details of the game. They’ll be posting an in-depth interview with designer Rob Kouba in the near future, which we suspect will make for interesting reading.
A pleasant surprise: Ted Nasmith‘s gorgeous castle art originally intended for just The World of Ice and Fire world book will be published for Bantam’s A Song of Ice and Fire 2011 Calendar. The calendar will include twelve of Nasmith’s terrific paintings, plus a bonus two-page poster of a thirteenth castle (a very appropriate number, as you’ll see when you get it…) The calendar will be on sale in July
As you may recall, it was previously reported that award-winning artist John Picacio would be illustrating the 2011 calendar. Obviously, this is a change, but one that John explains. The reason for the change, according to him? Bantam wanted the art in earlier than originally planned so they could take advantage of the expected buzz for HBO’s adaption of the series during the usual, summer media blitz at San Diego Comic-Con and other such occasions. John’s art will be seen gracing the 2012 calendar instead.
We recommend visiting both artist’s sites. Ted’s, especially, has several of the calendar pieces posted on his website’s gallery, under Other Work. They’re gorgeous, and we admit, we hope HBO’s production designers take some inspiration from them.
Valyrian Steel, makers of limited edition replicas based on the weapons of A Song of Ice and Fire, have annnounced today that their Damascus steel edition of Jon Snow’s sword, Longclaw, will be delayed until July. They explain that the producer of the weapons (who, at last report, had produced over 40 of them by the start of March) underestimated how long it would take to complete the ordered weapons without taking shortcuts which the company would not allow.
In related news, earlier in the month they reported that they’ve decided the next weapon to tackle after Eddard Stark’s sword Ice: King Robert’s famous warhammer.
The new WWII Drama Age of Heroes has cast its leads, and Sean Bean is among them, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Filming is due to take place beginning in early April. If a success, the film could lead to two planned sequels to make a trilogy.
In related news, Death Race 2—in which Bean was cast as the primary antagonist at the beginning of March—has already wrapped shooting and is aiming for a June release. Given the quick turn around on smaller productions such as these, we’ll suppose that Age of Heroes won’t film for more than a month or two, and so will not conflict with Game of Thrones
GRRM has shared this Newsarama interview with himself and author Daniel Abraham, a novellist and Wild Cards contributor who wrote the original comic book, Wild Cards: The Hard Call. After a long delay due to publishing issues, The Hard Call is back on track due to the efforts of Dynamite Entertainment and their new relationship with the original publishers, the Dabel Brothers.
Quite a few interesting remarks therein, including a frank assessment of Martin’s past relationship with the Dabels as they tried to get their business activities running smoothly with only intermittent success.
Round 3 of Suvudu’s Cagematch 2010 has started, and Jaime Lannister—after surprise defeats of Hermione Granger and Cthulhu—is now facing ... well, a rather polite and charming dragon. Naomi Novik’s creation, Temeraire, is a fine, personable young dragon in an alternate 19th century England, but the story she’s written to explain why she thinks Temeraire will win draws in quite a bit of pop, 21st-century culture (two words: reality television).
Go there and vote now! A final thought: dragons were bred for battle in the Seven Kingdoms, and in battle they died. Time for the Kingslayer to become the Dragonslayer.
George R.R. Martin has confirmed that he’ll be writing episode 8 of HBO’s Game of Thrones. This means that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will write episodes 1 (the pilot) through 3, episode 5 and 7, and then the final two episodes. Bryan Cogman will write episode 4 and Jane Espenson will write episode 6, as we’ve previously reported.