Westeros

Mashable has the exclusive news that explains just what this was about: Random House is publishing an official companion app for the A Song of Ice and Fire series, beginning with A Game of Thrones and including additional content to go through the rest of the series to date.

It’ll be hitting the Apple iTunes app store tomorrow (November 27th), while a version for the Nook (not Android, as the Mashable piece says) is coming in the near future. A demo version will be available to just give you a taste of the entries, which cover characters and places, and includes interactive maps to help orient you. It’s all quite lovingly put together… and as you may notice from the lead image, it seems there will, indeed, be art to accompany entries (those two particular pieces of art are by the amazing Michael Komarck for the sadly-hard-to-get Dabel Brothers 2009 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar).

Much as predicted in the Icelandic article we reported on last week, Game of Thrones season 3 wrapped on the 24th, a fact that came to light thanks to production assistant Cat Taylor who tweeted:

Which, not long after, was followed by this note regarding the wrap party…

Good times! Now it’s just left to post-production, while HBO really starts the marketing push. Not only did we get the teaser, but reports from L.A. and New York show that there are ads on buses and locations such as Times Square promoting the March 31st, 2013 premiere of the third season.

A brief but interesting update from the Making Game of Thrones production blog, discussing the fact that the introduction of Mance Rayder—played by Ciáran Hinds—was also Hind’s very first day of work, which was unusual. Daniel Minahan returns after his season 2 hiatus, as well, directing the first two epiodes of the season.

And, as a passing note, this confirms the return of Edward Dogliani as Rattleshirt, something which we didn’t really doubt, but hadn’t heard anything specific regarding it.

Just in time for the holidays, the folks over at award-winning RPG publisher Green Ronin have announced a “Winter is Coming” sale featuring some great deals involving the Song of Ice and Fire Roleplay rule book and campaign guide (with their amazing covers by Michael Komarck) and various ancillary books, such as the narrator’s kit.

Also, if you missed it, The Night’s Watch is on a special pre-order deal for its PDF, with $5 off—and that one features another nice cover. We haven’t seen much more than the preview ourselves, but it looks like another well put together supplement from Green Ronin.

According to a report from Icelandic news site Visir, it looks like Game of Thrones filming will wrap on the 24th or 25th. That’ll be 138 or 139 days—four and a half months—since production started. And much of it at a dead run, with at least two units, and sometimes three, working in four different locations across that time span.

So, the last few days of the production are happening right now. And according to Cat Talor, today’s a “BIG day”. Hrm… !

EW has an exclusive report and sneak peek at the season 2 Game of Thrones Blu-ray and DVD set (Pre-order: US Bluray, US DVD, UK Bluray, UK DVD).

Set to be released on February 19, 2013 in the US, the Blu-ray set is particularly rich in additional content, including HBO Select, which means you’ll get digital copies of all the episodes. The full list of contents can be seen over at EW, but here’s a run-down:

And here it is, folks, short but sweet:

Is it what you expected?

Just a head’s up for eager fans of Game of Thrones: tune in to

The release of Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones was a chance for fans the world over to get a closer look behind the scenes at the making of the series, thanks to the writing of series story editor and writer Bryan Cogman having penned the book, filling it with the insights he was able to take from fellow members of the production team and the cast.

And now the collector’s edition has been released (Order: Amazon US, Amazon UK), and it adds an additional wrinkle: among the various bits of swag, such as the scrolled maps, is a whole second volume, this one containing storyboards from artist Will Simpson which are a key part of the process of creating and producing the series.

To explain more about the books, and what they reveal and what’s contained within, we had the opportunity to interview Bryan so that he can provide a better understanding of what fans can expect to find.

Read the interview!

Although we’ve known that Game of Thrones season 3 will be premiering on March 31st since Comic-con, it looks like HBO has decided we all need a reminder. It’s plain and to the point:

So, mark your 2013 Calendar, folks: March 31st, 2013, you’ll want to be in front of the TV (or your mobile device if you have HBO Go).

November is turning into a bit of a boon for fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones, as there’s a number of cool items now available for fans who are interested in continuing to experience the show through various outlets. Most notably, of course, is the fact that the deluxe edition of Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones has been released… and in the US, at least, Amazon.com has an amazing deal—60%

40% off!

And at that price, you’ll get not just Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones (you can read our review of it here), but also scrolled maps based on HBO’s version of the maps of the setting (which are in some ways quite different from The Lands of Ice and Fire), a gold-stamped case… and, perhaps most interestingly of all, a companion book containing season one and season two storyboards by artist Will Simpson, storyboards that promise to reveal scenes that were planned but never filmed, never made it to the screen, or made it to the screen in much-altered form. Truth be told, the price for the set is worth it just for this book alone.

We should have an interview with the writer of Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones, the always welcome Bryan Cogman, to provide his insights into the deluxe collection.

And of course, that’s not all that’s going on this month, even as Game of Thrones is winding down with its last few days in Iceland.

Over at the Making Game of Thrones production blog, an interview has been released with Jonathan Barrass, SFX floor supervisor who works with the Wolf and Dragon units that have been filming in the UK and will soon be filming in Iceland.

Some interesting bits are mentioned along the way regarding season 3 scenes that he’s working on. It’s all mysterious, but some of these are perhaps worth speculating about (beware spoilers from the third novel):

Calendars are a popular item, especially with the holiday season practically around the corner, and for fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones, it only follows suit that the Game of Thrones 2013 Calendar (Order: Amazon US, Amazon UK) would be of interest.

This year’s calendar, produced for by Andrews McMeel Publishing, has already garnered some great reviews over at Amazon, and we can attest to the quality of the paper stock and the printing. Although there is the quirk that the calendar’s images are all drawn from the first season (due to the peculiarities of the production and printing cycle in relation to the time when second season materials was available), it’s all quite strong imagery of a number of the actors and actresses that populate the show, from Emilia Clarke as Daenerys to Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister.

One of the interesting things about acclaimed HBO shows such as Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, and Deadwood are the way that actors from one HBO production might appear in another one down the line. Recent examples include Dominic Chianese, who played Junior Soprano, has a small role on Sopranos-alumni Terence Winter’s Boardwalk Empire or Kim Dickens, Deadwood‘s Joanie Stubbs, as Treme‘s struggling chef Janette Desautel.

So it’s no great surprise that Game of Thrones actors are appearing… although, strangely, they’re not presently appearing on HBO shows, but instead on shows from HBO’s sister-channel, Cinemax. The trend was started by the excellent action-thriller series Strike Back, with no less than three actors—Iain Glen, Liam Cunningham, and recently Charles Dance—appearing on the show.

But now the newest Cinemax action series, Hunted, has its own actors from Game of Thrones making an appearance: Stephen Dillane is a regular, in the role of Rupert Keel… and now Patrick Malahide, who had a brief but memorable appearance in the second season in the role of Lord Balon Greyjoy, is playing a significant role.