Westeros

A smaller role, maybe, but the name always had a ring. Thanks to a fan on Twitter, we’re now aware of the fact that actor Jamie Michie is apparently listed as playing the role of “Steelshanks”—it’s Steelshanks Walton in the books, but likely has been reduced to Steelshanks for the show—in the upcoming season of Game of Thrones. Steelshanks Walton is a no-nonsense man-at-arms in the service of Roose Bolton. Will his role on the show be similar to that in the books? We’ll have to wait and see. One does note that IMDB seems to have had some user putting him into the final four episodes of the season, but that’s another wait-and-see thing, I expect.

Scottish-born, Michie has been in a number of film and television productions in the UK, including Ken Loach’s 2010 film Route Irish.

News has slowed down as Game of Thrones hits the last stretch of production—filming in Northern Ireland is done, filming in Morocco (at Ouarzazarte, which Game of Thrones followers may recall as the location of some filming for the pilot which never saw the light of day) is wrapping, and a brief leg in Iceland will pretty much be the end of it—and we’ve not had very much to report… on the website, in any case.

Over the last week we have been sharing bits and bobs over our Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ pages, and we thought we might as well give a quick round-up of some of the more interesting items for people to discuss and consider. These include a number of interviews, from executive producer David Benioff to writer/editor Bryan Cogman to actor Kit Harington, some miscellaneous photos from Morocco, and more. You’ll find them below:

Delayed by this and that, just wanted to announce the winners of a contest in which artists were asked to present an image inspired by Barristan Selmy, a character who fans will be seeing more of in the upcoming season of Game of Thrones.

After a long absence, a new video from Westeros.org on one of the many topics that occupy the minds of fans at the forum! This time, I discuss a particularly geeky topic, but it seems pretty topical with the forthcoming release of the Lands of Ice and Fire: just what is the population of the Seven Kingdoms?

We’ll have a related video up next week, and after that… who knows. Depends on how busy The World of Ice and Fire and related things are keeping us!

For our third and final preview image from the Lands of Ice and Fire poster map collection (Pre-order: Amazon US, Amazon UK), we’ve placed over on our official Google+ page a glimpse of a slice of Essos never before seen, nor ever even hinted at in the novels:

I know enough about the new lands that Martin created in the course of making these expanded maps to say that the choice of this area for this image was very deliberate on my part. There’s a couple of neat things hinted at herein that expand the world-building for Essos quite a bit. But as to what that is… well, maybe The World of Ice and Fire will reveal more, or perhaps GRRM will in some interview or Q&A down the road. We shall see!

The Lands of Ice and Fire is due out at the end of the month in the US, and soon after in the UK.

UPDATE: Io9 also has a preview with a number of small slices. A bit more of Braavos, a glimpse at Asshai and the Shadow, and a snippet of the journey map that Linda and I helped with are among the items. And Tor.com has a few more.

Awhile back, George R.R. Martin reported that his publishers were preparing brand new audiobooks of some of his earlier novels, and of special interest to Game of Thrones fans would be the fact that actors from the hit HBO series—Iain Glen (Ser Jorah Mormont), Ron Donachie (Ser Rodrik Cassel), and Michelle Fairley (Catelyn Stark)—would provide the reading.

Those books are now out… but somewhere along the way, it seems Michelle Fairley didn’t actually read (guessing a scheduling conflict came up), and so Windhaven (a science fiction novel co-written with Lisa Tuttle) has been read by British actress Harriet Walter instead.

Links to the books at Audible.com and samples can be found below:

• Dying of the Light (read by Iain Glen)
  
  
  
• Fevre Dream (read by Ron Donachie)
  
  
  
• Windhaven (read by Harriet Walter)

We’ve already noted that NY Mag’s Vulture entertainment site placed fans of A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones at the pinnacle of their mosted devoted fans list.

But a pleasant surprise was when Linda and I were contacted to be included in part of a series of posts on devoted fans. This past Friday, a short profile of us went up, touching on several subjects connected to our involvement in the fandom, from its earliest days to the present.

For those who might want to know a little more about the people behind the website, this is not a bad place to start.

(And for those who wonder, the statues in the background of our photo, those are from Valyrian Resin. They’re officially licensed, and I’m told a limited quantity remains. I should also add that though they can ship internationally, the web shop does not necessarily give an accurate estimate for shipping overseas, so consider contacting them for a quote.)

Since our last report, more images have been pouring in from Essaouira, Morocco where some more filming has taken place. No real spoilers, but there’s some excellent photos of actors and extras alike at Mohamed Amine Lakaab’s photo set and a few new images courtesty of the Spanish-language Juego de Tronos fan site. Here’s a very brief video from the latter, showing Iain Glen (Ser Jorah Mormont) escorting Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) through the streets of Morocco.

Some comments below on some of the images.

Following up from last week’s first preview of The Lands of Ice and Fire, the collection of a dozen poster maps featuring all-new maps of Westeros and Essos (Pre-order: Amazon US, Amazon UK), here is our second preview: a key slice of the Free City of Braavos!

I call this a “key” section because, if you look at it, it features a number of locations mentioned in the course of A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, all of them based both on Martin’s own map of Braavos checked against the published texts for any changes or inconsistencies that Bantam, the artist Jonathan Roberts (FantasticMaps on Twitter, and yours truly could find. Looks nice, right?

NY Mag’s Vulture website has a “Number 1: Game of Thrones (and A Song of Ice and Fire) fans!

Is it true? I can’t speak for all the other very worthy fandoms, but ASoIaF certainly has a terrific fanbase. There’s shout-outs to Westeros.org, the Brotherhwood without Banners, Winter is Coming, and more—they’ve done their research, to say the least.

(Thanks to levifilm for pointing this list out!)

While exterior filming in Belfast seems largely to be wrapping up—though a major event isn’t quite done filming, suggesting that what remains is interior shooting—filming has begun in Essaouira, Morocco where a significant part of Daenerys Targaryen’s story for the third season will be take place. Essaouira will stand in for the region of Essos known as Slaver’s Bay.

And, just like Dubrovnik, the fact that they’re filming in a city means that photographs of sets, props, and actors are starting to crop up. What follows are definitely a bit spoilerish, so be aware of that:

Charlie Jane Anders over at io9 contacted me the other day to ask some questions related to a piece she was working on related to Game of Thrones. Namely, she was curious as to what storylines I thought were likeliest to disappear from the third season of Game of Thrones which, in good part, will be adapting the third novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Storm of Swords. I shared some speculation with her (and, to emphasize, it’s just speculation, based on various remarks and reports published over the last months) and the article including some of those speculations, as well as her own, can now be found over at io9. It’s a spoilery article, by its very nature

A couple of clarifications, based on remarks I’ve seen since. Spoilers below:

Courtesy of Bantam, we have a very first glimpse of The Lands of Ice and Fire, a collection of poster maps that we know many fans are anticipating.

The posters are due October 30th in the US (Amazon US)  and November 8th in the UK (Amazon UK).

With art by freelance cartographer Jonathan Roberts, this map collection doesn’t just feature places we have all seen mapped before, though for our first (yes, first) preview we figured a familiar image was the best start. These poster maps also include the first, almost-complete series of maps featuring the eastern continent of Essos, maps of Braavos and King’s Landing, a map focused on the Wall, and more.

We’ve placed that new image as our Twitter cover image, for everyone to see when they wander by, but a higher resolution version can be found in our Gallery.

Keep an eye out next Tuesday when we release another snippet of the map, this one featuring something quite new…

So, Extras NI—the main casting agency for extras for the production—just put out this urgent call:

At the end of last week, the Game of Thrones production wrapped up its time in Dubrovnik, but the media there got quite a lot of video and pictures which may be of interest.  Here’s a sampling:

The video below is particularly interesting because we glimpse a scene being shot, featuring Sibel Kekilli, Sophie Turner, Aidan Gillen, and Esme Bianco, which we think must be a scene from episode 1 given an interview with David and Dan that seems to be done the same day.