Westeros
The 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Domain
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At last, Chronicle Books and HBO have published Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones (order: Amazon US, Amazon UK). We’ve had a chance to give it a look at it early, and give some thoughts on it.
The short version for those who’d rather: beautiful and informative, with interesting tidbits… but there’s too much already-seen photography and too little concept art, plus space constraints mean it often only scratches the surface. Variety rather than depth seems have been the aim.
A new and somewhat mysterious entry at the Making Game of Thrones production blog, as we get a random sampling of quotes overheard on the set. Doubtless as consolation for Game of Thrones scoring nil at the Prime Time Emmys (though, with 6 Creative Arts Awards, it turned out to be the drama with the most individual awards by the end of the show), but there’s some interesting bits.
The muddy sinkhole would almost surely be the quagmire that is the Maghermorne Quarry where scenes for Castle Black (and some other things) have been shot. And the cave built inside Paint Hall… well, there’s a couple of things that could be, if they’re sticking to the books. I’ll leave that up to you, though!
This is quite cool.
The HBO Store (in the US) has a special set of Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones (Pre-order: Amazon US, Amazon UK) with bookplates signed by story editor, writer, and all-around good guy Bryan Cogman…
...plus some very special additional goodies: two of HBO’s maps (there’s a map I saw them making when I visited the production office that I’m still hoping to see published some day, but these are pretty good—if not accurate to what the official Lands of Ice and Fire map set (Pre-order: Amazon US, Amazon UK) will be revealing), and perhaps much more interestingly, a portfolio featuring never-before-published storyboards from storyboard and concept artist Will Simpson. Simpson’ll be at Titancon in Belfast tomorrow, so maybe there’ll be some questions about the storyboards that will be in the portfolio.
Jace Lacob at the Daily Beast has a fun article with quotes from numerous comedy show writers (including writers and producers from Modern Family, Parks and Recreation, and The Mindy Project
Game of Thrones took over some of their writers’ rooms.
Here’s a brief excerpt:
While he sets the dragons to dancing and stokes the winds of winter (and gets ready to sit in the audience at the Emmys), it should be noted that today is George R.R. Martin‘s nameday
birthday. He’s a jolly good fellow, and may he have many more! And what better way to celebrate a birthday, than with a song? Shared by Gigamesh, the Spanish publishers of A Song of Ice and Fire, is this terrific Spanish-language version of “The Bear and the Maiden Fair”, titled “El Oso y la Doncella”
May there be many more songs to come!
Amin, Mimi, and Ashley of the Podcast of Ice and Fire have once again been kind enough to invite Linda and I back to talk shop with them. Not only do we join them in discussing a particularly interesting Tyrion chapter from A Clash of Kings, but we also chat about Game of Thrones, the fandom, The World of Ice and Fire, the climate of Essos, and quite a lot more.
(Note: There are spoilers discussing all novels in the series, and occasionally adult language and topics are mentioned, so… maybe not for the workplace.)
Hot on the heels of the Emmys Creative Arts Awards, where Game of Thrones took six awards, the VFX house responsible for one of those victories has made available its VFX breakdown video for the second season. Pixomondo, an international effects house with studios across the globe, really went to town with the visual effects for the series, as you’ll see in the breakdown below:
There was a great deal of excitement when we shared the news that Funko was producing Game of Thrones vinyl figures as part of their Pop! line… and now it turns out that they’ve become available for pre-order on Amazon. And not just that—Dark Horse’s large Iron Throne replica statue (14” tall!) is available at TFAW, which ships globally, as is the Stark shield pin.
None of these items are shipping this month, but the Funko figures are out at the end of November for looking for that perfect holiday present (the Iron Throne will have to wait until January).
You can find links for the Iron Throne replica, shields pins, Tyrion and Dany bust from Dark Horse, as well as the Funko Pop! figures (and many other items of official Game of Thrones goodness over on our Collectibles store page.
(Speaking of the shield pins, don’t forget to take the shield survey and enter for a chance to win some Game of Thrones swag!)
The Creative Arts Emmys always seemed the place where Game of Thrones was going to leave its mark. Last year, though, Boardwalk Empire was the juggernaut, winning seven total awards. But this year? Game of Thrones all the way, as the award took six of the nine nominated categories (not the most nominated show—far from it, in fact—but that 66% win rate was impressive!) to be the winningest show this year.
Here’s the list of winners:
Thanks to Peter Sagal’s co-interviewing of George R.R. Martin at Worldcon, Sagal managed to invite GRRM to take part in the popular quiz show he hosts for NPR, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me. The quiz has now aired, and is available online… and GRRM’s segment can be found at the official NPR page. It’s just ten minutes, and opens up with a few interview questions with Martin before moving on to the quiz portion.
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And now the trickle of information starts coming in from the set: the Making Game of Thrones blog has its first new post in quite awhile, featuring a description of an important scene and a behind-the-back shot of ... someone.
It’s all quite cryptic, of course, but we do know the Clandeboye estate has been used for several things… including, from photos we’ve seen, for regions beyond the Wall and also regions in the south. Not quite sure why there’s no snow, though, in this photo—it may well suggest it’s for something else entirely. I’ll take a completely random guess, based on the “unexpected pairing” implying it might not be anyone paired by the end of season 2…
We recently posted about the fact that Locus Magazine posted a date for the publication of Dangerous Women—containing the fourth Dunk & Egg novella—for May 2013, and that Amazon.de was listing the Dunk & Egg collection for May 2014 following. Alas, that may (may) be jumping the gun. After digging further, I’ve learned that the date is not yet fixed for either of these publications by the publishers; where Locus got its updated date, we do not know, but it may be the sort of prospective date publishers often put on books. That said, May 2013 and May 2014 respectively is entirely possible—I’ve confirmed this—but the final decision lies with the publishers (Tor and Bantam, respectively) who will be making them down the road.
Still, the next Dunk & Egg story is about the “She-Wolves of Winterfell”, we can say that much for certain. Once we get a solid date on the book, we’ll be sure to share it here.
Thanks to some academically-minded fans, we’ve learned that Wiley—the publishers of Game of Thrones and Philosophy, which we provided the foreword for (Order: US Paperback, US Kindle, UK)—is tackling A Game of Thrones once more as part of its Pop Culture and History series with a book aptly named A Game of Thrones and History.
On an academic mailing list, a call for papers from academics in history and related fields has gone out, with the book to be edited by Professor Janice Liedl of Laurentian University. You’ll find the full details of the call for papers below; there are some very interesting suggested topics.
See the correction here.
According to Locus Magazine, Dangerous Women—an anthology edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois—is now scheduled for a May 2013 release. Included in the anthology will the be fourth Dunk and Egg novella, which will follow Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg to Winterfell where the “she-wolves” are said to rule as Lord Stark lays dying. A lot of fans will want to check it out when it’s published, not least to see if a certain vision of the past in A Dance with Dragons comes to fruition in the story.
Interestingly, German bookseller Olaf Keith pointed out that Amazon.de is listing a novella collection due exactly one year after Dangerous Women—May 2014. Martin has previously revealed that the first three Dunk & Egg novellas would be collected along with the fourth, in-progress novella once that was published and a certain amount of time had passed from its initial publication. It seems quite likely that one year is that certain amount of time.
Yesterday, we posted about a pin-up calendar for charity that GRRM and a number of other authors had provided their support for, and mentioned in passing the 2013 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar (Order: US, UK) calendar by Marc Simonetti. This morning, we saw Sweden’s SF Bokhandeln tweet about the fact that Random House has put up a video to promote the calendar, produced by Simonetti. It’s a fine speed-painting video, depicting the painting of a scene from A Dance with Dragons that graces the cover of the calendar. Particularly interesting is the significant change to the composition part way through, and how smoothly Simonetti was able to work it in: