Westeros

The David Gemmell Legend Award is a U.K.-based award for fantasy, divided into several categories according to the sub-genre. Presently, the Legend Award has opened up its polls to determine the short lists, and in the Legend category for Best Fantasy Novel of 2011?

You guessed it: A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin, along with many other books besides. The polls close on March 31st, and then voting will open to determine the final winners in each of three categories. To vote, visit the poll (and make sure to check the radio button above the title you want to support).

Some new photos from the filming in Iceland in November and December have turned up, courtesy of the Location Guide—a site specializing in covering and promoting foreign locations for film and television purposes—and Pegaus Productions, the local production company that faciliated the filming.

Among the notable production details: 200 crew and 15 horses, minimal need for building anything, and snowfall was needed to minimize costs (a lack of snow would have meant they’d have to film on the glacier itself, which would take longer and be more expensive, and would also have revealed ash from a recent volcanic eruption).

We should note that at least one of the images is potentially a spoiler if you’ve not read A Clash of Kings, so if you don’t want to be spoiled… well, don’t look!

In their round-up of their plans for 2012, roleplaying game publisher Green Ronin spend a good deal of time discussing their Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying game. The huge boom in interest in all things Ice and Fire thanks to HBO’s Game of Thrones has seriously depleted their stock of the Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying rule book. Instead of reprinting it, they’re announcing a brand new edition, called the A Game of Thrones edition, which will include the entirety of the Peril of King’s Landing adventure that was separately released.

Besides being full color, the RPG will feature a brand new cover from the amazing Michael Komarck, whose provided some of the finest artwork for “A Song of Ice and Fire” to date. Green Ronin’s plans extend past that May release of the AGoT edition, however.

We’ve updated our gallery with images from the last two videos, with the usual commentary drawing from the books and from other, relevant information. But in the course of watching the Croatia video, a new bit of information slipped out.

To the right you can see director Alan Taylor, who directed “Baelor” and “Fire and Blood”, and whom we recently confirmed was directing four of the ten episodes…

... and something new: he’s now a co-executive producer on Game of Thrones!

An interesting revelation. This puts him on the same footing as GRRM, as far as “official” credits go, and suggests two things to us: if there are further seasons, he’s going to be leaving a major mark as a director in them (bearing in mind that he’ll certainly be busy this summer, when shooting on Thor 2 starts), and that he’ll have a good deal of input on the directiorial aspects of the show. His extensive experience as a director should be a boon for the production.

Two new brief interviews have been published with George R.R. Martin regarding HBO’s Game of Thrones series, looking at his view on the show as an old hand at Hollywood television and as the creator of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series on which its based. The first of the two pieces came from the LA Times blog, Hero Complex, in which GRRM discusses his concern for how viewers will treat the second season after a major character leaves the show, drawing on experience on “Beauty and the Beast” where the controversial departure of Linda Hamilton mortally wounded the show.

The other article, posted today, is a brief interview with THR’s Live Feed blog. He notes that fantasy has been around for thousands of years, but it’s been treated as material exclusively for children in the modern era until relatively recently. Asked about how season 2 will compare to his novel, A Clash of Kings, he says:

Straight from HBO, the new piece we’ve been waiting for—originally scheduled to appear on On Demand on the 16th, it’ll actually be debuting on the network on the 18th at 4:30PM EST/1:30PM PST—is available online! See the embeded video below:

Screencaps with notable details can be found here.

HBO’s just come out with a Youtube video, promoting the fact that the first season of Game of Thrones will begin re-run on Thursdays at 10PM, beginning January 26th. Mark your calendars!

Sky Atlantic in the UK has just announced the fact that the second season (or series, as they say in the UK) of Game of Thrones will air just one day after the US premiere, April 2nd at 9PM.

As they note, that’s less than 24 hours from the U.S. premiere, just like last year. It’s an impressive example of Sky and HBO working together to minimize delays. And to head off arguments… airing simultaneously—which would mean airing the show at 2 AM—just isn’t economically feasible, as Sky Atlantic is partially supported by ads, and having the first airing take place at a relatively “dead” hour just doesn’t make any sense. 9PM on Mondays places the show squarely in prime time.

And will, no doubt, lead to fewer sleep-deprived zombies entering the workplace come Monday morning.

Subterranean Press has just announced that they’ll be producing a limited edition of George R.R. Martin’s first novel, Dying of the Light. A science fiction novel written at a time when Martin had made waves as one of the foremost short fiction writers in the genre, Dying of the Light is a personal favorite, in large part because of the evocative writing and the setting, the dying festival planet of Worlorn which is soon going to see its “dying of the light”. Fans of A Song of Ice and Fire may spot some characters or themes that are precursors to Martin’s bestselling fantasy series.

Pre-ordering is now available, and the pre-order page includes some samples of artist Tom Kidd‘s illustrations and paintings for the nove.

And he did it again: Peter Dinklage took home the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Tyrion Lannister , which certainly made up for any sadness over Game of Thrones losing out to the (exceptional) Homeland for Best TV Drama.

Thanking George R.R. Martin, executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss, and more, Dinklage finished his acceptance speech by noting he was thinking of Martin Henderson, whom he suggested viewers Google; Henderson is a dwarf in Britain who received serious injuries when he was attacked in apparent “dwarf tossing” incident.

Here’s Dinklage’s acceptance speech below:

Unless I’m misunderstanding, I believe this interview was actually recorded in the summer of 2011 during GRRM’s book tour for the release of A Dance with Dragons, but in any case, it was posted two days ago. We’ve linked it in the Citadel’s So Spake Martin collection of correspondence, interviews, and signing reports, but will embed below.

No real spoilers to speak of, and no discussion of the TV series, but some interesting reflections on his work both past and present… as well as one rather inexplicable question.

As George himself noted at “Not a Blog”, Game of Thrones scored a prestigious honor when the American Film Institute announced its list of ten film and ten television programs that had shown their excellence in the prior year, naming HBO’s hit fantasy drama among many other noteworthy programs selected by AFI’s jury. Yesterday was the AFI Awards luncheon where the various honorees received certificates ... and guess who showed up to receive them?

Jason Momoa, Emilia Clarke, and George R.R. Martin.

GRRM is indeed over in LA, and he’ll be in the audience for the Golden Globes along with David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Peter Dinklage as Game of Thrones battles for Best Television Drama and Dinklage sees if he can repeat his Emmy victory for Best Supporting Actor at the Globes. Will he manage it? Ken Tucker at EW thinks so, as does Tim Goodman at The Hollywood Reporter (who also thinks Thrones should take the television prize).

Below is the AFI’s video revealing their award honorees:

Yes, April Fool’s Day—April 1—will see the debut of season 2 of HBO’s acclaimed series adapting George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire”. This is according to Variety reporter Stuart Levine, in this tweet from TCA, the regular series of press tours for the Television Critics Association. His just-filed report states the following about the show:

What to do until then?

January 16th should see a brand new behind-the-scenes on HBO On Demand (and, we devoutly hope, on line), featuring the filming in and around Dubrovnik in Croatia, and no doubt there’ll be more trailers, teasers, interviews, and so on and so forth to keep us all occupied. Oh, and there’s the complete box sets (US: Blu-ray, DVD; UK: Blu-ray, DVD) to keep us busy in March, just in time for a marathon session (or five).

Tor has launched its 2011 Reader’s Choice Awards, giving fans a chance to have their say in what their favorite works of the last year were. Voting’s easy: just sign up for a; make sure to follow the rules!

You can nominate as many titles you like in the following categories: Best Novel, Best Short Fiction, Best Cover Art, Best Graphic Novel. You all probably have notions for what to suggest as your favorite novels last year, but I’d like to recommend comic book fans consider nominating Criminal: The Last of the Innocent by Ed Brubaker (for my money, one of the best writers working in the field right now) and Sean Phillips. If you’ve read it, you know how good it is as it mixes crime fiction with a deconstruction of the classic Archie comic characters (yes, really). And if you haven’t read it yet, what are you waiting for?

Valyrian Steel, makers of officially licensed replica weapons based on “A Song of Ice and Fire”, have noted via their Facebook page that their stock of Ice—the Stark heirloom sword—has just dipped under 50% of the limited run of about 2,000 weapons.

They have also just noted that a low-numbered case of Arya’s Stark sword Needle turned up, and the next five orders will get numbers 49, 51, 52, 53, or 54. Here’s Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) with an example of Needle that George sent to her as a gift last year.