Westeros

Thanks to Adam Whitehead, we’ve learned that the UK’s Sci Fi Now magazine has published a special look at season 2 of HBO’s Game of Thrones, with never-before-revealed details. Adam’s kindly summarized some of the highlights over at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum.

Here’s some of the highlights:

Gamespy has a good interview with lead game designer Sylvain Sechi and project manager Thomas Veauclin regarind Cyanide’s forthcoming Game of Thrones roleplaying game (Pre-order: X-box, PS3). The game is due to hit shelves in North America on May 15, and should be in Europe around that time as well.

They go into some detail about how they developed the story for the game, and the degree to which George R.R. Martin has been involved. According to them, when they presented their plans with some trepidation, Martin looked it over and told them he had been planning even bigger events to take place in later novels, so their plans were just fine. They also discuss the difference in philosophy between sandbox games such as Skyrim and more narrative-driven games, such as those produced by BioWare.

You don’t see this every day…

Apparently HBO will be promoting the launch of Game of Thrones season 1 in Australia through a unique menu of food at Sydney’s Gastro Park restaurant. Sci Fi Australia has been sharing photos of the food being presented at an early taste for the media, and… well, “unique” doesn’t get the half of it. “Eyeballs” and rare meat skewered on arrows, anyone? How about ravens claw broth or dragon eggs?

It’s a nifty promotion, to say the least. Game of Thrones begins airing on Foxtel’s Showcase channel from April 10.

We sent this around on our social sites at Twitter, Westeros, and Google+ yesterday, and it’s been spreading like wildfire ever since. For those who’ve missed it, then, take a look at Chirtopher Bishop’s Valentine’s Day cards inspired by A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s Game of Thrones.

In a similar vein, someone running a Robb Stark fan Tumblr had these  Robb-centric Valentine’s Day messages to offer, which we thought rather cute.

HBO’s released a nifty new poster teasing the April 1st premiere of Game of Thrones, which we’ve placed in our gallery:

I could only wish that they had green sparks and flames, just to tease the wildfire as they did with their graphic tease many months ago.

And speaking of videos, HBO has also released the Iceland production video onto Youtube in high definition. Check it out for another glimpse of Night’s Watch goodness amidst the gorgeous, frozen landscapes of Iceland.

HBO’s released a follow-up to its In Production: Croatia video, this time giving us all an extended look at the production’s filming in Iceland. Some gorgeous scenery… and our first glimpse of Simon Armstrong as Qhorin Halfhand:

For the Swedish fans out there, SVT will begin airing the first season of Game of Thrones on February 22nd… and, coolest of all, they’re following the tack of Sky Atlantic’s Thronecast—and one upping it, because they’re doing something that, so far as I know, they’ve never done before: they’ll be airing an after show half an hour after each episode ends (and just five minutes afterward on the SVT Play streaming service). This should be good fun.

Among the presenters? Radio presenter and writer Johanna Koljonen, who revealed her fandom for the show last year when she helped arrange the Nalen TV Club’s Game of Thrones-themed party>.

For those who decided to wait patiently for Cyanide’s Game of Thrones: Genesisstrategy game at a lower price point, the game’s become part of Steam’s Daily Deals, with prices reduced 75% ($9.99 in the US, 9.99€ in Europe). Currently the deal has about 19 hours to go before it’s back to its regular price point.

UPDATE: There are some significant corrections to this story. We’ve learned that some of our report was based on a faulty transcript of the interview, and along the way we were informed of some additional details that may be of interest.

Brazilian media website POP has an interview with Vince Gerardis,  founder of Grok! Studio and a co-producer on Game of Thrones who helped bring GRRM and Benioff & Weiss together, while he visits the Campus Party technology and media exhibition (this event, unfortunately, did not turn out entirely as planned—technical difficulties prevented GRRM from participating in a streamed web chat with attendees, for which Campus Party has issued sincere apologies).

There’s some fascinating bits of material, although some serious issues in translation and transcription appear to have left a lot lost in translation. We’ll correct the record below.

Blackwell, an imprint of leading academic publisher John Wiley & Sons, will next month be releasing a new entry in its Pop Culture and Philosophy series: Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts Deeper than the Sword (Pre-order:  US, UK). The book is due to hit shelves on March 13th.

The series uses popular culture to give philosophers a platform to delve into topics of philosophical interest in a way that’s relevant and relatable to a general audience. Part of a series edited by William Irwin, editor Henry Jacoby has gathered together twenty essays covering a wide range of topics from a distinguished group of philosophers. Also included? A short foreword from Linda and I, which we were very honored to be asked to provide.

It’s fun to see how Game of Thrones is starting to be woven into the fabric of popular culture… and, sometimes, into actual fabric. Helmut Lang revealed—through Creative Directors Nicole and Michael Colovos—that the fashion house’s Fall 2012 ready-to-wear collection was inspired by HBO’s series. When we spot the interview, we’ll share it. Until then, watch the runway show at New York’s Fashion Week, and check out Women’s Wear Daily’s full gallery showing the many looks.

There were so many positive remarks at the glimpses of the maps in Harper Collins Voyager’s enhanced e-book of A Game of Thrones that we decided to pass on the praise to Voyager… and they kindly decided to release all three maps to us as PDF files. They’re watermarked, of course, but that’s no hindreance to getting the pleasure of looking at them, and they may well be useful for those with e-readers who’d like a reference:

• Westeros & the Free Cities
• The Wall
• King’s Landing

And if you have an iPad, and happen to reside in the UK? Get a hold of the enhanced A Game of Thrones directly, which includes a dynamic map of Westeros showing the progress of characters as well as a character glossary.

Notified that a “photo blast” was coming, I had thought that it might have to do with a Game of Thrones Bluray launch event, or perhaps something to do with HBO Nederlands premiering and its launch event featuring Carice van Houten as a guest…

But no, this was much cooler than that: seventeen shiny new images of cast members both old and new! They’re now in our gallery, beginning on this page of the character gallery. The first image up? The familiar face of Arya Stark, with Joe Dempsie as Gendry asleep in the background, as well as what look to be Hot Pie and Lommy Greenhands.

A lot of movement, a lot of upcoming things of interest to fans of ASoIaF, this year. Among them? The 2013 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar with art by Marc Simonetti has been up for pre-order a bit… but now a cover has shown up over at Amazon.com (Amazon UK preorder), and it’s very nice indeed.

Also vaguely spoilerish, as it represents a scene from A Dance with Dragons, but without context it should be fine.. Great choice of scene, though, and we’re eager to see what else Simonetti has in store!

Or, at least, the actor portraying Podrick Payne is interviewed. Access Hollywood talked with Daniel Portman about his role as Tyrion’s shy, tongue-tied young squire, touching on the character’s background, his own familiarity with the novels, and his weightlifting regiment (or, rather, lack of it) to get into the part.

Portman notes he’s quite different from the character in the novel, in his personal life, but he seems to have aimed to capture a lot of it in his performance. Yes, Podrick’s a bit older for the TV series, but otherwise, it’s sounding pretty good. We’re certainly looking forward to seeing his performance, and we’ve hopes that some of his best parts in A Clash of Kings will make it through.