Westeros

Last week, Linda provided a review of the very handsome Stark fountain pen from Italian pen maker Montegrappa. That pen was one we bought ourselves, as we do admire fountain pens, but shortly after we did our review we were pleasantly surprised to receive a package straight from HBO: Montegrappa's Targaryen ballpoint pen. Naturally, we just had to review it, and I provide the honors this time around:

Yes, my handwriting is nothing to write home about! But I think that should give those interested in a pen like this a sense of what they're getting. All in all, the Montegrappa series of pens has been one of the unique and interesting Game of Thrones-licensed products. The pens are widely available, especially at HBO's own store:

We've posted a video review of one of Montegrappa's officially-licensed Game of Thrones pens. Montegrappa is a famous name in Italy, a maker of fine pens and other luxury items, and their licensing Game of Thrones has led to four (now five) beautiful pens.

The Stark pen featured above -- a fountain pen with a medium nib; other options include fine and broad nibs, or rollerball or ballpoint versions -- is one of the initial four pens which each take their inspiration from a different Great House. The fifth, and newest pen, is a high-end limited edition in solid sterling silver or even 18 karat gold, but those run anywhere from 3,200 to 52,000(!) euros.

This pen came to us by way of Amazon.com, via a Madrid-based authorized dealer named Iguana Sell (noting them down because they did an amazing job with prompt shipping and really good packaging), but you'll find most of the varieties of the pens available from a number of sellers besides them, some at even lower prices:

Of course, the HBO Store (both the US and EU varieties) also carries the pens as well, and sometimes you'll find special deals on all their Game of Thrones products.

We’ve been referring to this for a couple of months as something in the works, but Linda and I are now very happy to join in making the official announcement of the launch of Martin Studies International Network.

What’s that, you may ask? See the press release below to learn more:

The episode guide for “The Dragon and the Wolf” is now mostly up-to-date, including Linda’s video review of the episode (which we’ll embed below) as well as a book-to-screen consideration trying to piece out what’s inspired by the novels to date, what’s likely to happen in future novels, and what’s definitely not something that fits within the scopes of the books.

As Linda says in her video, there may or may not be a Season 7 overview video from her—stay tuned!

Launching just as we were in the midst of travels, we were remiss to make note of the fact that the long-awaited graphic novel adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s “The Mystery Knight” has now been released.

Bringing back together the successful team of Ben Avery on script and Mike S. Miller on art, the graphic novel adapts the 3rd of the Dunk & Egg novellas, set about 90 years prior to the A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Over at Unbound Worlds, Random House’s SF/F site, there’s an interview with Mike Miller regarding the Dunk & Egg adaptations over the years and some of the choices he’s made in the course of them.

HBO has released details for the final episode of Game of Thrones season 7: “The Dragon and the Wolf”—good title—will have a 79 minute, 43 second running time, making it the longest episode of the series to date. There are rumors that season 8’s episodes will potentially run even longer as a matter of course, but we’ll have to wait and see if that holds true.

“The Dragon and the Wolf” airs at 9PM on August 27th.

The penultimate episode of Game of Thrones season 7, “Beyond the Wall, is out, and Linda has gotten the episode guide filled with thoughts on what’s inspired by the books and what may be related to what’s to come and what definitely isn’t happening, as well as an analysis of the episode which we’re embedding below:

Thanks to all of our travel lately, some of the previous episode guides did not get their Book-to-Screen sections, but those have now been filled: “The Spoils of War” and “Eastwatch”. The latter also contains a second video in the Analysis section, looking more closely at a particular bit of information revealed in “Eastwatch”.

IGN has an interesting interview with Jane Goldman, one of the four (or five) writers working on ideas for a successor series to HBO’s Game of Thrones. In the course of the interview, Goldman’s quite cagey, but she does share just a little bit of information that provides some additional parameters for what her pitch is.

Linda and I recently published a video on our Westeros.org youtube channel regarding annulments in Westeros. This is in reaction to something on Game of Thrones—Linda explains more in the video—but suffice it to say, it contains spoilers for season 7 of the series.

(And no, still not watching myself, but I know the general gist of what’s been happening so far, which is more than enough to confirm that I made the right choice for myself.)

As previously mentioned, Linda and I decided to take some time while on our vacation to make a video discussing the Game of Thrones “successors”—the four (or five) in-development concepts that follow-ups to the show. We’ve now finished the series, deciding that three parts was more than sufficien to kick around a dozen or so potential ideas. You can find them all in the playlist embedded below:

Later than usual—still on vacation!—but the episode guide for “The Queen’s Justice” is now up, including Linda’s video review and book-to-screen analysis. You can see the video below:

While vacationing, Linda and I decided it was time to share some thoughts on the Game of Thrones successors—as GRRM calls them—that HBO and several writers are developing as a potential follow-up to the popular series. In this first video, I lay out some of the details of what we do know about the projects, and some of the parameters that help us understand what the projects aren’t.

With any luck we’ll have the next video—discussing some ideas of stories outside of Westeros that HBO may be considering—up later tonight.

While we’re away up north (north to us, anyways) for our vacation, Linda and I are getting back to doing semi-regular videos about A Song of Ice and Fire, to compliment the Game of Thrones post-episode videos she’s producing for our Episode guides.

The first one—shot on the OnePlus 5 (my first Android phone, after 5 years of my trusty Nokia 920) to make the process more convenient while we’re up here—ends with an unexpected guest star as we discuss.. well, Fire and Blood, which is coming to readers sooner than expected in part because the first volume is practically finished already. Find out how that works below:

Keep an eye on our channel for more videos in the coming days.

Yesterday Linda managed to film her analysis of “Stormborn”, and it was hurriedly edited together before we left for our vacation. Linda posted it while we were on the road, and only now have I recalled to post about it here!

Not only is the episode guide updated with the video—which we’ll include below—but there’s also the book-to-screen analysis, looking at what details fit the novels, which seem possibly related to future events, and which are simply not possible because of the substantial changes from book to screen.

Answering the questions following his mysterious blog post from a few days back, George R.R. Martin has revealed that Fire and Blood is closer to publication than many thought. A book focused on the history of the Targaryens in Westeros, drawn in large part from material originally created for The World of Ice and Fire but which was largely redacted or severely compressed from that book, the amount of material is so sizable that it will appear in two volumes.

Per George:

And for those who wonder about the state of The Winds of Winter...: