Westeros

A role introduced in A Dance with Dragons, that of the wealthy and influential Meereenese nobleman Hizdahr zo Loraq, has been cast, according to EW’s James Hibberd. Filling the role is British actor Joel Fry, who has largely featured in British television programs, but has made appearances in Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 BC, as well as Tamara Drewe. Fry is also a musician, one of the lead vocalists for Animal Circus.

While the role is being introduced earlier than in the novels, it makes sense to present some Meereenese characters earlier on who will then have more of a role later on.

In yet more app-related news, a big update has taken place for the official A World of Ice and Fire app (Download: iTunes, Google Play), which Linda and I have worked on.

The latest update brings Jonathan Roberts‘s The Lands of Ice and Fire (Order: Amazon US, Amazon UK) maps to the app, including the map of the Known World which depicted the world in unprecedented detail for the very first time. All of these maps are based on George’s hand-drawn maps, and were made with his direct oversight.

As it’s now been running live for a week without incident, we thought we’d share the news that those of you with mobile devices—Android or iOs (and soon Windows Mobile)—who’ve enjoyed the Flipboard app’s presentation of personalized magazines filled with the latest content from around the web now have one more magazine they can add to their collection: The World of Ice and Fire, curated by none other than… well, me. Launched in collaboration with Random House (publisher of the A Song of Ice and Fire series) and Flipboard, I’ll be currating content, leading fans of ASoIaF and Game of Thrones to the latest news and tidbits that might be of interest, as well as some of the more wonderfully interesting fan writing, artwork, and more.

Feel free to subscribe, share, and comment

Today marks the 65th birthday of George R. R. Martin, and of course fans across the Internet are showing their appreciation—there’s even a #HappyNamedayGRRM hashtag on Twitter. For our part, we were invited by Tor.com to write up a brief appreciation for George, part of a regular series of “On this Day” posts that the site (highly recommended for fans of SF/F/H) runs. We give a brief—all too brief, for a career that spans over 40 years—rundown of his beginnings as a writer, his rise to prominence, his time in Hollywood, and of course the massive success of A Song of Ice and Fire.

Have a good one, George—may there be many, many more to come!

This summer, Amazon announced the formation of a new imprint dedicated to the publication of graphic novels: Jet City Comics.

With this news came the announcement of the initial slate of comics that would be published by Jet City, a slate which featured the works of George R.R. Martin quite heavily. First up among them is Meathouse Man, adapted by artist Raya Golden from Martin’s disturbing science fiction tale in an imagined future where corpses are reanimated as the servants, and playthings, of men. That’s due in October…

... but for fans of A Song of Ice and Fire, it gets better: Jet City will be republishing The Hedge Knight graphic novel (adapted by Ben Avery and Mike S. Miller) in November, and following that up with the republication of The Sworn Sword by the same team in January.

And then, to cap it off? The third Dunk & Egg story, “The Mystery Knight”, is due to finally be adapted to comics—once more by the team of Avery and Miller—for Random House, publishers of the A Song of Ice and Fire series and—with Dynamite—of the comic book adaptation of the same.

Given the news that Mark Gatiss will be playing a character introduced in A Dance with Dragons in the upcoming fourth season, it is perhaps no great surprise that another character from a novel that goes mostly beyond the point of season 3 has been cast. Winter is Coming’s tipsters discovered the CV of British actor Rupert Vansittart naming him as playing the role of Bronze Yohn Royce, a lord of the Vale of Arryn. The character does, actually, get mentioned at a couple of points in the first novel as someone who is present in KIing’s Landing for Robert’s tournament—and, perhaps more interestingly, as the father of Ser Waymar Royce, the ranger killed way back in the prologue of the first episode of the show.

But what will his role be in this season? While we can just imagine that he could just appear quite late in the season, to coincide with his A Feast for Crows appearance, we’re going to guess the show will want to bring him on stage earlier.

Below is a showreel put together by Vansittart’s representatives—several years old now, but features some interesting scenes, including his appearance in Four Weddings and a Funeral:

James Hibberd at EW has the exclusive news that critically-acclaimed Icelandic band Sigur Rós will be making a cameo appearance in the fourth season of Game of Thrones, an appearance they’re already filming in Croatia. Hibberd seems to know what their role is, but isn’t sharing… but we’re guessing it’s tied into their occupation as musicians, to say the least.

Though we can’t embed it, here’s the video to “Ekki múkk”, one of a number of experimental short films the band has made; you’ll find the narrator quite familiar, Game of Thrones fans.

Though HBO has officially refused to comment on the role that writer/actor Mark Gatiss will play, the Curtis Brown Agency website’s CV for their client now includes the name of his role: Tycho Nestoris, an emissary from the Iron Bank of Braavos.

What’s interestingx is that this character is introduced in A Dance with Dragons, well after some key events that have yet to play out in the show and may well not take place until late in the forthcoming fourth season. This may portend that his role will be somewhat different, or at least expanded, from what it is in the novel.

Some speculation below.

This year’s Hugo Awards have been announced at LoneStarCon 3, the site of this year’s Worldcon, and it turns out that the George R.R. Martin-penned “Blackwater” took the Hugo Award for best, short-form dramatic presentation. This is something of an upset, breaking the lock Doctor Who has had on the category for the last three years; three separate episodes of that series were among the nominees.

Game of Thrones‘s first season carried away the 2012 Hugo Award in the long form category, with all episodes being treated as part of a single, unified work.