A guest blogger at Scientific American has published an open letter to HBO, George R.R. Martin, and David J. Peterson in response to the news that HBO’s Game of Thrones would feature a Dothraki language created by Peterson. It’s a fascinating letter, as it asks the production to consider helping science by including certain features that are non-existent or extremely rare in human languages. The blogger, Joshua Hartshome, mentions Klingon as one artificial language whose construction has provided some excellent opportunities for the linguistic sciences, because of it’s unusual word order.
In the comments, Peterson (under his handle Dedavls) offers up a curious feature of Hawaiian—subjects acting as objects and vice versa—which he suggests also exists in Dothraki in some classes.
David J. Peterson and Sai Emrys of the Language Creation Society, through whose auspices the Dothraki language was created for HBO’s Game of Thrones, are the subject of an interview at Tor.com. Quite a lot of interesting details about Peterson’s linguistic training, his approach to creating the Dothraki language, and an exclusive new piece of Dothraki (for the phrase “blood of the dragon”) with an accompanying MP3 file.
David and Sai can both be found at the Dothraki forum at Westeros.org, if you have any additional questions for them.
At his “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin reports that he has acquired a limited supply of the 2009 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, produced by Dabel Brothers Productions with art by Michael Komarck. Rather than sell them, he’s offering them as an incentive for anyone who orders $100 or more in books fromhis Signed Books section of the official website.
Komarck’s art is gorgeous, and relatively few calendars got out there in relation to demand, so these are fine (and very handsome) collectibles. Komarck’s depictions of Jaime, Sansa, Eddard, and more could well be considered definitive.
Mike the Pike Productions have acquired the film rights to George R.R. Martin‘s award-winning urban horror novella, “The Skin Trade”. This follows on the news from September of last year that they had optioned the novella, and suggests confidence in their adaption plans.
Via a message over Twitter, it seems that they’re now sending out the project to potential directors, an important step as they move forward.
George R.R. Martin has returned home from C2E2 and has a post up about the experience. Some interesting pieces of news for fans of his work. Besides the release of Fevre Dream #1 by Avatar Press, he notes that Avatar is still hard at work on adapting his story, In the House of the Worm, script by Wild Cards-collaborator John Jos. Miller and art by Ivan Rodriguez, and they’re still trying to nail down an artist for the comic book adaption of his Bram Stoker Award-winning novella, “The Skin Trade”; Daniel Abraham has already written the adaption.
The above items were all previously known, more or less, however. For something completely new, GRRM announces that IDW has acquired the rights to producing a miniseries based on his science fiction television pilot from the early 90’s, Doorways. If it does well, there’s the potential for it to go forward for a longer period of time, as six back-up scripts were readied, including one written by GRRM himself. And if it takes off? Original stories are a definite possibility. As Martin notes, very few people have seen the pilot, which ended up released on video in Europe at one point but which was never aired in the U.S., so this is a fine chance to see what his show—which some believe inspired Fox’s Sliders from the same period—could have been like.
In other news, some half a dozen publishers met with Martin over the weekend to discuss the possibility of adapting “A Song of Ice and Fire” to comics. He’s uncertain of approving this still, but some formal proposals may follow on from these meetings and he’ll consider it. He cautions, though, that these comics would then be based on the novels, and not be an adaption of the HBO series or its scripts, due to separation of rights.
Finally, GRRM notes that he had a good lunch with Maureen Ryan, TV writer for the Chicago Tribune (and unabashed Ice and Fire fan), the setting for an interview which Ryan has teased with a remark from GRRM regarding the difficulties the production team will face in turning his expansive vision—a reaction to his days in Hollywood, when budget and time constraints kept scaling down what he wanted to do—into televised drama with budget and time constraints. The interview should be published later this week or early next.
We’ll shortly have a full report on his Q&A session in the So Spake Martin collection.
Songs of the Dying Earth, the Jack Vance tribute anthology edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, was on the short list of this year’s Locus Awards. Congratulations to them, and the authors involved! Neil Gaiman‘s story in the anthology, “An Invocation of Incuriosity”, was separately nominated in the short story category.
Mr. Dozois has two other anthologies on the nomination list and is also a nominee as best editor, while Jack Vance himself sees his memoir, This is Me, Jack Vance! (a book which I recommend for fans of Vance, as it’s filled to the brim with his musing style and contains a number of entertaining anecdotes from across his long life), nominated in the Non-Fiction/Art book category. We also note the name of John Picacio among those nominated in the best artist category; Picacio will be illustrating the 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, as we’ve previously reported.
The winners will be announced at the Science Fiction Awards Weekend, June 25-27, in Seattle.
There’s a production listing for HBO’s Game of Thrones, posted March 16th and last revised April 14th, which gives the filming locations of the production as Northern Ireland and Morocco, with a “late June” start. From what I can gather, this website accepts submissions from productions to list relevant information concerning their productions for those who may what to inquire about employment, hiring of equipment, and so on. The sample listings suggest that among the things they list behind their subscription wall are production office addresses and phone numbers.
The main point of interest here is the mention of Morocco. On March 5th, GRRM indicated that a return to Morocco (and Scotland) were possibilities that were yet to be decided on. While we can’t say for certain that this listing is 100% official, if it is official, it seems that the production has decided to go ahead with filming in Morocco after all. Further, again if it’s taken to be 100% official, it seems the production has decided to skip further filming in Scotland, perhaps due to expense or due to the difficulty of keeping shooting locations closed to the public, an issue which we were told bothered the production.
Going back to Morocco, to what degree was the decision to go back motivated by the ongoing casting for Daenerys? While we continue to caution against assuming that Tamzin Merchant, who played the role in the pilot, is definitely out, with each passing day it seems likelier and likelier—they’ll need to be certain of Daenerys by late May at the latest, we think, to give an actress and production time to start readying for her part. If Merchant is replaced, reshooting will have to be extensive since she’s present in every single scene in Pentos according to reports, and hence ... Morocco.
Or maybe not. Maybe they’ve decided Morocco offers too many useful locations for Daenerys’s part of the story, and we’ll be seeing Tamzin Merchant riding the silver across the arid Moroccan landscape, such as in episode 8, written by George R.R. Martin, where he’s confirmed that there’ll be at least one scene featuring the character.
We’ll report further when we have more information. Hat tip to The Rabbit01 for the pointer to My Entertainment World’s listing.
We have a fresh report on George R. R. Martin’s remarks while at C2E2 in Chicago, courtesy of Trebla, at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum. There’s some spoilerish material for A Dance with Dragons and “The Mystery Knight”, so beware.
For those who just want the news relating to HBO’s Game of Thrones, see the extended section. Mild spoilers for the TV show follow.
This may be of interest to expectant fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Chris Albrecht, head of HBO when the channel optioned George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series and now head of Starz, has revealed that his cable network is going to focus its development on historical/fantasy-flavored productions for the time being, according to this Variety report from the MIP TV exhibition at Cannes (familiar to GoT followers as the location where international broadcasting rights for Game of Thrones would first be negotiated).
Starz has already had a great deal of success with Spartacus: Blood and Sand, so much so that the delay in production in season 2 (due to lead Andy Whitfield’s ongoing treatment for a recently discovered non-Hodgkins lymphoma) has them considering a spin-off miniseries to fill time. They also recently acquired broadcast rights to Pillars of the Earth, a big-budget miniseries set in 12th century England based on Ken Follett’s international bestselling novel, and are bringing Arthurian romance-adventure Camelot into production.
This trend appears to be continuing, with Albrecht revealing that Starz is now also developing a mini-series titled William the Conqueror, based on the life of the Norman duke (known in his earlier days as William the Bastard) who would become King of England. There’s a choice quote from Albrecht as well: “The business model is going to be: If it’s got a sword, we want it,” Albrecht joked. “But (picking up) a good contemporary or futuristic piece right now might not be bad.” As to his former home, he calls HBO “kind of a colossus” as far as original programming goes, but he hopes Starz will carve out a niche as “entertaining”, suggesting this strategy is aimed at pleasing the crowds more than at pleasing critics.
What’s interesting about it is that Albrecht’s instincts seem to have been pretty solid, and his instincts have been indicating that there’s a definite place for historical/historical-fantasy original drama on cable. Others seem to agree, given Showtime’s bringing The Tudors to a close only to be readying Borgias to replace it as a sumptuous historical drama, and many more are making that very same bet with shows such as “The Medici” and “Pharoh” being produced internationally. Game of Thrones is the most clearly fantastical of the lot (it remains to be seen whether Camelot will take a more historical or fanciful approach), and certainly one of the highest-budgetted, so it may be argued that HBO’s taking the largest risk into unknown territory. Up to now, fantasy epics on television have been more along the lines of Xena than The Lord of the Rings.
It looks like fans of pre-Modern costume dramas are going to have a feast to choose from later this year and through next. Will all the bets on these costume dramas pan out? 2011 will let us know.
We have a report from C2E2 regarding GRRM’s remarks at the Q&A session on Friday night, (many) thanks to lady narcissa. GRRM remarked on the ages of the characters as they compared to the series:
“GRRM talked a bit about how well people age these days and how much better looking everyone is so they went with older actors to play the adult characters (generally 10 years older). With regards to the children’s ages, he talked about how he mistakingly didn’t age the children quickly enough in the first book…how the first chapter should have taken place 6 months before the second…so the children were made older for the tv series. He mentioned the obvious necessity for this with Dany and what she goes through and needing an older actress because you couldn’t go around trying to explain to the tv audience - but it was okay for 13 year olds to get married back in the old days.”
And in a somewhat more spoilery fashion (and spoiler-protected by the thoughtful lady narcissa), something of what his script for episode 8 of HBO’s Game of Thrones series will cover. Visit the linked report to read the full details there.
Kit Harington, the actor cast as Jon Snow in HBO’s Game of Thrones, is presently playing in Posh, staged by the Royal Court Theatre in London from April 9th to May 22nd. The Royal Court Theatre has release a photo of the young actor in his role as Ed Montgomery. Two more photos, out of costume, can be found here and here.
A notable feature? His long hair, longer than at the Eason’s Signing (see last photo). According to those present, Harington said he wore a wig for filming but if the series recieved the greenlight he’d grow out his hair, and that does seem to be what he’s doing.
For those in the London-area who might want to see the play and report on Harington’s performance, there’s a review with some commentary.
Thanks to The_Rabbit01 for the tip.
In the course of a pre-C2E2 update, George R.R. Martin indicates that he had an excellent day of work, half of it spent on the book and half on the script for episode 8 of HBO’s Game of Thrones, something he says he never does, but it happened to work well.
He hopes for more days such as this, and will be back from Chicago on Tuesday.
He adds a final postscript: “Soon.” We leave the interpretation of this up to our readers.
As an addendum to our earlier report on how much impact having a television show associated with a novel series can have, we were very interested to read Andrew Wheeler’s 2009 genre bestseller review which provides some hard numbers to go with the figures.
The enormous sales of Stephanie Meyers works are, of course, duly noted. Of particular interest to HBO and Game of Thrones fans, however, would be Charlaine Harris’s works. In 2009 she released not one, but two, novels. The first of these became the 25th biggest hardfback fiction seller, with half a million copies sold, while the newest one had sold 270,000 copies by the time the list was compiled, despite an October publication. More notably, in terms of paperback sales, she had nine notable works and sold just shy of 6 million copies in the course of the year.
Compare to 2007, where Harris’s All Together Dead sold just over 105,000 copies in the year (May publication date) and you can see the quadrupling of interest in new release, hardcover fiction from the author. As noted in the previous article, the impact on sales of A Song of Ice and Fire will probably be not quite so noticeable even if it’s a runaway hit, simply due to the already-high sales of the series and the greater commitment involved in reading them compared to the lighter, episodic Stackhouse novels. Still, the gains (especially in paperback) could be quite considerable.
Although this interview posted by the Language Creation Society is with Professor Paul Frommer, most famous for having created the Na’vi language in the recordbreaking box office hit Avatar, there’s two reasons why expectant fans of A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s Game of Thrones should listen to it.
First, Professor Frommer’s remarks concerning the process of how he acquired the job, how he approached constructing the Na’vi language, and his experiences in teaching the actors and dealing with being on set, being called upon to create new language at a moment’s notice, and more, is certainly going to be informative about how the Dothraki language‘s creator, David J. Peterson, will likely be interacting with the television show. Details such as having MP3 files ready for actors to download onto iPods so they can memorize their lines are interesting.
Second, the interviewer just happens to be David J. Peterson. The interview was recorded in January, after he had done his work for the Game of Thrones pilot, and you can imagine his mentally comparing notes as Frommer reminisced on the process of constructing a language within the strictures of film making.
At the premiere for his latest film, Peter Dinklage was sporting longer, blonder hair than is his usual wont. Now, we’ll note that he just wrapped filming in New Orleans on Earthbound with Kate Hudson, so the styling may be for that; or, just as easily, it’s his personal choice and has nothing to do with Game of Thrones (I’m told that highlighting your hair months out from a shoot is probably not the most effective approach).
But ... it’s interesting to speculate, because when we saw it, what immediately leapt to mind is the description of Tyrion’s beard as a mix of pale and dark hairs. While in the novel, the hair of his head is supposed to be a platinum blond, might the production find it easier to take Tyrion’s beard for the whole, and mix blonde highlights with Dinklage’s darker natural hair?
Thanks to trio at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum for the tip!