Westeros

Thanks to Harper Collins Voyager, GRRM’s UK publisher, and UK bookseller Waterstones, we have a glimpse at George R.R. Martin’s very early description (Page 1, Page 2, Page 3) of his plan for the then-trilogy A Song of Ice and Fire series. Suffice it to say, it presents a very different story than what we have had so far. In a letter sent to the late Ralph Vicinanza, a literary agent who was one of GRRM’s representatives, George very loosely outlines the three prospective novels of the series, while giving a more detailed description of his plans for the first book, A Game of Thrones.

It’s quite the eye-opener, showing how much the narrative evolved from its earliest beginnings.

According to Variety, it looks like more George R.R. Martin work is going to hit the silver screen. According to the report, In the Lost Lands will go into production in the fourth quarter of this year and may potentially star Milla Jovovich, who is said to be in talks. The film’s story appears to be based on three of Martin’s short stories: the eponymous “In the Lost Lands”, featuring a sorceress called Gray Alys (the role Jovovich will prospectively play); “The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr” (available online at Fantasy Magazine); and a personal favorite of mine, “Bitterblooms”, one of a number of GRRM’s stories inspired by songs (in this case, Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne”).

All three share certain themes—there’s a deep sense of melancholy in all three, and love and betrayal runs through them all—but are otherwise unconnected, so it does raise the question as to whether the film will rework them as being part of a single narrative (which seems to be what’s implied), or whether it will instead be more of an anthology film with some sort of bridging material connecting them together. Some details can be found at Constantine Werner’s page for Rusalka Films, including some character designs and “concept designs” (actually more like design inspirations).

HBO has now released the season 5 trailer that appeared following the IMAX screenings, which gives us our first extended look at the upcoming season:

There’s a number of new stills of actors, as well, which we have now uploaded to our Gallery with brief commentary.

Season 5 premieres April 12th in the US.

Although the A Game of Thrones Guide app has been around for just about as long as the iOS version, A World of Ice and Fire, it has not quite received all the features that the iOS version had… until now, that is, as Random House is happy to release an updated, rebuilt app on the US Google Play store. Included in this update are the following:

• A brand new design for Android.
• You can now resize type on all profile and excerpt screens.
• Four brand new categories with 50+ new profiles: Religions, Groups, Creatures, and Things.
• All of the officially released excerpts from The Winds of Winter and The World of Ice and Fire book.

Unfortunately, at least for the time being, the Android app is only available in the U.S.

After much delay—our apologies for that—the Links database has gone live on the site, meaning that any submissions should be quickly and easily dealt with. We will also get to work on adding links to certain types of resources ourselves, but for pure fan sites we will leave it up to just outside submissions for a while. However, one does not have to be the site owner to submit a site, so anyone can ensure that a missing resource is added.

The display is pretty basic at the moment and we will probably develop this a little further, probably adding tags in addition to the categories. If you have any suggestions for other changes, do let us know.

It wasn’t that long ago that we were episode 1 of Telltale Games’  Game of Thrones game ,and now we learn that episode 2 is just around the corner with release dates from February 3 through February 5 depending on platform.

For a look at what came before, and what’s to come, here’s Telltales’s teaser for episode 2, titled “The Lost Lords”:

Last night, EW had an exclusive report on the contents of HBO’s Game of Thrones featurette set to air on February 8th, titled “A Day in the Life”. Later that evening HBO posted a new Youtube video teasing the featurette, and giving us our first official look at the much-anticipated 5th season. You can find the video below:

This just in from HBO: the unprecedented plan to display Game of Thrones on IMAX screens received such wide attention and consumer demand that the IMAX corporation and HBO have decided to delay the one-week run by one week… so that they can get even more IMAX theatres involved in the screenings. Pretty interesting, that! For those who missed the original news, the plan is that for one week, participating IMAX theatres will show the final two epsiodes of season 4, plus an exclusive season 5 trailer.

Tickets will go on-sale starting this Friday, the 16th of January, with the first screening set for Thursday, January 29th, at 10 PM.

See the full release below for additional information:

Here’s a pleasant surprise: the Inn at the Crossroads has announced that they’ve partnered with Random House to publish From the Sands of Dorne: A Feast of Ice and Fire Companion Cookbook (Amazon US), an e-book expansion to the original A Feast of Ice and Fire (Amazon US, Amazon UK) cookbook by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer. This book, authored by Monroe-Cassel alone, will focus on cuisine inspired by Dorne. Random House has provided a list of the included recipies:

From the Sands of Dorne: A Feast of Ice and Fire Companion Cookbook is set to to have an exclusively digital release on February 25th.

HBO UK has sent out a reminder that February 16th (17th in the US) will see the release of Game of Thrones Season 4 on Bluray (Pre-order: US Bluray, US DVD, UK Bluray, UK DVD).

Once again, here’s the full release concerning the contents, and the differences between the DVD and Bluray editions:

HBO has finally revealed the premiere date for Game of Thrones, season 5: April 12th, anchoring the back-to-back-to-back premieres of itself as well as comedies Silicon Valley and Veep.

The full press release is below:

We’ve just received a press release from HBO regarding the popular, Game of Thrones traveling exhibition which notes it will include “select never-before-seen pieces from Season 5 premiering in April 2015”. The exhibition—besides it’s usual U.S. appearance—will be appearing in the UK, Sweden, Israel, Spain, Holland, Germany, and France with more locations to be decided.

You’ll find the full press release below:

In an interesting, and unusual step for a television show, Game of Thrones will be featured on IMAX screens for a one week engagement beginning January 23rd. During that time, the final two episodes of season 4—“The Watchers on the Wall” and “The Children”, episodes known for their cinematic spectacle—will air… as well as an exclusive, sneak-peek trailer for season 5. Much as we speculated, season 5’s first trailer was due in January.

Now the question is, will this trailer also be released online, either concurrently with IMAX’s exclusive or following the end of the run? We’ll have to wait and see…

Those who pore over the channel listing information over at HBO have finally hit on the first hint of new Game of Thrones content this year: Game of Thrones: A Day in the Life, a featurette due to air on February 8th at 7:30PM (Eastern). What’s it about? No one knows, but its 28 minute running time suggests it’ll be a lengthy behind-the-scene look at the show. Much of it, we suspect, will focus on what’s come before… but it’s certainly likely we’ll also get a good look at the 5th season, as well.

Now, where’s that season 5 trailer fans have been waiting for? If HBO sticks to last year’s road map, we should be seeing one somewhere this month…

As is traditional, at the end of each year HBO releases a year-in-review video which also then looks ahead to what’s coming next year. This year is no different, as at the 1:38 mark we get four quick glimpses of four of the show’s central characters: Cersei, Jon, Tyrion, and Arya. These are so swift that I’m not sure we’d consider them spoilerish… but just in case, lets just say there are spoilers: