In the run up to the release of HBO’s Game of Thrones, we’ve previously reported that Bantam Spectra would be republishing the first novel in the series with a new cover. Having spoken with GRRM when the news first came out, he stated that at that time the exact details of the cover had not been hashed out. It seems they’ve concluded that a tie-in cover to the HBO series will indeed be best, according to the spring catalog from Random House (of which Bantam Spectra is a subsidiary). Note that the catalog is quite a massive PDF download.
Thanks to raijap for the tip.
George R.R. Martin shares the news that there’s presently no news as far as casting goes, although offers have been made for a number of roles, “both major and minor”. With any luck, we’ll have news in the coming days. George does discuss the difficulty in casting some other child roles (Mycah, Rickon, Tommen, and Myrcella), stating that children often aren’t capable of really becoming a character as the children currently cast have been. He also remarks on the weirdness of watching audition tapes for Ser Ilyn Payne, the king’s mute headsman, where all the acting is in the face and eyes and body.
GRRM has previously informed us that the role of Gendry—the young, stubborn blacksmith with a heritage he’s unaware of—is among those being cast. Thanks to a tip from Screenterrier, we’ve gotten a bit more detail about the part due to the fact that an “urgent” casting call has gone out for the part, suggesting that the production has yet to find the perfect actor for the role. The desired age of actor is between 16 and 20, and they describe the character as broad-shouldered, muscular, and working class.
The most notable detail for us? They want him for two episodes this season. Some spoilers below the cut as we discuss what that means.
In a new post, GRRM shares some information regarding the state of A Dance with Dragons. The post does contain vague spoilers for both ADwD and the following book, The Winds of Winter, so proceed with caution. Here is the spoilery post.
In brief: in one of his many restructurings of the timeline of events in the novel, he has moved an important event from near the end of the book to the late middle ... and now has moved it back. This has meant that he’s been able to move chapters for a previously-unstated POV character (which he names) to the next book, as well as a partially written chapter and an as-yet-unwritten complimentary POV chapter. It’s quite clear that the timeline of this novel has been a major, major obstacle.
On the downside, for those who want A Dance with Dragons to be extremely long, this shifting of chapters to the next book reduces the length somewhat. On the plus side, he now has some possible chapters done for the next book, and may be that much closer on finishing ADwD ... provided that he doesn’t change his mind again.
It’s no surprise GRRM titled his post, “Dancing in Circles?” Good luck to him sorting out the rest of the niggling details!
The anthology, a tribute to Jack Vance edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, has received several nominations in genre awards. Although it did not win the 2010 Locus Awards (instead, The New Space Opera , also edited by Gardner Dozois with Jonathan Strahan, won), a short story from the anthology did win in its category: Neil Gaiman’s “An Invocation of Incuriousity”, which had pride of place as the final story in the anthology.
Congratulations to Mr. Gaiman, and our thanks to Martin and Dozois for commissioning the story, which really was an exceptional closer to the anthology.
Fantasy Flight Games, who in 2005 published the now hard-to-find The Art of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, are at it again with an announcement that they’ll be publishing a second edition, indicating that it is a “revised, edited, and updated” edition. Moreover, they’ve indicated its the first volume in a potential series of further volumes, drawing from their vast catalog of art from their various A Song of Ice and Fire games.
No explicit release date is given, but sometime this autumn seems to be the plan.
Celebrating the 25th anniversary of Spectra, Suvudu.com is hosting write-ups concerning novels published in each of the 25 years. So far, two have been devoted to Anne Groell—editor on A Song of Ice and Fire (and editor of The World of Ice and Fire)—as she recalls details about the publication of A Game of Thrones and the story behind the cover for A Clash of Kings. In the first post, she also notes that she believes A Dance with Dragons is very close to completion, although the publisher has been wrong about this before.
For those curious about the first Stephen Youll cover that Groell mentions, besides ARCs, the cover was used on the first Swedish edition of A Game of Thrones. George has the cover in his gallery.
A leading, award winning genre artist, John Picacio is the subject of an audio interview from The Functional Nerds, conducted by Patrick Hester and John Anealio. It’s a long and fascinating interview covering many topics, from inspiration to technique to current projects. Among those projects? The 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar, which Picacio mentions as one of his ongoing projects in the course of the interview.
He offers the following tidbit regarding the calendar, at the 73 minute mark: he’s currently painting Jaime Lannister.
It’s an eventful day, it seems, as GRRM informs us that Paul Engelen, a multiple Academy Award and BAFTA Award nominee, has been hired to lead hair and makeup design for HBO’s Game of Thrones. Engelen has an extensive list of credits stretching almost 40 years, and include such major work as Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, and Robin Hood:
After sending a query GRRM’s way, he has posted that the Magheramorne Quarry in Northern Ireland, which was reported to be the site of a “massive castle” set, will be where the exterior set for Castle Black will be made. As GRRM notes, much of the castle will be done through CGI (including the Wall, of course), though there will be an operational winch and other such things at the site.
Finally, George asks fans not to visit the site, noting that the set will look very little like what will appear on screen, and that quarries can be dangerous.
Locus Magazine reports that Songs of the Dying Earth, the anthology co-edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois in honor of Jack Vance, has been shortlisted for the British Fantasy Awards in the Best Anthology category. This follows news from earlier in the year that it was on the long list. An exceptional collection of stories from an exceptional list of authors (including Neil Gaiman, Dan Simmons, Tanith Lee, Tad Williams, and more), the anthology has also previously been nominated in the Locus Awards, the results of which will be divulged this weekend.
A Russian fansite has conducted a new interview, available both in English and Russian, with David J. Peterson (creator of the Dothraki language for HBO’s Game of Thrones) and Sai Emrys. There’s some interesting comparisons of Dothraki to Russian, an additional vocabulary word (the name for the leather vests Dothraki wear), and Peterson’s explanation for how the strong oppositions he saw in Dothraki culture as he read the books influenced his development of the language.
As we speculated, Roy Dotrice is indeed cast as Grand Maester Pycelle, a role which—as we guessed—he was intended to play in the pilot, in a new scenes not from the books which was cut from the shooting script. George provides explanations for his clues, and describes the singular honor he felt in having the opportunity to work with Dotrice on Beauty and the Beast for three years. Below, you’ll find a selection of videos featuring Dotrice’s work over the years.
Of course, GRRM also confirmed Kristian Nairn is Hodor. More notably, it sounds like we’re very shortly going to have a flood of additional casting news, from what George says. In particular? There’s a hint that fans of author Harper Lee (author of To Kill a Mockingbird) will be particualarly interested. Petyr Baelish, better known as Littlefinger, has a mockingbird as his sigil…
Exciting times!
As per our previous posts on the subject of Hodor, it seems Kristian Nairn—the 6’10” Belfast-based professional DJ—is, indeed, our new Hodor. Nairn shyly confirmed via Twitter, accepting congratulations from wellwishers. We put him in touch with Isaac Hampstead Wright, the young actor who’ll be receiving a lot of piggyback rides from Nairn in the months to come.
Nairn is not a professional actor, so we can’t say there’s anything featuring his acting out there to share since the audition video was set private. However, we can certainly say that Nairn isn’t a shy performer, if this video from the Kremlin club of Belfast featuring Nairn in his alter-ego Revvlon (as per his MySpace page) is any proof:
Great song choice! We’ve also found an example of Nairn’s DJing work, in the form of a remix:
Oh, and George has another clue for us all, for a role that’s obviously Hodor:
“He doesn’t have a lot to say, but he says it a lot. He’s not a muslim, not a pagan, not a scientologist, but he might be a town in Scotland.”
Have to agree with Halfhand on this, this is Kristian Nairn, whom we reported on back in May. The first clue identifies the role—Hodor—and the second identifies his name (neither Muslim, nor Pagan, nor Scientologist ... but “Christian”), and the last identifies his last name (Nairn being a Scottish town). He looked like an excellent choice. A shame his audition video is no longer available, but do note our linked post above, where his agent—the one who recorded and posted the video—comments.