Westeros

There’s a brand new Game of Thrones video over at Making Game of Thrones, the official production blog for the show. Perhaps it’s because of the subject matter, but this struck me as one of the most visually beautiful of HBO’s behind-the-scenes videos looking into season 6. Also, while it’s not a trailer, it actually features a handful of pretty noteworthy details that we’ll discuss briefly below the video:

Thanks to HBO, we’re able to provide an exclusive look at one of the new Histories and Lore that will be included in the Game of Thrones Season 5 Bluray set. Listen and watch below as Ian McElhinney—the late, lamented Ser Barristan Selmy—recounts the events of Robert’s Rebellion from their nascent beginnings to their bloody end:

We’re also very happy to be able to provide the full listing of the Histories and Lore, along with all the narrators for each segment. See that below:

Here’s an interesting scoop from Entertaintment Weekly: Finn Jones, best known to Game of Thrones fans as Ser Loras Tyrell, has landed the lead role in the Marvel-Netflix series, Iron Fist. The role of Danny Rand has had a lot of debate surrounding it in various corners of the media, but it looks like the studio has pushed back against that.

For those who don’t know, the character of Iron Fist was created in the 1970s when there was a fad for martial arts in pop culture—Bruce Lee, Kung-Fu, and the like—and Marvel dutifully looked to provide what people wanted. In the comics, Iron Fist is Danny Rand, an American who ends up becoming the pupil of a mystical martial artist in the hidden city of K’un-L’un. There he learned martial arts and gained supernatural powers by placing his fists in the heart of a dragon. Born to a wealthy family, Rand is a businessman by day, hero by night, who has long associations with Luke Cage (recently seen in Jessica Jones, and soon appearing in his own series) and other heroes such as Daredevil (notably, the first season of Daredevil featured easter eggs pointing to K’un-L’un and Iron Fist), the heroic group The Defenders (the ultimate goal of Netflix being a series featuring this group), the Avengers, and more.

Almost a year ago, George R.R. Martin revealed in an Entertainment Weekly interview that he was contemplating a twist to the story of a character—and a group of characters connected with them—that he had never contemplated before and which, more notably, was something HBO’s Game of Thrones could not do because of choices the show had made that precluded it:

The fandom was abuzz with it—it sparked several threads on our forum, for one—as people puzzled over who it might be. As I recall, at the time speculation was centering on Sansa Stark because of signs that the show was going to diverge heavily from her storyline in A Song of Ice and Fire (as it indeed did). However, a brand new interview with George from IGN revisits the topic and reveals some significant new information:

We’d be remiss not to note that the popularity of the Wild Cards series of superhero stories has continued unabated, so much so that Random House Audio has signed on to continue the release of audio books of the original series of shared-world anthologies that started it all. As reported by George R.R. Martin at his “Not a Blog”, Random House started with the third volume, Jokers Wild, after the first two volumes had been released earlier by Brilliance Audio.

Random House’s first entry features a pretty noteworthy cast of readers: Pam Grier (Jackie Brown, Smallville, Felicia Day (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Guild), and Ron Donachie (Game of Thrones) are among the contributors.

More recently, George has noted that Aces Abroad —the fourth volume in the series, expanded with two newer stories—has just finished recording, and it has an even larger cast including Selma Blair (Hellboy), Adrian Paul (Highlander), and Armin Shimmerman (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek: Deep Space 9). Shimmerman will be reading the parts of the joker Xavier Desmond, and as it happens Aces Abroad is best known for George’s interstitial “From the Journal of Xavier Desmond”. This should be quite good! Next to get the audio treatment will be the fifth book, Down & Dirty.

In related news, GRRM has shared that the latest book in the new Wild Cards series, High Stakes, will be published in hardcover by Tor on August 23rd. George has also pointed to the latest Humble Book Bundle for fans interested in getting two of the more difficult to acquire Wild Cards novels, Deuces Down and Death Draws Five, as well as other works by the likes of the great SF writers Alfred Bester (a personal favorite of mine), Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Roger Zelazny. The Humble Bundle uses a “pay what you want” model, though certain levels are required to get certain works. Best of all, those who pay can decide how to divide up their contribution between the publisher, the Humble Bundle group, and a selection of three worthy charities.

Colony, a new science fiction series that premiered on the USA Network last month, is going to recieve a special screening of two episodes at George R.R. Martin’s Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Following the two episodes, the co-creator of the series Ryan Condal will be taking the stage with George R.R. Martin himself for a Q&A that will be moderated by IGN’s entertainment editor Terri Schwartz.

All well and good—this should be a great experience for those who manage to get into the screening! But for those of us not so lucky, it happens that IGN shall be broadcasting the Q&A tonight at 1930 Pacific / 2230 Eastern / 0330 GMT (Friday) via their Periscope Channel. Schwartz has put out a call for questions to GRRM and Condal regarding science fiction and fantasy, Colony, and of course A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones:

As we speculated with the release of new images from Season 6 of Game of Thrones, it looks like this Sunday HBO will air a new teaser for the season at 8:59PM, just prior to the premiere of Vinyl. There seems to be a very short extract from the teaser in the tweet announcing this:

HBO has released 20 brand new images from the forthcoming season 6, featuring a number of the key actors in the series, as well as one new-ish addition in the form of the legendary Max von Sydow in the role of the “Three-Eyed Raven”. While we’re working on getting them into our gallery, you can find them all at the official Making Game of Thrones website.

Here’s a sample of the images:

Given that HBO’s new big series, Martin Scorsese’s and Mick Jagger’s Vinyl, is premiering this Sunday, this photo release does make it feel as if the first official season 6 trailer for Game of Thrones could well be making an appearance this weekend.

Game of Thrones, season 6 premieres April 24th.

George R.R. Martin’s “Not a Blog” features the announcement of the the anticipated 2017 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar.

As noted by GRRM’s assistant Raya Golden, French SF/F artist Didier Graffet (for those keeping track, that’s the third French artist whose work will grace the calendar series, joining Marc Simonetti and Magali Villeneuve) will be handling art duties this time around. Graffet’s work has been featured in several past editions of Spectrum, and has been a nominee for the World Fantasy Award while also winning the Ravenheart award at the 2013 David Gemell Legend awards.

We’ve known about Graffet’s involvement since last year, but never had a chance to see any of the works in progress so this first look at the cover is quite impressive! Raya’s post also features another, unrelated piece of art to give a taste of what’s to come. Graffet’s website features an extensive gallery of his work, for those who want to see more.

Today, HBO’s official Game of Thrones Twitter announced the start of a new promotion for the upcoming sixth season of Game of Thrones with this intriguing tweet:

And the masses did just as they asked, flooding the account with their allegiance. What followed were three, individualized tweets whose responses included a very brief teaser video with voice overs from actors Iwan Rheon (Ramsay), Jonathan Pryce (the High Sparrow), and an unidentified actor playing a Dothraki. We’ve embedded these three responses below:

The TCA’s winter press tour is in full swing, an as usual it’s proved a bounty of information concerning Game of Thrones as executive Michael Lombardo spoke with press. As expected, the sixth season of the series will premiere on April 24th, starting at its usual 9PM Eastern time, to be followed by the premiere’s of the comedies Veep and Silicon Valley.The Hollywood Reporter provides further news of note, as well: HBO’s negotiating for two more seasons of the series, taking it through its 8th season.

As James Hibberd notes, this is news from Lombardo was hinted at last year when he said showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss saw the show running “two more years after six”. However, Lombardo apparently went a step further when discussing these plans when he indicated a full 7th season was not expected. Last year, following the remarks, both EW and we ourselves speculated that this could mean Benioff and Weiss were perhaps allowing for an extended, split 7th season,  to take the show through its 8th year. After all, this has been a common solution at networks to keep a popular show on the air for as long as possible. Now there’s the spectre of the 8th season being a full season in turn, or perhaps it, too, might be split across two years to take the show into 2019.

And it must be said, though we do fully expect the 8th season (whether it’s season 8 in 2018 or season 8a followed by by 8b in 2019) will be the show’s last, it’s worth noting that none of these reports indicate that Lombardo named it the final season. What to make of that? It doesn’t really mean anything, given negotiations are still in the work. but HBO’s executives have previously made it sound like they’d be happy to see the show run for ten years, so perhaps they’re keeping their hopes alive. It will be interesting if the official announcement of two more seasons makes any statement about the end of the series.

Subterranean Press, one of the premiere small publishers in the SF/F world, has been noted for their handsome limited editions of George R.R. Martin’s works—not just A Song of Ice and Fire, but also books such as Dying of the Light and Fevre Dream—has stepped once more into the breach by producing a limited edition of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Featuring Gary Gianni’s gorgeous artwork from the wide release—but augmented by new end-papers, richer paper and binding, and eight of the interior illustrations presented in color (as shown here)—the lettered edition sold out immediately (doubtless fueled in part by the fact that the books would be custom bound, a first for Subterranean), while the limited edition of 750—priced at $295—is still available.

For the die-hard fans of GRRM, the Dunk and Egg novellas, or Gary Gianni’s work, this seems like a genuine must-have!

As George sometimes does at the close of a year, he set to writing a long, contemplative post listing down notable personal events for the previous year. Unlike these other times, however, that long post was lost to the ether thanks to an apparent glitch with Livejournal. Dispirited, GRRM said he’d try to give a “Cliff’s Notes” version of his post afterward, and over the past day he’s done so. For many fans, of course, the primary topic of interest was the status of the highly anticipated sixth novel in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, The Winds of Winter.

George’s final post in his “Cliff’s Notes” round up of the past year was indeed on The Winds of Winter, and it was a long and frank discussion of what’s happened in the novel. The brief version is that while GRRM aimed to finish by the end of the year, the deadlines for getting the book out in time for the sixth season of Game of Thrones have come and gone. He believed at the start of the year he could finish by Halloween, and that was incorrect; he also believed in August that he could finish by January, and that too was incorrect.

GRRM describes in some detail why the progress has been fitful at best, and admits that the pressure of a specific deadline (something he eschewed with his novels prior to “A Song of Ice and Fire”) proved a particular burden, and so going forward he intends to write without a specific deadline in mind—it will be finished when it is finished, and not before. He notes there are dozens of chapters completed, and hundreds of pages done, but “there’s also a lot still left to write. I am months away still… and that’s if the writing goes well.”

At the end, Martin tackles the elephant in the room, whether season 6 of Game of Thrones will “spoil” the novel. The answer? “Yes and no.” He explains in some detail that the show’s many divergences will mean that there’ll be events and characters depicted that will be very different—perhaps entirely different—from his own plans, and he includes a lengthy list of characters who are dead in the show who live on in the novels, and another lengthy list of characters who have never appeared on the show, all of whom may have important roles to play in the novels. It seems clear that the novels and shows will continue the trend of diverging significantly from one another.

The post closes (besides a small post-script confirming that this was his last “Cliff’s Notes” post), with the following:

Well, this is a surprise: one of the features on the Game of Thrones Season 5 Bluray will be a 20 minute animated feature on the Dance of the Dragons (or, as the show would have it, the Dance of Dragons), the brutal civil war two Targaryens over the Iron Throne following the death of Viserys I. Recounted in detail in our own The World of Ice and Fire, as well as in part in GRRM’s “The Princess and the Queen”, it’s an event full of murder, battles, betrayals, scheming, and (of course) dragons.

IGN has the exclusive first look at the feature, with a section narrated by Pedro Pascal (aka Oberyn Martell) describing the Battle Above the Gods Eye between Prince Daemon Targaryen and his nephew Prince Aemond. And beyond his participation, IGN notes a number of other departed actors pitch in:

That certainly sounds like something to look forward to. The bluray set hits shelves on March 15th.

With the holidays fast approaching, we thought that there might be some who are scrambling for last-minute gift suggestions. And what better way to give some suggestions, than to share what we’d give to various characters from A Song of Ice and Fire?

Arya

Far away from home, Arya could use something to help her find her way back to Westerosâ`¦ so how about The Lands of Ice and Fire map collection?