Westeros

TitanCon, a convention in Belfast that’s grown out of the very successful Moots, has announced its first confirmed guest from HBO’s Game of Thrones: KristianNairn, the actor playing the beloved Hodor. TitanCon is trundling along with their plans, and to promote the convention, “Game of Thrones Joe”—Joseph Campo—has created a promotional video for the convention with his usual good-humor.

Speaking of Campo, he’s created a last video entry in his “Get Joe On the Show” campaign, and this may be the best one yet. Good luck to Joe on his quest to join the production!

As the premiere of Game of Thrones barrels along, we have an exclusive interview with Kit Harington, who plays one of the most significant of the young leads in the series, Jon Snow. We discuss his early career and how he got into acting, the audition process, his interactions with some of the other actors, and his views and hopes for the second season if it goes forward.

Read our interview!

John Picacio, artist of the 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, reminds us that tomorrow is the deadline for getting your nominations into the Locus Magazine Poll. Locus is the chief trade magazine for SF/F publishing, and for many years it’s been polling subscribers—and the general public—about the works most deserving of attention.

There’s quite a bit you can nominate, but we’ll particularly note that Warriors was nominated, GRRM’s “The Mystery Knight” also nominated, and several writers published in his anthologies (Warriors and Songs of Love and Death) are also listed. Get to it!

As a write-in, we’d recommend Ted Nasmith for his gorgeous 2011 A Song of Ice and Fire work.

If you’re in New York City, you may see the Iron Throne whizzing by… on pedicabs, offering complimentary rides through the city streets. And that’s not the only place where you’ll find them it, as HBO reveals that you can sit in a replica of the throne at various locations, not just in New York City, but in several major cities in the United States: Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Los Angeles join NYC as seats of kings. It’s all part of an incredible campaign to make sure everyone knows that Game of Thrones will be premiering this Sunday, April 17th at 9PM.

And just to whet the appetite further, there’s a massive billboard featuring the Wall, the towering structure that defends the realms of men from whatever lives in the frozen heart of winter beyond, at Hollywood and Highland in Los Angeles. Every evening through the 16th, the Wall and Westeros is brought to life using architectural projection and audio. Learn more details about time and locations below!

Tor.com, one of the best sources of SF/F news, short fiction, commentary, and reviews, has invited Linda and I to start blogging on topics concerning A Song of Ice and Fire while HBO’s Game of Thrones gets set to start airing. We’ll be discussing the novels with a focus on various aspects about the setting, story, and characters.

First up? A brief look at the magic in the books, with a particular attention to its historical decline and its recent resuregence.

Ryan McGee and Maureen Ryan invited Linda and I to a special, Game of Thrones-centric podcast, along with Phil of Winter is Coming. It was a good discussion of the series, including the voicing of some questions from Ryan and thoughts from Maureen Ryan that both have since expanded on on their reviews (McGee at his site, Boobtube Dude, and Mo at AOL’s TV Squad). The reviews are worth reading carefully—they’re not unmitigated praise, and because they want the show to be a great success, they discuss the flaws in detail in a way that may be helpful to the showrunners going forward if there’s another season of the series; but on the whole, both like it, and both see a great deal of potential.

To listen to the podcast, go here!

The latest (and last before the premiere?) Artisans is now up, featuring the production designer Gemma Jackson as she gives viewers a detailed look at the throne room in the Red Keep… and, of course, the Iron Throne:

Boy, these things are piling up! A quick roundup of the latest reviews, interviews, and other Game of Thrones-related items:

• One of the biggest pieces of news is HBO’s innovative plans for airing the first episode of the series. After the initial airing at 9PM, two follow up airings will take place back-to-back. More amazingly, however, on Monday HBO will air the series on six of its channels simultaneously at 9PM. The cumulative viewership numbers should be quite remarkable, if everything goes to plan. More information can be found at The Hollywood Reporter.
• George R.R. Martin shares his Top 10 Fantasy Films over at the Daily Beast.
• A quick look at some reviews: Slice of Sci-Fi, On the Stick, Variety blogger Jon Weisman, The Phoenix
• And a particular pointer to this podcast discussion from Daniel Feinberg and Alan Sepinwall, where they spend 20 minutes(!) discussing the show, and that with a great deal of praise.
• The Radio Times in the UK has an exclusive gallery of photos, a number of which we’ve not seen before.
• Interviews and profiles galore: remarks from Mark Addy, Alfie Allen and Emilia Clarke, Richard Madden, executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss, Kit Harington, and piece with Sean Bean.
• The Atlantic has begun a series of five posts with takes on the series. First up, Alyssa Rosenberg, followed by Adam Serwer. These are particularly thoughtful pieces, written by writers more generally involved in cultural and political commentary than television criticism.
• David J. Peterson, creator of the Dothraki language for the show, attended a screening in Los Angeles and wrote a report.

Sort of!

The latest episode of the spy adventure sitcom with a fervent cult following, Chuck, has a juicy reference to A Game of Thrones in its latest episode, “Chuck vs. the family Volkoff”. And better yet, it’s now on Hulu.com! Watch for the reference around the 1:50 remark, as Chuck is reading the A Game of Thrones novel (interestingly, it’s one of the earlier reissue hardcovers, which incorporated Stephen Youll’s paperback art) and remarks with a laugh, “Eddard, you don’t let your kids keep a direwolf! That’s a terrible idea.”

Whether the TV show’s writers are showing their fandom, or if it’s just a clever bit of product placement from Random House or HBO, we don’t know, but we like it either way.

Now, just to get a Community or Robot Chicken parody…

And now the Daily Beast follows through on George R.R. Martin’s list of favorite science fiction films by posting his list of top 10 Fantasy films. A good and eclectic list, though the lack of mention of Conan the Barbarian or The Neverending Story, and relegating Excalibur to an honorable mention make me shake my head a little. Nigel Terry may have been awkward in the early part of that film, but once he’s in full-on kingly mode, his performance is wonderful. On the other hand, we have no quibble with his #1 selection.

The biggest surprise for us? Despite having “one of the worst scores ever put on film”—a fact I recall laughing about with GRRM and Parris when we were visiting the sets—Ladyhawke ranks pretty high on the list. I may have to rewatch it… with the judicious use of MUTE.

Just finished a great conference call with George R.R. Martin regarding HBO’s Game of Thrones, with a full write up later in the week. But there was one very interesting piece of information that we thought fans would want to know now, rather than later:

According to GRRM, a character is killed in this 1st season of the series who does not die until the 3rd novel. Because of spoilers, he chose not to discuss it further (I tried!), but he did indicate it was a male character.

Benioff and Weiss deliberately made the change, which has interesting implications all of its own… such as already looking to find ways to trim down a potential third season by closing out or greatly compressing elements of A Storm of Swords.

And now, let the speculation begin! For our part, we’ll note that we’re quite certain it’s not a “POV” or “major” character, but someone who might be considered on the second or even third tier.

The final reward in the Maester’s Path promotion from HBO (created by Campfire) is now available! It’s meant for those users who managed to gain five “novices” (people who completed at least one puzzle after following your custom link to the game), and includes a video message from George R.R. Martin himself, plus some excellent “sigil packs” from which you can choose your allegiance as a maester!

Hat’s off to HBO and Campfire, as this was great fun!

John Picacio, the lauded artist who’s creating the 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, notes that the calendar is now #4 on Amazon’s Hot New Releases (Calendars) list. #1? Thomas Kinkade’s latest calendar, apparently.
As John notes, are fans really going to let Kinkade beat out A Song of Ice and Fire?

For those HBO subscribers lucky enough to have access to HBO GO through their cable provider, the Wall Street Journal has revealed very interesting news: some episodes of the series will air on HBO GO even before they air on television! No specific details of this initative, such as how much earlier (an hour? a day?), are provided in the article. However, it does have a lot of very interesting things to say about the prospects of the show…

This Friday, George surprised fans by appearing at the last of the Game of Thrones food trucks (a great hit—thanks, Campfire, Chef Tom Colicchio, and HBO)—and trying some of the venison and lemon cake, plus chatting a bit with those going up to the truck. It was also a great publicity occasion, with several interviews being conducted both with fans and George.

Two of them featuring GRRM were conducted by HitFix and another fun one—with video and pictures!—can be found at Think Hero. Some interesting remarks in there, including George’s reminder of Faulkner’s quotation, “the human heart in conflict with itself”, is a central tenet of his writing. We expect to see more videos and photos in the next few days.

As to guides, Andrew Leonard of Salon.com has published an essential guide to the series which is, admittedly, rather spoilerish. But as it happens, Leonard also seems to make his feelings on the episodes he’s seen quite clear:

“A Song of Ice And Fire” is to normal fantasy what “The Wire” was to typical cops-and-robbers drama, packed with grit, complexity and flawed human beings making their way through a corrupt and intimidating world… HBO’s treatment of the text is scrupulously faithful—and terrifically entertaining in the best HBO high drama tradition…

That sounds promising. As does, Variety’s very positive review from Brian Lowry:

Although “Mad Men’s” Don Draper partially scratched the itch, premium TV has been actively seeking its next Tony Soprano. While Showtime’s medieval “The Borgias” directly promoted that analogy, HBO comes much closer with “Game of Thrones,” which reaches even farther afield—to Westeros, a mythical land of seven kingdoms where dragons once lived—to deliver a mob boss (OK, king) beset by plotting, intrigue and fractious families on all sides. Massive in scope and cinematic in detail, this dense piece of storytelling should resonate beyond just fans of George R.R. Martin’s novels, providing HBO its own formidable seat of power.

Interestingly, Lowry felt the pacing uneven in the later episodes, while Linda and I preferred the greater room for scenes to breathe in in those late episodes; it was the earliest episodes where we felt that the pacing was not utterly ideal as they raced to cover a great number of pages). Finally, Matt Fowler of IGN has some glowing words for the show:

As with any book adaptation, fans will worry and wonder as to what will be left out and what will be kept in, but the premiere episode, “Winter is Coming,” not only effortlessly takes us along, faithfully, through the book, but it also manages to capture the majestically morbid spirit of Martin’s pages and turn them into thrilling television.

Not all the reviews have been unanimous in their praise, unfortunately, but in some cases some of the remarks may appear aimed more at the story’s genre than the story itself: Wall Street Journal, IndieWire, and Zap2It. If you feel like remarking on these reviews in their comments, please be respectful, no matter how much you might disagree with them or believe them to be unfair.