A song of ice and fire

A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin is personally one of my favourite book series. The Series seems to be gaining a lot of momentum recently and that's what I'm going to talk about today.

A Dance with Dragons: Very little news from George on the subject of the latest book in the series - The last post on his website about his progress was 1st of Jan '08.

In his last post he says

"I probably won't update this page again for quite a long while, so let me close by saying once again that when A DANCE WITH DRAGONS is finished, I will post that news here. The moment I finish the book, I will log on and make the announcement."

Over a year later and still no news, this book is getting some serious hype - I just pray it delivers.

Merch: Recently a lot of small companies have been licensed to produce various products from the Song of Ice and Fire realm.

* Replica Swords - A small US company are making the swords, so far they have only produced one sword (longclaw) available to purchase, and yes, they do ship internationally.



Arya's Needle is currently undergoing design a prototype has been mocked up and upon confirmation from GRRM will go into full production.



Ice (the sword I'm waiting for) has just begun it's design process and i assume will be ready in 3 months + (time to get some money together)

For more information and barter go to: Valyrian Steel

* models and busts - The company making the resin models has already got quite a few models ready for purchase including: Daenerys, Eddard, Sandor (the hound) and there are two versions of each available.
These are 'limited collector' models (that term gets thrown around a lot) only 250 of each made hence the quite high price.

for more information and barter go to Valyrian Resin

* There is also an extensive range of miniature models from the Song of Ice and Fire series. There are Warhammer style models/figures.



for more information and barter go to darksword miniatures

The TV series:

Taken from wikipedia

Variety reported on 17 January 2007 that the rights for A Song of Ice and Fire have been sold to HBO with the intent of turning the novels into a television series.^[12] Written and executive produced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the series is expected to cover one novel’s worth of material per season. Martin plans to co-executive produce the series and is expected to write one episode per season. The series is likely to be filmed in the UK^[27].

Martin reported in August 2007 that the first draft of the script was complete^[28] and stated in November that the script was approved and budgeting had begun. At this point the series had still not been officially greenlit, and the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike could have delayed the process.^[29]

In April 2008 David Benioff confirmed that development of the script and series was continuing.^[30] He suggested a ‘crappy’ tagline for the project could be, “The Sopranos in Middle-earth.”^[31] In June, Martin reported in his blog that the second draft of the script was complete, but again a final decision had not been made. If the series were to go ahead, the BBC would also be financially involved much as they were for the HBO series Rome.^[32]

In September 2008, according to Martin's not-a-blog,^[33] HBO exercised its option to buy the television rights to produce A Game of Thrones. Martin is quick to point out the project has still not been greenlit, but it is an encouraging first step. In November, Variety reported that HBO has committed to filming a pilot episode before a decision is made in regards to filming the entire first book of the series. ^[34]

I'm totally stoked for this, it's great to see that George is taking an active roll in script writing! Could this be part of the reason for the delay in a Dance with Dragons? I don't think so, I think the reason Dance is taking so long is that the series has so many threads of plot - it's not as simple as one character- one plot. A song of Ice and Fire's multiple POV style is so ambitious that i think it is becoming a struggle to write.

I plan on trying to star as a minor background actor in the TV series. As a Scottish lad it is likely that the series (the north) will be filmed in the north of Scotland. I could be in the right place i just need to wait for the right time and find the right arse to smother in lip prints until I'm in!

Later

Sam