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The latest on-set video from Game of Thrones takes us beyond The Wall to the wilds of the Frostfangs Iceland. Watch as the Night's Watch tromps around a glacier and looks extremely fricking cold. No filming at an indoor ski slope for these guys. Hat tip to Radiosilence! More »
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Celebrate Valentine's Day, Westeros-style — with these incredible Game of Thrones V-day cards by illustrator Chris Bishop. When he's not doing children's illustrations or working for PBS Kids, Bishop is apparently trying to think of ways to celebrate incest, murder and horrific mutilations in greeting card form. More »
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The "Better Book Titles" blog is one of the internet's great treasures — and if you haven't checked it out lately, you've missed some total gems. The blog is just what it sounds like — people post their versions of books with more appropriate titles. More »
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Behold a collection of lovely images from the second season of George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones. Get your first look at Bran Stark's new legs, Hodor, Balon Greyjoy, Brienne and a whole new clan of Baratheons. More »
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Speaking to DCist, John Hodgman explains that he felt embarrassed to be reading George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire at first, but then he got over it. For good reasons: More »
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Trust the crew at W00tstock to come out and say what everybody else is thinking — Paul and Storm performed a new song last night at W00tstock Founder's Night in San Francisco, addressed to George R.R. Martin. And even though the lyrics acknowledge that the creator of Westeros is nobody's bitch, they still advise him to "Write faster." My favorite line: the bit about the six-page descriptions of every meal in his books. More »
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The latest trailer for Game of Thrones has a whole heap of nasty King Joffrey tricks. What a horrible little turd, we can't wait! Plus there's plenty of new scenes from a brooding Jon Snow and a truly ticked off Daenerys Targaryen. Welcome back Game of Thrones, we missed your blood, sex and tears! More »
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Death comes for everyone — but it doesn't always come in style. Sometimes instead of a heroic death or a cool death, a fictional character will get kind of a crappy death. (Often literally.) Sometimes a beloved character will die in a totally motifying fashion. More »
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George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons was everything we'd hoped it would be — but now we can't wait to read the next book, The Winds of Winter. How can we keep from going mad with impatience to find out what happens to Tyrion and Daenerys? More »
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Winter may be coming — but April feels like a long way off. We can't wait for the return of HBO's Game of Thrones series, to see how all of the insanity of A Clash of Kings translates to the screen. More »
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The last time horror fiction was a thing, during the 1990s, the market flooded with terrible trend-following books, and the inevitable contraction killed or prevented the careers of some talented horror-smiths. Now, Jo Fletcher with Jo Fletcher Books predicts a new horror comeback, among other trends, in an interview with SFX: More »
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The parody website, ChristWire.org, just posted "12 Reasons to Boycott Game of Thrones in 2012," and it's a totally brilliant send-up that I actually thought was for real for a moment. Pretty hilarious stuff. Here's how they sum the show up: More »
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As a present to the Westeros faithful, George R.R. Martin has posted an unpublished sample chapter of the next A Song of Ice and Fire novel, The Winds of Winter. Find out who Theon Greyjoy gets chatty with now! More »
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Science fiction and fantasy devoured our hearts and minds in 2011. The year's hit movies, bestselling books and buzzed-about television shows were dominated by genre fare — and a handful of people played a key part in making it happen. More »
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Why has fantasy gotten so gritty and violent? Why are we so obsessed with Game of Thrones and book sagas about severed limbs and dirty deals, instead of epic quests involving elves and singing swords and Ultimate Evil? Writer David Chandler shares a fascinating theory over at SFSignal. More »
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Magic is mysterious and ancient, and its workings are often beyond the understanding of mere mortals. But that doesn't mean that magic doesn't have rules. More »
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Check out what could be the most detailed map ever made of the lands in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Covering about 25,000 square miles of Westeros and the lands to the East, this work has over 250 locations, lakes, rivers, towers — and of course The Wall. Behold the splendor! More »
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HBO has released an amazing behind-the-scenes look at the second season of Game Of Thrones. Can you name all the new characters included in this video? We'll get you started — up front is the sensational Natalie Dormer, who's playing Margaery Tyrell. More »
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With the runaway success of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice, even epic fantasy has toned down the sword-and-sorcery, and ramped up the gritty realism. At NYCC's "Winter is Here" panel, Brandan Sanderson, Peter V. Brett, and other authors offered their theories. More »
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HBO's hit series Game of Thrones is filming in Dubrovnik, Croatia, which is going to double as both King's Landing and Qarth. And the first set pics are showing up on tons of Croatian news sites — including a look at Emmy-winning actor Peter Dinklage on set. Check out some more set pics below. More »
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A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin does a fair number of interviews, but his Sound of Young America interview with John Hodgman might be the best one ever. Hodgman does a great job of getting Martin to talk about his thoughts on writing and geek culture — starting with the fan mail a teenage Martin wrote to the Avengers comic. More »
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Rejoice, fans of The Descent Doomsday — director Neil Marshall is coming to HBO's Game of Thrones. More »
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The beautiful 11 x 15 inch watercolor painting by John Schoenherr, used for the ACE paperback first edition of Dune, just sold for a little over $26,000 at Heritage Auction Galleries, shattering the $10,000 to $15,000 pre-auction estimate. Internet bidders pushed the price to just over $19,000 prior to the live segment of the auction, which saw the bidding for the painting reach $26,290. The painting was also used for the 25th Anniversary paperback edition of the Frank Herbert classic that created an enduring sci-fi universe. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5839254&view=rss&microfeed=true Sales of physical books in August dropped 9 percent from the same month in 2010 in the United Kingdom, according to Nielsen BookScan. And spending on novels, in particular was down 15 percent year on year. There was only one category that didn't face a steep decline: science fiction and fantasy, which actually grew "thanks to the huge popularity of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire," writes the Bookseller. It's enough to make you wonder if Martin's books are having a similar effect in the United States — and if there's something about a huge, lengthy fantasy epic that people still feel more comfortable reading on paper. [The Bookseller] More »
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On the letters-to-the-editor page of 1964's Avengers #12, Stan Lee and Don Heck received a correspondence from future A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5836025&view=rss&microfeed=true Alyssa Rosenberg over at Think Progress has a must-read essay in response to claims that George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is too brutal towards women. She deconstructs feminist writer Sady Doyle's critiques of Martin's narrative with amazing elegance, and along the way she also delivers a great lesson in how to write about nerd entertainment in a constructive, rather than pointlessly sneering, fashion. Well worth checking out. [Think Progress] More »
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In an inspired recent installment of his webcomic Hijinks Ensue, cartoonist Joel Watson places Jon Snow and some killer Snow Goons beyond the Wall. See also: Calvin and Hobbes, pulp detectives. More »
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Now this is a literary mashup we're dying to see. Thomas Dunne Books just signed a deal to publish A Game of Groans by George R.R. Costanza, a parody of the bestselling Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin. More »
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Rise of the Planet of the Apes proved that a motion-capture performance can capture audiences' attention. And a mocap character doesn't need to be a lovable blue cat person to win people over. More »
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Summer is coming to a close, and for many of us that means new beginnings. With school right around the corner, hordes of us will be moving into new apartments and houses for the year, and with new digs comes the opportunity to update (or start) your collection of science fiction and fantasy artwork! More »
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George R.R. Martin teased and quizzed the Game of Thrones cast in a panel at Comic-Con yesterday. The cast shared their greatest GoT challenges and favorite scenes, the creators hinted at what's ahead, and Martin revealed the moment he won't watch on television. More »
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Just when we thought the Game of Thrones TV series would remain our lasting obsession, George R.R. Martin's book A Dance With Dragons displaced it, with a fresh set of revelations and agonizing moments from Westeros. More »
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We thought we'd already seen it all when it came to awesome Game of Thrones art projects, but these Lego minifigs totally rock the Seven Kingdoms. Here are the Starks, and click through to see the Clegane brothers and the Lannisters. More »
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Talking to the Atlantic, George R.R. Martin admits that he may not be able to wrap up his massive A Song of Ice and Fire series in just two more books. More »
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The internet recently flooded with spoilers for George R.R. Martin's latest tome, A Dance With Dragons. Some of these were dead-on accurate, like a dwarf with a crossbow. And some of them... weren't. More »
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This Tuesday, the years of anticipation will be over, and the fifth book in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series will finally be here. So does A Dance with Dragons live up to the near-insurmountable hype? More »
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There were two miracles about Game of Thrones season one: that it was so true to the book, and that it was so brilliant on its own terms. For season two, the show will have to choose one miracle. More »
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When Doctor Who descended on San Diego Comic-Con in 2009, the British time-travelling juggernaut brought along megastar David Tennant and producer Russell T. Davies. But Comic-Con still stuck the Doctor in Ballroom 20, the smaller hall where television shows go. More »
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HBO's released their version of Westeros earlier this year, but Adam Whitehead of The Wertzone has been pondering the layout for George R.R. Martin's fantastical world for a while now. Here, Whitehead takes a look at the lands beyond Westeros. More »
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With A Dance With Dragons, the long-awaited fifth book in George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, coming out in just two weeks, anticipation is running high. But some people already received their copies early. More »
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