Song of Ice and Fire :: All Things Andy Gavin

Archive for Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Season 3 Goodies

Jan23

We’re entering that most exciting time of year: the ramp up and entry into a new Game of Thrones season. HBO has begun doling out the material.

First up, the brand new (as of 3/2/13) Season 3 Trailer, extended edition!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=C1pbtBX9Kok]

and the original 2/21/13 Season 3 Trailer:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RzI9v_B4sxw]

Then the 2/10/13 season 3 teaser!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1iTg20x7w2s]

Then, we have a piece on the Art Direction. This includes some cool glimpses of upcoming locations and characters.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3y5aCWFuKo]

Then even more interesting is one on adaption. They don’t say a lot, but as someone who works at storytelling in various mediums (games, novels, and screenplays) I find this fascinating. A Song of Ice and Fire isn’t your typical work, with a single narrative spine to adapt and compress. The same basic mantras of compression apply as they do in most novel -> film/TV adaptions, but the details are much more complex.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VB0JA78wJ4]

And one with the two main producers and a lot of the cast on the season 3 highlights.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaedhISdshA#!]

And January 31 brings us a fourth video about Iceland:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3-hlG6Nn1s]

By: agavin
Comments (2)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Iceland, Season 3, season 3 preview, season 3 teaser, season3 trailer, Song of Ice and Fire, Television

The Way of Shadows

May03

Title: The Way of Shadows

Author: Brent Weeks

Genre: Fantasy

Length: 688 pages

Read: March 23-24, 2012

Summary: Great epic fantasy!

Despite the cheesy “hooded dude” cover, this was a great bit of epic fantasy. It was recommended by a twitter follower and turned out to be one of the better “classic medieval fantasy” books I’ve read in recent years. Certainly the best since I found The Name of the Wind in 2008.

Weeks borrows heavily and to good effect from 80s fantasy tropes. This is city fantasy, almost entirely set in a corrupt capital. Our protagonist is a young boy who apprentices with a deadly “wetboy” (assassin who uses magical powers). The prose is clean and workmanlike, sometimes even modern and flip. Weeks doesn’t bother to make anything sound too medieval, in fact, it’s so modern as to sometimes sound anachronistic. Still, despite the length, the novel is not overwritten and the writing doesn’t get in the way of the excellent storytelling and world building.

For fantasy fans, this book is an appealing ride. We have good characters, sordid and ambiguous underworld figures. We have a well conceived world with detailed and engaging political intrigue. We have a decent, albeit minimalist, magical system. And we have a lot — I mean a real lot — of very well written action scenes. Weeks is a great writer of physical action and he uses it to good effect. This book contains fight after fight. Plus lots of sneaking around. And it’s not overdone. Each individual skirmish is compact enough, well integrated into the intricate plot, and brilliantly executed.

Again, despite the length, this makes for a breakneck pace and near total immersion into the seedy underworld. The book is pretty dark too, with some serious abuse in the early chapters. It’s not A Song of Ice and Fire dark, but there is some good insight into the nature of meanness. Bravo. The adventures continue into two sequels.

For more book reviews, click here.

Or read about my own historical fantasy novel here.

By: agavin
Comments (3)

Posted in: Books

Tagged as: Book Review, Brent Weeks, Fantasy, Fiction, High fantasy, Name of the Wind, Song of Ice and Fire, The Way of Shadows

Very Best Fantasy

Mar22

I’m frequently asked for a list of favorite novels and big influences on my own writing. So I drew up this list. In order to prevent my head exploding I kept it exclusively to adult fantasy. I have plenty more favorites in other genres, but this will keep anyone busy for a while — particularly considering many are the first in a series.

The Anubis Gates

by Tim Powers

Time travel, crazy 4,000 year old Egyptian sorcerers, romantic poets, and Victorian England. Oh, and it all works brilliantly.

A Game of Thrones

by George R.R. Martin

Simply the best modern fantasy work. The scope is huge, the characters intensely real, and the medieval-ness (as in “go all medieval on his ass”) is incredible.

The Name of the Wind

by Patrick Rothfuss

NOTW is a beautiful book. Of all the Fantasy I’ve read in the last 15 or so years, this is perhaps second best after The Song of Ice and Fire. But that’s not to say that they have much in common, other than both being good Fantasy. NOTW is focused and relies on more traditional Fantasy tropes. How focused can a 700 page novel be? Not very, but it is good, and it concentrates on a small number of characters and a single (albiet meandering) storyline.

Wizard and Glass

by Stephen King

Stephen King’s best. Almost pure fantasy, told with his knack for making even the weirdest situations and dialog believable.

The Great Book of Amber: The Complete Amber Chronicles, 1-10

by Roger Zelazny

Hokey at times, but I just love the concept and feel of this reality bender. The pattern has haunted me for decades.

Master of the Five Magics

by Lyndon Hardy

Pure fun fantasy, but I love solid attempts to systematize and render magic into a real and “believable” system.

Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

A horrific journey into the depths and nature of evil. One of the most chilling books I have ever read.

Wild Seed

by Octavia E. Butler

History, two kinds of immortals, themes of slavery and freedom, breeding of genetic powers. How can you beat that?

The True Game

by Sheri S. Tepper

I love this world in which “powers” come in systematic flavors which combine into unique specialties of super power.

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Books

Tagged as: A Song of Ice and Fire, Andy Gavin, Anubis Gates, Contemporary fantasy, Fantasy, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, George RR Martin, Song of Ice, Song of Ice and Fire, Stephen King, Tim Powers, Very Best Fantasy, Victorian era

More Game of Thrones CGI

Aug05

My post showing Game of Throne’s transparent CGI was wildly successful (over 25,000 views on my site alone). Apparently its been popular across the web at large because the SFX company released another video of even more.

Particularly interesting is how many of the weapon strike shots (getting stabbed, speared, shot etc) are all added in with CGI. Traditionally this was just done with quick cuts, trick weapons, and fake blood. Now, evidently, it’s cheaper (and better looking) to just have the actors pantomime the response and fill in the weapon and gore. All those latex horror effects guys must be out of jobs!

This is a very effective means of conveying what they’ve done, and also shows you how weird the rough cut of the show must look without the visual effects. And, also tells you why they need six months after wrapping filming to get the show out!

You can check out the first video here, or

my reviews of each episode of Season 1 of Game of Thrones (the HBO series):

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,9, 10]

Read my review of A Dance With Dragons.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed
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or win Crash & Jak giveaways!

Latest hot post: War Stories: Crash Bandicoot

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Dance with Dragons, A Song of Ice and Fire, CGI, Computer Graphics, Computer-generated imagery, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, SFX, Song of Ice and Fire, Special effect, Television, Television program, Visual effects

Making Game of Thrones

Apr07

HBO has posted a new 25 minute Making of Game of Thrones video which is really good.

CLICK here for my review of Episode 1 of the upcoming series,

or HERE for more videos about the series.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Song of Ice and Fire, Television, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 1

Apr02

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 1 – March 31, 2011

Status: First Season coming to HBO April 17

Summary: Amazing!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

I had the privilege to get an advance screening three weeks before the premier of the first episode of the new HBO miniseries Game of Thrones. For those of you living in a hole, it’s based on the stunning (and huge) series of novels by George R. R. Martin called the Song of Ice and Fire. The TV series is named after the first volume, Game of Thrones, and the first season covers the first novel. Currently there are four books to the series, with a fifth due this July.

These are arguably my favorite fantasy books (read them all twice) and fantasy is my favorite genre. I’m not reviewing the books specifically here, but it is worth noting that they are stupendously good. Political, dark, complex, and full of very human characters. While this is fantasy, set in a sort of medieval-England-like kingdom, the fantasy is light. There are no armies of trolls and orcs. Just good old fashioned human sex and violence and a touch of the magical.

Which makes it perfect for HBO, and if the first episode is any indication they have done a stupendous job of adaption. I was blown away. I wanted to like it. I love HBO dramas so I hoped I would. But I’m critical by nature, so I was thrilled to find it exceed my expectations on all accounts.

This is a very faithful adaption of fantastic source material, but the series also plays to television’s strengths. The production is lavish, landscapes, sets, costumes, food, everything looked tremendous. And sounded tremendous. I saw a 35 mm print on the big screen with a serious sound system. After the titles alone (gorgeous) and the pitch perfect music I had goosebumps.

The casting/acting is also fantastic, and combined with the great writing is going to make this ambitious show work. These books have a lot of characters, and very well written ones. There is no big Sauron-type villan, there are only conflicted people. The Lannister brothers are awesome. My favorite character is Tyrion, the Imp, brilliant, sharp-tongued youngest son of the land’s richest (and meanest) Lord. This is a tough role, and made even more difficult by the inherently limited roster of actors short enough to play it. Peter Dinklage is off to a tremendous start, stealing every scene he’s in. Awesome, and cudos Peter! Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is also superb as his taller and prettier older brother Jaime. Both are complex characters, and it’s good to see them nailed out of the gate. The Stark daughters and Jon Snow were also great, plus Sean Bean dominates with all the powerful gravitas that Ned Stark deserves. Emilia Clarke is gorgeous and appropriately vulnerable as Daenerys Stormborn — I’ll be interested to see if she can handle the character changes in store for her. Some seriously good casting across the board.

The writing is also great. This episode pounds through a LOT of material. A lot of introductions, and a good amount of setup and action, and it does it without feeling rushed. I’ll be curious to see how viewers who have not read the books cope with the staggering array of characters. It seemed to me that D.B. Weiss and David Benioff (they had the writing credits) did an incredible job unfolding the parallel threads of the book’s many viewpoints into one seamless narrative. They’ve linearized the story a bit, which actually makes it clearer. I hope that newbies give these characters a chance to unfold because as startling and brilliant as the first novel/season is, it’s really with books two and three that things really get crazy.

The atmosphere was perfect too. Detailed and moody. Filmed mostly in Ireland and Malta (across the narrow sea) it feels authentically “celtic.” And there is the now HBO standard hefty dose of nudity. We’ll also see what the producers make of some of the books’ more sordid moments — which are one of the things that make them such a dark pleasure to read. Now the only problem is that I have to wait a couple weeks for the second episode!

Congrats HBO and George R. on such an awesome job. Now just make sure to green-light the next 6 or so seasons!

Click here for some trailers for and about the series.

Or my review of A Dance With Dragons.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]