Yesterday HBO showed off some behind-the-scenes footage of their adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. (Thankfully, HBO’s going with the far less stupid name Game of Thrones for the series.) I’ve geeked out about Martin’s books before—they really are great, even if the author’s busy schedule of signing TV and merchandising deals has rendered him incapable of actually writing any more books in the series. (A good number of Martin’s fans have turned on him because of this, which is pretty fair. Martin promised a seven-book series, but has only put out the first four; the fifth book, scheduled to come out in 2006, is still MIA. Hopefully HBO’s writers are more reliable than Martin.)

Nerd gripes aside, here’s the footage. Get thee to Winterfell!*

There’s more such stuff at the official site, if you’re so inclined.

*I’m sorry.

With honor and distinction, Erik Henriksen served as the executive editor of the Portland Mercury from 2004 to 2020. He can now be found at henriksenactual.com.

3 replies on “Hey, Nerds, Here’s Some <i>Game of Thrones</i> Footage.”

  1. I’m impatient for the next book too, but like Neil Gaiman said, “George R. R. Martin is not your bitch”. Here’s a nice excerpt:
    ——————-
    You’re complaining about George doing other things than writing the books you want to read as if your buying the first book in the series was a contract with him: that you would pay over your ten dollars, and George for his part would spend every waking hour until the series was done, writing the rest of the books for you.

    No such contract existed. You were paying your ten dollars for the book you were reading, and I assume that you enjoyed it because you want to know what happens next.
    ——————-
    http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05/enti&hellip;

    Footage looks awesome, though. Now I’m impatient for both the next book and this show.

  2. @steeef: I don’t buy the infamous Gaiman defense. Sure, there’s no official contract between an author and a reader; authors don’t technically owe their readers a damn thing. But there is, if nothing else, an unspoken, mutually beneficial understanding between authors of Martin’s ilk and their readers: “You buy this,” the authors say, “and I’ll give you the rest of the story.”

    Few authors have readerships as large and as fervent as Martin’s; whether or not he’s anyone’s bitch, he simply hasn’t delivered to them what he said he would, nor does he appear to be planning to do so anytime soon. Maybe, at some point, he will. Until then, I don’t begrudge his fans the right to treat him with the same level of respect that he’s given them.

  3. On the issue of the unfinished series, my feeling is it’s like writing any other story that has no ending. An author can do it, but in the end people are going to be like “meh, that had no ending so it kinda sucked.” It’s a waste not to finish it because its so good. Martin can go down in history as the guy who wrote the most bad-ass fantasy series in history (arguably), or the guy who never fulfilled the potential to write the most bad-ass fantasy series in history. It’s his choice, but if it’s the latter that is a darn shame. The HBO series looks awesome, but without an ending its going to be really disappointing.

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