… have begun at Suvudu: http://www.suvudu.com/
Jaime doesn’t fight till Wednesday, but the first bouts are already underway. Michael Moorcock’s Elric versus Stephen King’s Gunslinger. Conan versus Harry Dresden. Gandalf versus Hiro (no, not the one from HEROES).
Make your voice heard. Your votes determine who will win.
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March Madness begins on Monday at Suvudu, the Spectra/ Del Rey/ Bantam/ Ballatine website. You can find it here:
http://www.suvudu.com/
I’m going to need all my fans and readers to check out that site to help defend the honor of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros against a loathesome creature out of Hogwart’s.
What does that mean, you ask? Well, I’ll let the good folks at Bantam Spectra explain:
“Kaitlin Heller and David Pomerico!”two obviously busy editors at Del Rey and Spectra!”thought that it would be fun to take some time out of their schedules to speculate on who would win if the greatest fantasy and science fiction characters were put into a March Madness®-style bracket, and asked to duke it out.
“The answer, though, would be determined by the experts!”namely, you.
“As readers, I’m sure you know many of these characters intimately. You know their strengths, you know their weaknesses. And most of all, you know that there’s no way in hell Drizzt Do’Urden would ever lose a sword fight with Hiro Protagonist!¦or would he?
“What Kaitlin and David did, then, is all the leg-work, culling through the tomes of science fiction and fantasy to put together a field of thirty-two worthy* combatants. They!”as well as a number of dedicated members of the Del Rey, Spectra, and Suvudu teams!”put together stat sheets, just in case someone wasn’t as familiar with the character as they ought to be (Yes, ought! And you call yourself nerds) to be.
“And then they ran extensive simulations** to see who would come out on top in these first rounds of match-ups. The results, in some circumstances, might surprise you. They definitely surprised us.
“But those were just simulations. It’s up to you readers to vote on who you think would win. It’s up to you to convince others you’re right. Think our analysis is wrong? Let us know. Clearly it’s you who are wrong, but we’ll humor you.
“At the end of the day, what matters is that two men (or women!¦or elves!¦or one elf and one !œother!) are entering the ring starting Monday, and a few days later (voting for the Monday matches close Thursday; voting for the Wednesday closes Sunday), only one of them is leaving. And then the second round begins!
“So make your voice heard.”
That’s the score. The elimination starts on Monday.
To represent the Seven Kingdoms, Bantam has chosen Ser Jaime Lannister. Alas, however, they have chosen the FEAST Jaime, with his… ah… handicap, not the Kingslayer of the earlier books. Which should make the match more interesting.
His opponent? Well, he’s really pissed off about that. He wanted Conan or Elric or Aragorn. Instead he’s drawn (they CLAIM it’s random):
Who will win? YOU decide.
Vote early and often, and Jaime may live to fight another day.
(And I’m closing comments on this one. Save all your eloquence for Suvudu, where your arguments will help determine the outcome of the match).
((There are fifteen others matches you can weigh in on too. Single elimination. If I was a betting man, I’d put my sheckles on Cthulhu myself, but maybe that’s just because I’ve been writing all those ironborn scenes.))
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/>Music: Those Were The Days
I was startled looking at my website today when I saw the hit counter, which tells me the site has had more than 23 million hits since December of 2000.
Of course, I have to put that in perspective. It’s really just the same forty-two people coming back again and again to see if DANCE is done yet, isn’t it?
(I suspect the Not A Blog actually gets MORE visitors than my main site. A mention here — of a forthcoming appearance, a book sale, a news item — seems to generate a lot more response than anything on my Appearances page, my Signed Books page, or my News page).
No point to any of this, just… hey, 23 million hits, that’s kinda cool…
No telling how many of you have actually been around since 2000, and how many found my site and/or the Not A Blog just last week. Some of you newcomers, though, might enjoy giving a listen to the series of podcasts I recorded back in 2005, to promote A FEAST FOR CROWS. (I assume you old timers have heard them all already). They’re all at
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheGeorgeRRMartinPodcast
I imagine I will be doing more of these when DANCE WITH DRAGONS comes out. I’ll need to think up some more topics. (Maybe “Deadlines, and Why They Should Never Be Missed” would be a good one). Meanwhile, these may entertain and enlighten those of you who haven’t heard ’em.
And try not to laugh TOO hard at the part where I say I hope to finish DANCE by the end of the year. I really meant it, honest.
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Like rust, the NFL never sleeps.
The offseason is already in full swing, and the Jets just acquired Antonio Cromartie from the Chargers for a third-round draft pick… in 2011! Wow. Sounds like a great deal to me. Cromartie is a first round talent, led the league in interceptions just a few years ago. And paired with Darrell Revis, he’ll give Gang Green the best CB tandem in the league… which should make our #1 ranked defense even better. (We’ll get Kris Jenkins back as well).
Hey, maybe nobody will EVER score on us next season.
So now all we need is a stud pass-rusher and sack artist. Oh, Vernon Gholston, won’t you please show up to play one day???
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Thanks, everyone. The outpouring of enthusiasm has been amazing. The comments are piling up here faster than Ty can unscreen ’em, my phone is ringing off the hook, and my email is exploding. And of course the story is all over the internet. Quite a day.
For the six of you who may not have seen it elsewhere, here’s a production still from the pilot sent out by HBO.
Lots, lots more to come in the days and weeks and months ahead. I will probably not be the best source for most of it, however. I’ll be here writing, while David and Dan will be out in the center of the storm, writing the scripts and supervising pre-production.
On other fronts, I hit page 1311 yesterday. No, not done yet.
For some reason, got nothing written today.
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http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/hbo-will-play-game-of-thrones/
http://www.thrfeed.com/2010/03/hbo-greenlights-game-of-thrones-.html
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http://tv.ign.com/articles/107/1073428p1.html
http://scifiwire.com/2010/03/hbo-says-yes-to-game-of-t.php
… and many more.
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Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist is running a giveaway for Advanced Reading Copies of WARRIORS, the big crossgenre anthology I did with Gardner Dozois.
For more details, go to
http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2010/03/win-copy-of-warriors-anthology-edited.html
And for those of you who don’t win, WARRIORS will be in the bookstores on March 16.
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So… March is upon us. The month when HBO will announce its decision on A GAME OF THRONES.
(Yes, I know, I know, it is not actually the Ides until March 15, but the phrase is so fraught with drama I could not resist).
I have absolutely no idea whether “March” will translate to “early March” or “the end of March.” The decision could be announced today, for all I know. Or maybe they will make us all wait until March 31. The Ides… well, maybe not. I don’t know if I can wait another fifteen days, and anyway that date has ominous connotations. “Beware the Ides of March,” and all that. So please let us know before that, HBO.
From the start of this, I’ve told myself, “Don’t get too emotionally invested in this, or you will be devastated if it doesn’t go.” Wise words, those. I’m a smart guy.
But easier said than done. I’ve failed. I am totally emotionally invested, and if HBO does indeed decide to pass, for whatever reason, I will be gutted.
So let’s all hope I am soon doing the happy dance instead.
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Parris and I watched a fair amount of the Winter Olympics. ’twas okay. Some stirring moments, some excitement, drama, grace, all that.
Some of these sports are silly, though. I mean, really. Two man luge? The top guy lying on the bottom guy, both of them flat on their backs, careening down an ice chute? Why not eight-man luge? Just stack ’em up, keeping the stack together would be real exciting.
And really — this one is going to get me in trouble, I know — if you don’t know who won until some judge holds up a card or enters a number on a computer, it’s not a sport. Now listen. I am not saying it doesn’t require incredible skill, grace, strength, what have you. I am not saying the participants are not athletes, even. I am certainly not saying this stuff should not exist. But it’s not a sport. I mean, really. Ice dancing? Dancing is an art. Has been an art for thousands of years. Doing it on ice doesn’t change that. And when it’s Russians dressed up as faux Australian aborigines or Americans ice dancing a Moldavian folk dance, it’s REALLY not a sport.
All these judged “sports” are too subjective. A real sport may require umps or refs, but you know who won when the contest is over. We didn’t have to sit around after the SuperBowl saying, “well, the Saints scored more points, but the Colts attempted more long passes, so their degree of difficulty was harder, and the judges will certainly give Dwight Feeney points for that triple spin move, even though he didn’t get the sack. It could be close…”
I propose a new sport for the next Winter Olympics. A REAL sport. Ice football. Played exactly the same way as real (American) football, except everyone is on ice skates. I mean, we have field hockey and ice hockey, why not field football and ice football? Just think of the excitement as Peyton Manning skates backward to get off the pass and those speed skaters on the D-line come flashing after him while his wideouts do spins and triple axels trying to lose the CBs… most exciting sport EVER!!!
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