Returned home last night from my short visit to LA, where I attended a private screening of the first two episodes of GAME OF THRONES, made a surprise visit to the food truck in Venice, enjoyed a great celebratory dinner with Dan and David at the Palm (where we first met, lo these many years ago), called on Justin Sweet in his Yorba Linda studio and saw some gorgeous roughs of the artwork he’ll be doing for the forthcoming WORLD OF ICE & FIRE concordance, met with Mark Newbauer of Mike the Pike Productions about their on-going SKIN TRADE film project, and even enjoyed a great lunch with old friend Ron Perlman, from my days on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. It was an amazing few days, if insanely busy.

The first two episodes look spectacular, I think, especially when seen on the big screen at CAA. Cinematic quality. (I have a new 55 inch TV set being installed this week, and now I’m afraid that it’s too small) These were the first complete episodes I’ve seen, and I loved them. Yes, there are changes from the books, and of course there are things missing — lines of dialogue, bits of business, scenes — but without twice or thrice the running time, there was no way to get EVERYTHING in. The story is there, that’s the important thing. Fans who know the books inside and out may miss certain things, sure, but the vast majority of viewers, those who have never read the novels, should do just fine.

My hat is off to David and Dan and the team they put together. They’ve done an amazing job.

Oh, and HBO has released a new trailer. Herewith, “Poison.”

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Lots of stuff to report, lots to comment on… but I can’t just now.

Too much going on.

Saw sone AMAZING artwork by Justin Sweet today. His studies for the eventual WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE concordance. What a talent. If the roughs are this good, the finished paintings are going to make my head school.

Hope to see something equally cool this evening.

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… was how THE NEW YORKER was once pitched, when it was launched way back when.

(I actually lived in Dubuque from 1976 to 1979. I think half the population of the town read THE NEW YORKER, just to prove they were more sophisticated than those New Yorkers thought).

Which is a long and roundabout way of saying, hey, there’s a profile of me in the latest issue of THE NEW YORKER.

No April Fool here. Really truly.

How cool is that?

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The fifteen-minute (actually only a bit over fourteen minutes) preview of GAME OF THRONES debuted on HBO tonight, just before the third part of their big miniseries MILDRED PIERCE.

Many of you saw it, I know. For those who don’t have cable or satellite or whatever, the good folks at HBO have been kind enough to post the preview on their website to make it available to all (well, many). This is NOT a trailer or an assembly of clips, but rather the first quarter of the first episode.

So without further ado:

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Hope you liked that.

The series premieres on April 17. To see the rest, you WILL need HBO.

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And here’s the latest cool thing from HBO: their “Win the Throne” sweepstakes.

http://www.winthethronesweeps.com/

No, you don’t actually get to win the Iron Throne (cool as that would be). The grand prize winner does get $10,000, however. Which is probably enough to commission a local ironworker to make you your own Iron Throne, if that’s what you want.

There are also all sorts of lesser prizes for the runners-up, in the form of GAME OF THRONES swag.

Sorry, the contest is only open to US residents.

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… well, sort of.

The HBO series of GAME OF THRONES does not debut for another two weeks. April 17 is the big day.

But tonight those of you who have HBO will get a taste — a special preview, the first fifteen minutes of episode one.

Be sure to give a watch.

And if you don’t have HBO… well, hey, you’ve got two weeks to add it to your cable or satellite package. (Those of you in the US, anyway. Other countries have other arrangements for airing the series, each one different).

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Yes, of course it was an April’s Fool post. I always do an April Fool’s post.

Yes, of course it was evil. Froggy the Gremlin is always evil. “I’ll be good, I will, I will,” he always tells Andy. But he never is.

Now go put the spaghetti in your hair, and rub it in good.

I’m off to plunk my magic twanger.

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This one is for my readers in the Bay Area.

((Uh… that would be San Francisco Bay. There are others. As a Bayonne boy, I grew up between two bays. But never mind)).

Hie thee to Wondercon. There are wonders there, at the HBO booth

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… about ME!!!

Hey, I’ve made the NEW YORK TIMES.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/his-beautiful-dark-twisted-fantasy-george-r-r-martin-talks-game-of-thrones/?src=tptw

Pretty cool.

Once, fresh out of college, I failed to get hired by the BAYONNE TIMES. Now I’ve made it clear across the harbor to the big city.

((FWIW, the BAYONNE TIMES went out of business a month after failing to hire me. Never underestimate my sinister powers, mmwhahahahah.))

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Kong and I are still dancing round the Empire State Building… but meanwhile, some big news from my editors and publishers at Bantam Spectra. In view of the ever-increasing size of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, they have scrapped their original plans for one single massive hardcover tome, and instead announced that they will divide the novel into five smaller books.

“We warned George that A STORM OF SWORDS was as long a book as we could possibly publish in one volume, and now he’s gone ahead and made this one a hundred pages longer,” a Bantam spokesman said. “Worse, the thing’s still growing! Besides, we have all these different covers we’ve designed and paid for over the years, we might as well get some use out of them.”

Rather than simply divide the text into five segments, Bantam has decided to follow the precedent established with A FEAST FOR CROWS and “unbraid” the novel, publishing each character’s adventures as a separate volume.

The five parts of DANCE will each be released with a subtitle, as follows:
A DANCE WITH DRAGONS: DAENERYS
A DANCE WITH DRAGONS: JON SNOW
A DANCE WITH DRAGONS: TYRION
A DANCE WITH DRAGONS: ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE
A DANCE WITH DRAGONS: THE MEEREENESE KNOT

“If this format proves to be as popular as we think it will be,” the Bantam spokesman said, “we will go back and re-release all the older books as individual ‘character volumes’ as well. Each of Martin’s books is really seven or eight novels woven together, so there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be published individually, to give each character his moment in the sun. This will allow each reader to follow his favorite characters, and ignore the ones he finds tedious, whiny, or annoying.”

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Bantam is also making a study of the feasibility of publishing subsequent volumes of Martin’s series as individual single-volume chapbooks, to be released at the rate of one chapter a month. “It worked wonderfully for Stephen King with THE GREEN MILE,” said the Bantam spokesman. “Even GRRM should be able to write a chapter a month, and if we get them into print as quickly as he writes them, maybe that will stop him from going back and rewriting them so damned much. Serial publication was good enough for Charles Dickens, it should be good enough for Martin, and will get all those impatient Ice & Fire fans off our backs.”

The first installment of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS will still be published on July 12. It will be either the Daenerys segment or the Jon Snow, Bantam says.

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