INSIDE STRAIGHT, the first volume in our new Wild Cards triad, has just been released in mass market paperback. If you missed the hardcover edition, this is your chance to go and snap it up before the release of the second volume, BUSTED FLUSH, on December 9.

Unfortunately, there’s a rather egregious gaffe on this edition. Somehow the copy on the back cover got screwed up, and the plot details given there are actually those from BUSTED FLUSH, not INSIDE STRAIGHT. We’ll fix those on the second printing, I suppose, assuming there is a second printing. In which case the first printing may become as rare and valuable as that upside-down airmail stamp (but probably not).

Meanwhile, enjoy INSIDE STRAIGHT, but don’t go looking for zombies, hurricanes, and nuclear explosions. Those are all in the second book.

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Parris will soon be on her way home to take care of the cats, before they start rioting and have wild parties. So I’m pressing on by myself. Arrived in London a few hours ago. Signing at Forbidden Planet on the 11th.

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Late, wet, and bedraggled, but I’m here.

Tomorrow heads will roll. Well, one head, at least.

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The Scottish filming is done, and cast and crew are packing up today for the big move to Belfast and its Paint Hall, where the shoot will resume. So far, so good.

Parris and I are moving on as well. She’ll be headed over to Ireland tomorrow to spend Samhaim with friends, while I linger here in Scotland a few more days to visit with Lisa Tuttle. We converge again in Belfast in November. Today we swung by the HarperCollins warehouse outside Glasgow, where I signed five hundred hardcovers of SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH. Ask for one at your favorite UK bookstore, they will be going all over the country.

Things are shaping up for the signing at Eason’s in Belfast. Last night after the filming wrapped we stayed up late drinking with the cast, and I think we convinced a number of them to join us at Eason’s. Should be a hoot and a half, assuming they don’t come to their senses in the cold grey light of morning. I told them my readers were essentially harmless. Hah.

The cast is sensational, by the way.

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I’ve met Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner (and their charming moms). They’re terrific, bright and beautiful and bursting with enthusiasm, excited to be a part of this.

And now I’m having pangs of guilt about all the horrors that they’re going to have to go through in the months and years to come, thanks to me.

I’m going to have to rewrite the books so only nice things happen to Arya and Sansa. Might change the story some.

Also ran into Ron Donachie, Jennfier Ehle, and Kit Harington, and all of them were great The rest of the cast is around here somewhere too, but we haven’t bumped into them yet. But I expect we’ll meet them all today on set.

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We’re here in Edinburgh, safe and sound but jetlagged. A grueling trip, three flights, Albuquerque to Houston, Houston to Newark, Newark to Edinburgh. I can’t sleep on airplanes, so as usual I arrived exhausted, and collapsed as soon as we hit the hotel. Sleep until midnight, then woke, ate a room service meal, and will soon go back to sleep in hopes to waking tomorrow and getting into sync with the time here.

Glad to see so much enthusiasm about the cast.

Gnight again.

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… (but certainly not the least) was our intrepid horselord, Khal Drogo of the Dothraki.

The search for the right khal was exhaustive, and included auditions on four separate continents (maybe five, not sure if those Brazilian readings ever took place). As with several other parts, there were a lot of great readings, and the producers had several interesting choices.

The final nod went to Jason Momoa, who is best known to American television viewers for his role on STARGATE: ATLANTIS.

I blush to confess that I have never seen any STARGATE but the movie… but Jason’s auditions were terrific, displaying all the fierceness that our khal requires, but showing warmth and tenderness in the softer scenes as well. And yes, his haka was terrific.

Khal Drogo was the last of the speaking roles to be filled, so the cast is now complete… until and unless the show gets picked up to series, when we’ll start the process all over again to find Littlefinger, Varys, Ser Barristan, Renly, Loras, Hodor, Lord Tywin, and all the rest of our merry company.

But I’ll worry about that later. Tomorrow we’re off to the UK.

See ya.

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I said that the big man could tell you the latest casting news. That’s because the big guy is Ian McNeice, a veteran British character actor most recently seen on HBO as the newsreader in ROME. He’s done a million other parts as well, of course. In A GAME OF THRONES, he’ll be playing Illyrio Mopatis, Magister of the Free City of Pentos, merchant prince, and arch- conspirator.

There is one character with a speaking part in the HBO pilot who did not appear in my novel. In the early drafts of the script she was known only as Red-Headed Whore, but she has since been christened “Ros.” Playing Ros will be the lovely Esme Bianco, an actress, model, and burlesque performer whose website can be found at http://www.esmeforever.com/

Her previous credits include CHEMICAL WEDDING, BURLESQUE FAIRYTALES, and DEAD MAN RUNNING, which is where those clues about chemicals, fairies, and dead men came from. Tyrion will be very pleased to make her acquaintance.

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I’m off tomorrow for the UK and the pilot shoot, so it stands to reason that I won’t be at MileHiCon in Denver this weekend. I haven’t yet figured out how to be in two places at one time.

However, there will be some cool news announced for the first time at MileHiCon, so if you should happen to be in Denver, keep your ears peeled, and you can be one of the first to know.

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