Best Books of the Year

January 3, 2015 at 9:17 pm

Another year has come and gone, and all sorts of folks are putting out lists of their favorite books of 2014…

… including the editors at Amazon.

I am pleased to say that our Westerosi worldbook THE WORLD OF ICE & FIRE and our anthology ROGUES both made the Top Twenty list in Science Fiction and Fantasy:

http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_426357402_25?ie=UTF8&node=10207159011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-leftnav&pf_rd_r=1MX64NEX9Q76GESKDKKX&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1968735602&pf_rd_i=10207069011

Thanks, Amazon. And thanks to all of you, my readers. Hope you enjoyed the books as well.

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Tags: anthologies, awards, e-books, world of ice and fire

I’m Number Three….

December 17, 2014 at 8:24 pm

… again.

First the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER named me the third most powerful writer in Hollywood.

And now, yes indeed, Barbara Walters has included me as one of her Ten Most Fascinating People of 2014. The third, actually. Though I am not sure the order actually matters.

LiveJournal is not letting me embed the video, for some reason, but for those of you who missed the show, here's a link:

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/video/game-thrones-author-george-martins-rise-success-27599428

(Look closely, and you can catch a glimpse of Parris, of Gardner Dozois, of various other friends).

It is gratifying to know that I am as fascinating as I am powerful (this year, at least). Plainly it must be the Autumn of George (obligatory SEINFELD reference).

Sad to say, however, I failed to win the triple crown. I may be fascinating, and I may be powerful, but somehow, unaccountably, PEOPLE magazine failed to name me Sexiest Man Alive to complete the sweep. They went with Thor… er, Chris Hemsworth… instead. And, yeah, okay, he's all rugged and muscle-y and stuff, and his hammer is bigger than mine, but really… PEOPLE did not even include me in the list of runners up, although Kit Harrington and Richard Madden were both included (and congrats to both of them).

But that's the way it goes with triple crowns. The Belmont always breaks 'em.

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Tags: awards, humor, television

Awards, Awards

December 11, 2014 at 12:34 pm

Award season is at hand in Hollywood, and GAME OF THRONES is racking up the nominations.

The show scored three nods from SAG, the Screen Actors Guild. Peter Dinklage was nominated as Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, along with Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey of TRUE DETECTIVE, Steve Buschemi from BOARDWALK EMPIRE, and Kevin Spacey for HOUSE OF CARDS. The cast as a whole was nominated for Best Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama, and our stunt team was nominated for Best Action Performance by an Ensemble.

Variety has the full list at http://variety.com/2014/film/news/sag-awards-nominations-birdman-boyhood-1201375775/

SAGTrophy

This year's Golden Globe have also just been announced. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominated GAME OF THRONES in Best Drama. The competition is THE GOOD WIFE, DOWNTON ABBEY, THE AFFAIR, and HOUSE OF CARDS. (Very surprised not to see BOARDWALK EMPIRE on that list; their final season was astounding. MANHATTAN also deserved a nod, I think. This is truly the Golden Age of television drama).

golden-globe-award

As ever, it is an honor to be nominated, to be part of the conversation.

(I remain skeptical about our chances of actually winning, the bias against fantasy being what it is).

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Tags: awards, game of thrones, hbo, television and film

GOT, HBO Score WGA Nominations

December 4, 2014 at 2:53 pm

The Writers Guild of America has just announced the nominees for its annual awards, and HBO and GAME OF THRONES are both well represented on the shortlists.

The writing staff of GAME OF THRONES season four (David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, and me) scored another nomination for Best Dramatic Series. We'll be up against THE GOOD WIFE, HOUSE OF CARDS, TRUE DETECTIVE, and MAD MEN.

wga

But that's not all. In the Episodic Drama category, my own season four episode, "The Lion and the Rose," was nominated. It will be competing against episodes from THE GOOD WIFE, RECTIFY, MAD MEN, and two strong BOARDWALK EMPIREs. Tough company indeed.

But I am thrilled by the nomination. The last time one of my scripts was nominated was 1987, when one of my TWILIGHT ZONE episodes was a finalist. (I lost to Harlan Ellison, with another TZ script). So it's very cool to make the shortlist.

For a full list of nominees, go to:

http://www.eonline.com/news/603528/game-of-thrones-orange-is-the-new-black-and-true-detective-lead-2015-wga-nominations

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Tags: awards, game of thrones, hbo, television

Dangerous Women Take HPL’s Head

November 10, 2014 at 7:00 pm

DANGEROUS WOMEN, the big crossgenre anthology that Gardner Dozois and I edited for Tor, was announced as the winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology of 2013 on Sunday, at the World Fantasy Convention in Washington, DC.

I wasn't able to attend the con this year (I do hope to be at next year's event, in Saratoga), but Gardner was on hand, and accepted for the both of us.

wfa 2014

The news came as a pleasant surprise… nay, even a shock. Neither Gardner nor I thought we had a prayer of winning. The anthology shortlist was very strong this year. But this one is case where I was glad to be proved wrong.

My thanks to the fans and readers who nominated us, to the judges who chose us as winner, to our editors and publishers and all the rest of the good folks at Tor and Harper. And of course to our writers, whose talents made DANGEROUS WOMEN. We had a great lineup:

INTRODUCTION, by Gardner Dozois
SOME DESPERADO, by Joe Abercrombie
MY HEART IS EITHER BROKEN, by Megan Abbott
NORA’S SONG, by Cecelia Holland
THE HANDS THAT ARE NOT THERE, by Melinda Snodgrass
BOMBSHELLS, by Jim Butcher
RAISA STEPANOVA, by Carrie Vaughn
WRESTLING JESUS, by Joe R. Lansdale
NEIGHBORS, by Megan Lindholm
I KNOW HOW TO PICK ‘EM, by Lawrence Block
SHADOWS FOR SILENCE IN THE FORESTS OF HELL, by Brandon Sanderson
A QUEEN IN EXILE, by Sharon Kay Penman
THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR, by Lev Grossman
SECOND ARABESQUE, VERY SLOWLY, by Nancy Kress
CITY LAZARUS, by Diana Rowland
VIRGINS, by Diana Gabaldon
HELL HATH NO FURY, by Sherilynn Kenyon
PRONOUNCING DOOM, by S.M. Stirling
NAME THE BEAST, by Sam Sykes
CARETAKERS, by Pat Cadigan
LIES MY MOTHER TOLD ME, by Caroline Spector
THE PRINCESS AND THE QUEEN, by George R.R. Martin

For those of you who missed DANGEROUS WOMEN in hardcover, the anthology is being released in mass market (in three volumes) by Tor in the US and HarperVoyager in the UK. All three of the British paperbacks and the first two of the American are on the stands, and available from Amazon and other online booksellers. Gardner and I are very proud of this one. We hope you check it out.

For the full list of this year's World Fantasy Awards winners, go to:

http://www.locusmag.com/News/2014/11/world-fantasy-awards-winners-2014/

This is my third Howard. I won Best Novella for "The Skin Trade" a couple of decades ago, and more recently a Lifetime Achievement Award… which I guess makes this one a post-lifetime achievement. I look forward to lining up my three HPLs on the mantlepiece.

wfawardrev

Aieeeeeeeeee…………………….

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Tags: anthologies, awards, world fantasy convention

Emmy Night

August 25, 2014 at 8:21 pm

It's Emmy night!

(On a Monday in August… thanks, NBC, he muttered sourly).

Parris and I will be off to the Nokia Theatre in a few hours, battling the inevitable traffic jams, which will be much worse than usual because, well, it's a Monday in August.

GAME OF THRONES scored 19 Emmy nominations, more than any other program, and took home four awards last weekend in the technical categories. Tonight we are contending in five more categories: Neil Marshall for directing, David and Dan for scripting, Lena Headey for Best Supporting Actress, Peter Dinklage for Best Supporting Actor, and of course the show itself for Best Drama.

Whether we will win any remains to be seen. Pretty much everyone is saying that BREAKING BAD has this year locked up. Maybe they are right. But last week pretty much everyone was saying DOCTOR WHO had the Hugo locked up as well. Can GAME OF THRONES score another upset, and break through the Academy's long-standing aversion to fantasy and science fiction? We will know in a few hours.

That's why they play the games.

Anyway (all together now), "it is an honor just to be nominated," and the after parties are always fun.

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Tags: awards, emmy awards, game of thrones, hbo, television

Martians and Women and Rogues, Oh My

July 17, 2014 at 5:06 pm

Hey, lots of good news on the anthology front while I was traipsing around France and Switzerland these past couple of weeks.

OLD MARS led the way, winning the annual Locus Award as the Best Anthology of 2013:

Old Mars cvr rev

You can check out the details at http://www.locusmag.com/News/2014/06/2014-locus-awards-winners-2/ And congratulations to my pals Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck as well. As James S.A. Corey, they won the Locus Award for Best SF Novel of the year. (Would that ABADDON'S GATE was on the Hugo ballot as well). And of course, congrats to my co-editor Gardner Dozois, and our amazing lineup of writers, who made the anthology the delight that it is. If you haven't checked out OLD MARS yet, you missed at lot.

((And for what it's worth, OLD VENUS will be even better)).

Next thing, the nominees for this year's World Fantasy Award were announced. OLD MARS wasn't eligible, being science fiction and all… but DANGEROUS WOMEN, the big crossgenre anthology that Gardner and I released last summer, is one of the finalists for Best Anthology (against some mighty stiff competition, I might add).

91EWTSOg1IL._SL1500_

You can check out the full list of Wold Fantasy Award nominees here:
http://www.worldfantasy.org/awards/

To round out the triptych, in the midst of all this recognition for the books that Gargy and I did last year, our newest anthology, ROGUES, hit the shelves from coast and coast… and debuted at #7 on the NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller List. No, not the anthology bestseller list, or the SF/ fantasy bestseller list, but the bestseller list for ALL HARDCOVER FICTION. Which is pretty damned extraordinary for an anthology.

http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2014-07-06/hardcover-fiction/list.html

Rogues comp A March 17 lo res

So, all in all, it was a hell of a month.

My thanks to the LOCUS voters, the World Fantasy Con members and judges, and all the readers who snatched up ROGUES.

I love doing anthologies, and introducing great stories and new writers to my fans. It's great to see the books being so well received.

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Tags: anthologies, awards, bestseller lists, locus awards, world fantasy convention

SAG, AFI Honor THRONES

December 11, 2013 at 1:19 pm

It's been a great week for GAME OF THRONES in Hollywood, with both the Screen Actor's Guild and the American Film Institute bestowing honors and recognition on the HBO series, and some of the folk who work so hard to make it great.

SAG announced the nominees for its annual awards this morning. I'm thrilled to say that the cast of GAME OF THRONES are nominated as Best Performance by an Ensemble in a Television Drama, on a shortlist that also includes our familiar rivals BOARDWALK EMPIRE, BREAKING BAD, DOWNTON ABBEY, and HOMELAND. The guild members also nominated our fearless stuntwomen and stuntmen for Outstanding Action Performance by Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series. BOARDWALK EMPIRE, BREAKING BAD, and HOMELAND are up in that category as well, along with THE WALKING DEAD. And Peter Dinklage, our once and future Tyrion Lannister, was nominated as Best Actor in a Television Drama. He will vie for the award against Steve Buscemi (BOARDWALK EMPIRE), Bryan Cranston (BREAKING BAD), Jeff Daniels (THE NEWSROOM), and Kevin Spacey (HOUSE OF CARDS).

749729_GOT3_HS_0904_EP307_DSC6223-1368328718000-A

For a full list of the nominees, go to:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/11/sag-awards-2014_n_4422434.html

The SAG nominations follow close on the heels of AFI's annual announcement, recognizing their ten favorite films and television shows of the previous year. GAME OF THRONES made the list for the third year in a row. The AFI recognition is especially nice since it has no winners and no losers; all ten of the chosen films and television shows share the recognition.

AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE
AFI AWARDS 2013 OFFICIAL SELECTIONS

AFI MOVIES OF THE YEAR
12 YEARS A SLAVE
AMERICAN HUSTLE
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
FRUITVALE STATION
GRAVITY
HER
INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS
NEBRASKA
SAVING MR. BANKS
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

AFI TV PROGRAMS OF THE YEAR
GAME OF THRONES
THE AMERICANS
BREAKING BAD
THE GOOD WIFE
HOUSE OF CARDS
MAD MEN
MASTERS OF SEX
ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK
SCANDAL
VEEP

Tomorrow the Golden Globe nominations will be announced, and we'll see if the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will make us three for three. Keep your fingers crossed.

A DAY LATER: Skunked in the Golden Globes. 🙁 As Vizzini would say, "Inconceivable!"

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Tags: awards, game of thrones, hbo, television

Media Access Award

October 22, 2013 at 12:57 pm

Last week I made a quick two-day visit to Los Angeles to attend the 2013 Media Access Awards at the Beverly Hilton, where I was pleased and proud to accept the 2013 "Visionary Award" on behalf of GAME OF THRONES.

The Media Access Awards honor films and television programs that champion disability as a feature of humanity — and as a component of great storytelling. In recent years, this industry-wide, multi-guild celebration has spotlighted talents including Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, the casting office of Glee, actor Marlee Matlin, The Sessions writer-director Ben Lewin, and others who have continued to support and encourage the intersection of disability and visibility in media.

David Radcliff, of the Writers With Disabilities Committee of the Writers Guild of America, West, wrote to inform me of this honor, saying, "Game of Thrones seems a natural fit for this recognition. Since its earliest episodes, your gripping series has introduced us to a paralyzed boy with a supernatural gift, has endeared us to a Little Person defined not by his height but by his wit, and has regularly mined the lives of “cripples, bastards, and broken things” to celebrate their strengths and complexities. In fact, it is a fantastic credit to your work that Game of Thrones is not commonly thought of as a show that “deals with” disability — it is something even better: a show that embraces the reality that no one is easily definable."

The award was presented at a breakfast at the Beverly Hilton. It was a great event. Paul Chitlik, an old colleague of mine from my days on THE TWILIGHT ZONE, presented the award to me, and I had the chance to meet some terrific actors, writers, and directors.

For more about the awards, and a full list of this year's honorees, see:

http://mediaaccessawards.com/

This is one I am very proud of… but really, though it may be my name on the award, David Benioff, Dan Weiss, Brian Cogman, our amazing cast and crew, and our incredible directors won this just as much as I did. Would that all of them could have been there. And none of this would have possible without the support of HBO.

Thanks, all.

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Tags: awards, game of thrones, hbo

Emmy Loves Us. Twice.

September 18, 2013 at 6:59 pm

The Emmy Awards are starting off nicely for GAME OF THRONES this year, and fabulously for HBO.

In the Creative Arts Awards given on Sunday (sometimes called the 'technical Emmys'), GAME OF THRONES took two awards.

In Outstanding Special Visual Effects, GOT beat out DEFIANCE, FALLING SKIES, HEMLOCK GROVE, and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD & CHROME. Our Emmy winners were

For Outstanding Makeup For A Single-Camera Series (Non-Prosthetic), the series finished on top of BOARDWALK EMPIRE, THE BORGIAS, GLEE, MAD MEN, and ONCE UPON A TIME. They won for the episode "Kissed By Fire." The Emmys went to Paul Engelen (Department Head Makeup Artist), Melissa Lackersteen ( Key Makeup Artist), Daniel Lawson Johnston ( Makeup Artist), and Martina Byrne (Makeup Artist).

My heartfelt congratulations to our world-class SFX team and makeup artists. Well deserved.

It takes a lot of people to make a quality show, and the craftsmen and artists who do all the 'below the line' jobs contribute just as much as the 'above the line' talent like the directors, actors, and writers, though they seldom receive the recognition they deserve. So hats off to our terrific crew… not only Sunday's winners, but also all the other nominees from GAME OF THRONES, who lost out to other worthy shows. (You wuz robbed, as we used to say in Bayonne)

emmy-statuette

HBO as a whole did even better, completely dominating the awards with 20 wins, way more than any other network. CBS was a distant second with 15, and the totals plunged sharply after that.

For a full list of the winners and nominees:

http://www.hitfix.com/news/creative-arts-emmys-2013-complete-winners-list/1

http://www.eonline.com/news/459135/creative-arts-emmys-2013-complete-list-of-winners

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Tags: awards, emmy awards, game of thrones, hbo, television

Not a Blog

Best Books of the Year

I’m Number Three….

Awards, Awards

GOT, HBO Score WGA Nominations

Dangerous Women Take HPL’s Head

Emmy Night

Martians and Women and Rogues, Oh My

SAG, AFI Honor THRONES

Media Access Award

Emmy Loves Us. Twice.

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