Dark Winds Wins Wrangler

April 16, 2023 at 9:31 am

The Wrangler Awards have been presented annually since 1961 by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, to honor individuals who “have made significant contributions to Western heritage through creative works in literature, music, television and film that share the great stories of the American West.”

This year’s awards were presented April 14-15. I’m very pleased to report that “Monster Slayer,” episode one of the first season of DARK WINDS on AMC, was honored as best Fictional Television Drama.

https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/collections/awards/wha/monster-slayer-dark-winds/

The episode was scripted by Graham Roland and directed by Chris Eyre, based on Tony Hillerman’s classic Joe Leaphorn/ Jim Chee detective novels (LISTENING WOMAN and PEOPLE OF DARKNESS were the main sources for our first season). Chris and Graham were among the Executive Producers for the season as well, along with Robert Redford, Tina Elmo, Vince Gerardis, Anne Hillerman, Wayne Morris, Vince Calandra, Zahn McClarnon (who also starred as Joe Leaphorn), and… yes, yours truly.

(Does this mean I need to start wearing my cowboy hats instead of Greek fisherman caps?)

Tony Hillerman was a friend, an amazing author, and a giant in the mystery genre. In Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee he created two iconic characters, and his books introduced millions of readers to the wonders of Navajo Country and the American Southwest. It was a great honor for me to have played a small part in helping to bring his stories to television. To see them so well done, and so well received, is hugely satisfying. I like to think that Tony would have been pleased as well. Zahn and Jessica and Kiowa and the rest of our cast have done such an amazing job, and Chris Eyre (who directed four of the six episodes) is one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with.

The first season on DARK WINDS ran last June on AMC. If you missed it… hey, check it out, you can still catch it streaming on AMC+.

Our second season, filmed here in New Mexico at Camel Rock Studios, and on the Navajo reservation, wrapped last month and is now in post. No date has been set yet for the season two debut, but we’re thinking June or July are most likely.

And that’s just the start. Tony wrote eighteen Leaphorn and Chee novels, and his daughter Anne has continued the series, penning eight more books since Tony’s passing. I’d love nothing better than to adapt all of them.

Tags: awards, Dark Winds, television

A Knight and a Squire

April 14, 2023 at 7:12 am

The news is all over the internet by now. The announcement was made on the 12th, at Warner Media’s big press event for the rollout and rebranding of their new streamer, MAX, coming your way on May 23. I was sworn to secrecy till then, but now that the word is out, I can go ahead and confirm it. Yes, it’s true. There’s another successor show on its way to you.

Dunk & Egg are coming to HBO.

The working title will be A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS: THE HEDGE KNIGHT. Whether that will be the final title, I can’t say for sure… beyond saying that no, it won’t be called TALES OF DUNK & EGG or THE ADVENTURES OF DUNK & EGG or DUNK & EGG or anything along those lines. I love Dunk and I love Egg, and I know that fans refer to my novellas as “the Dunk & Egg stories,” sure, but there are millions of people out there who do not know the stories and the title needs to intrigue them too. If you don’t know the characters, DUNK & EGG sounds like a sitcom. LAVERNE & SHIRLEY. ABBOTT & COSTELLO. BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD. So, no. We want “knight” in the title. Knighthood and chivalry are central to the themes of these stories.

Aside from the title, what else can I tell you?

Not a lot.

HBO has given us a greenlight to film for a full season (not just a pilot), most likely of six episodes… though that is not set in stone, and won’t be until considerably later in the process. To date I have written and published three novellas about Dunk & Egg — “The Hedge Knight,” “The Sworn Sword,” and “The Mystery Knight,” each of them initially published independently in various anthologies before being collected together in A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS.

Our premiere season will be an adaptation of the first of the three published novellas, “The Hedge Knight,” the tale of how Dunk & Egg first met during a tournament at Ashford Meadow. The pilot script is already written, and I think it’s terrific. It was written by Ira Parker, who is no stranger to Westeros. He was part of Ryan Condal’s writing staff for the first season of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, and wrote the fourth episode of Hot D’s first season, “King of the Narrow Sea.” That’s the one where Prince Daemon returns to King’s Landing after conquering the Stepstones, and takes Princess Rhaenyra down into the stews of Flea Bottom. Ryan Condal is on board as well, as an Executive Producer. So am I.

There is no date set yet for the series premiere, or even for the show to begin shooting… but the writing is well underway. Ira has assembled a small but very talented team, and they are at it already, building on the foundations laid down last year in previous creative summits… and of course on the original novella. The Dunk & Egg novellas are fully-fleshed narratives more like the novels of A SONG OF ICE & FIRE than the imaginary history of FIRE & BLOOD; the stories are right there on the page, and our goal is to produce faithful adaptations of those tales for the screen.

If THE HEDGE KNIGHT turns out as well as we hope it will, our hope would be to go on and adapt THE SWORN SWORD and THE MYSTERY KNIGHT as well. That will take a few years. Then comes the hard part. Before we reach the end of the published stories, I will need to find time to write all the other Dunk & Egg novellas that I have planned. There are… gulp… more of them than I had once thought. There’s “The Village Hero” and the Winterfell story, the one with the She-Wolves, and maybe I need to write that Dornish adventure too to slip in between “The Hedge Knight” and “The Sworn Sword,” and after that there are… ah… more. I just need to finish THE WINDS OF WINTER, and then do either A DREAM OF SPRING or volume two of FIRE & BLOOD, and slip in a new Dunk & Egg between each of those in my copious spare time… and that will keep me ahead of Ira and his merry crew… for a few more years.

Well, I will worry about that tomorrow. Today, we’re celebrating. Dunk & Egg are coming.

Those of you who have not yet made their acquaintance should pick up a copy of A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS from your favorite local bookshop or online bookseller. (We have autographed copies at Beastly Books in Santa Fe).

You could check out your local comics shop as well. All three of the Dunk & Egg novellas have been done as graphic novels, and done very well, with some great artwork by Mike S. Miller, who captured both characters perfectly.

One more thing before I close…

Way back in the summer of 2016, when HBO first started thinking about GAME OF THRONES spinoffs, I pitched them two ideas: the Dance of the Dragons, which in due time became HOUSE OF THE DRAGON… and Dunk & Egg. That was seven years ago. (I can hardly believe it myself). The lesson there is that development takes time. I see all these stories on the net about other spinoffs being killed or abandoned… no idea where they get this stuff… and it just makes me shake my head. The Nymeria show is still in development. So is the Sea Snake show. Just had a great week on that one, working with writers. And there are others, both live action and animated. How many will get the greenlight like Dunk & Egg? Impossible to say. How long will it take? It depends. No one knows for sure. When I was in grade school, there was a cop show that ended every week with, “There are eight million stories in The Naked City. This has been one of them.” And that was only New York City. Westeros and Essos are a lot bigger, with even more stories. We just need time to tell them.

Current Mood: excited excited

Tags: hbo, television, The Hedge Knight

The Globe of Gold

April 12, 2023 at 4:36 pm

All of us at HBO and HOUSE OF THE DRAGON were thrilled when Hot D won this year’s Golden Globe Award as Best Dramatic Series. I was pretty surprised as well. It was great to be nominated, as it was in past years when GAME OF THRONES was selected as one of the finalists by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, but GOT had never won, and I did not expect that HOUSE would either. The competition was fierce.

But hey, I have seldom been more pleased to be wrong.

I was not able to attend the awards ceremony in Hollywood (I did attend some in past years, including the year when Ron Perlman won his Globe for his portrayal of Vincent on BEAUTY & THE BEAST). Milly Alcock, Emma d’Arcy, and Miguel Sapochnik were on hand to accept on behalf of the show.

The Hollywood Foreign Press and HBO were kind enough to ship the Globes to those of us who were not able to attend, however, and mine has now turned up at the Water Gardens here in Santa Fe.

(I have to say, it is one impressive trophy. Beautiful… and HEAVY. Much heavier than any other award on my shelves, even the Emmy, which is also heftier than you might think. You could bludgeon someone to death with a Globe very easily, and I am sure some cop shop will have that happen on an episode one of these days).

((Not that I would ever need to do that. My house is full of swords)).

Anyway… my thanks to the Hollywood Foreign Press, to everyone who voted for us, to our fans and viewers, and of course to the astonishing cast and crew and writing staff of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, who brought the beast home at last.

Current Mood: happy happy

Tags: awards, hbo, House of the Dragon, television

Hugo Nominations Open

April 2, 2023 at 8:47 am

This year’s World Science Fiction Convention (the 81st) is happening in Chengdu, China, from October 18-22.

That’s later than usual. Nominations for the Hugo Awards opened later as well, but they DID open on March 1. They will close April 30, so you have a month and change left to nominate your favorite books, stories, fanzines, writers, TV shows, and movies from last year. That is, assuming you hold a membership in the Chengdu worldcon. Both attending and supporting members are eligible to nominate, so you don’t actually need to be planning on a trip to China to take part.

If you are eligible to nominate, I urge you to do so. The Hugo Awards are our field’s oldest and most prestigious awards… and they are a FAN award, given by readers and viewers, not by a jury. It is a huge honor to win one… and a proud and noble thing to lose one too. I speak from experience. I’ve won a few, and lost a lot more, even helped found the Hugo Losers Party with the late great Gardner Dozois.

It has been a few years since I last did one of these “eligibility posts” that have become so common in the past decade or so. In large part, that’s because I did not put out anything that was eligible… aside from various Wild Cards stories and books, which qualified me in the “Editor – Short Form” category. That’s true for 2022 as well. FULL HOUSE, a hardcover collection of Wild Cards stories from Tor.com, came out in mid-year, and a number of older volumes in the series were reprinted in trade paperback and mass market. We also released the American edition of THREE KINGS, a Wild Cards mosaic novel edited by Melinda M. Snodgrass, so she is eligible in Editor as well.

I might also mention that Tor.com featured two more Wild Cards originals during the year:

GROW, by Carrie Vaughn https://www.tor.com/2022/07/20/grow-carrie-vaughn/

HEARTS OF STONE, by Emma Newman https://www.tor.com/2022/05/18/hearts-of-stone-emma-newman/

Lovely stories both, and they are also eligible for nomination. You can read them — for FREE — at the links above.

Editing was not all I did in 2022. I also did some work in television as an executive producer and co-creator of a new series on HBO. You may have heard of it. It was called HOUSE OF THE DRAGON.

The series debuted in August and ran until late October, making it eligible for nomination in either of the two Dramatic Presentation categories in the Hugo Awards. Either… but not both. The rules there are a little complex. Fans can nominate the show in both Short Form and Long Form, but it won’t appear on the ballot in both categories; if a series gets enough votes in both categories, one has to make a choice. (This happened to GAME OF THRONES twice, as it happens).

The entire first season — ten episodes, each approximately one hour long — can be nominated in Long Form, where it will compete against the year’s biggest movies (or possibly seasons of other TV shows). The first season of GAME OF THRONES was nominated in Long Form.

The usual category for television shows is Short Form, however; there it is individual episodes that are nominated, not entire seasons or the show as a whole. It helps to know the titles of the episodes if you want to nominate your favorites.

Here the first season episodes of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON:

101    The Heirs of the Dragon
102    The Rogue Prince
103    Second of His Name
104    King of the Narrow Sea
105    We Light the Way
106   The Princess and the Queen
107   Driftmark
108 The Lord of the Tides
109 The Green Council
110 The Black Queen

You can nominate as many episodes of a series as you like… but these days, only three will make the ballot. (In decades past, there were years when a popular series would completely fill the ballot, but that’s not allowed any longer). All the listed episodes were first televised in 2022, so they are all eligible.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON was adapted from portions of FIRE & BLOOD, Archmaester Gyldayn’s history of the Targaryen dynasty from Aegon’s Conquest to the regency of Aegon III. Unlike the various volumes of A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, FIRE & BLOOD was not a novel, but rather an imaginary history. Though it is still in print, it was first published in 2018, and is not eligible for a Hugo. However, in November 2022, my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic released RISE OF THE DRAGON.

RISE, if anything, is even harder to categorize than FIRE & BLOOD. Definitely not a novel, it covers the same period and the same events as Archmaester Glydayn’s history, but in far less detail. Elio M. Garcia Jr. and Linda Antonsson of the Westeros website did the abridgement. The text is only a small part of the book, however. RISE OF THE DRAGON is a lavishly illustrated coffee-table sized volume featuring 150 original paintings by fantasy artists from all over the world. Myself, I think it is gorgeous, but then, I am hardly objective.

The Hugo Awards have no category for art books, and RISE does not fit in novel… so if you would like to nominate it, the appropriate category would be RELATED WORK. That’s a bit of a grab bag category that in the past has included not only art books, but critical studies, biographies, speeches, memoirs, and… ah… other, stranger stuff.

Bottom line, though, you should nominate what you love best. That’s what gives the Hugo its meaning.

Nominations close APRIL 30.

And remember, only worldcon members can cast a ballot.

The rocket rules.

Tags: editing, hugo awards, television, wild cards, worldcon

This, That, T’other Thing

February 19, 2023 at 8:53 am

Lots of things going on, hard to keep up, let alone blog about it all.

Let’s see… well, big news, we wrapped filming on the second season of DARK WINDS a few days ago, with several days of shooting in Monument Valley. This is the Navajo detective series we’re doing for AMC, based on the fantastic Joe Leaphorn/ Jim Chee novels of the late great Tony Hillerman. The first season was largely based on LISTENING WOMEN, with some of PEOPLE OF DARKNESS folded in. The new season completes the PEOPLE OF DARKNESS storyline. We got some great reviews for season one — and I really hope we get some Emmy attention too, though the show ran last June, and people do forget — and they tell me season two is even better. If you missed season one, you can still catch it streaming on AMC+. Post production is just starting on season two, no release date yet, but I’m thinking summer, maybe spring.

(Please note that I did not use “Winds” in the title of this blog. The last time I did that, the internet went nuts. Guys, gals, c’mon, Tony Hillerman wrote and published THE DARK WIND decades before I ever dreamed of Westeros).

On other fronts, we’re still working on a Wild Cards television series. It’s… sigh… “in development,” which means… hell, nobody knows what it means. But if we can get it up and running, it will be a fun show. The world of the Wild Cards as a big as the Marvel or DC multiverses, with thirty-one volumes published to date and more on the way, forty odd authors, hundreds of stories, a vast lineup of characters. This particular take on the world is based largely on FORT FREAK, and centered on Jokertown.

For a glimpse into what it means to adapt a book or story for television, check out David Anthony Durham’s latest blog post on the Wild Cards website, “A Tale of A Tail.” You can find it at https://www.wildcardsworld.com/a-tale-of-a-tail/

And check out the rest of the website while you’re there. We’ve got a ton of blog posts and other content for Wild Cards fans to explore.

Oh… shifting gears again… anyone here from Wisconsin? If so, watch out: the Cooters are coming to Eau Claire.

Yes, NIGHT OF THE COOTERS has been officially accepted into the Midwest Weirdfest.

http://www.midwestweirdfest.com/

Based on the classic short story by Howard Waldrop, NIGHT OF THE COOTERS tells the tale of the day the Martians invaded Pachuco, Texas. Vincent d’Onofrio directed the short film, and stars as Sheriff Lindley. Trioscope did the effects for us.

Here’s our trailer:

Weirdfest will be screening our short on March 4, we’re told. They have a lot of other… ah, weird… movies to showcase too, so if you’re anywhere near Eau Claire, get your tickets now.

And for all you other Waldropians out there, well, this is just the start. MARY-MARGARET ROAD-GRADER finished shooting here in Santa Fe in November, with Steven Paul Judd directing. That one looks to be a lot of fun as well. We’re deep in post now. Watch this space for further news.

There’s more, there’s always more, but I don’t have the time right now. Back to work.

Current Mood: busy busy

Tags: Dark Winds, television, wild cards, writing

A Globe! A Globe!!

January 11, 2023 at 2:53 pm

Here’s a post I did not expect to be writing.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON won the Golden Globe last night, as the Best Drama of 2022!

It was, of course, an honor just to be nominated, but I never expected that we would win. After all, GAME OF THRONES had been nominated five times, and had never actually taken home a Globe (Peter Dinklage did win one, as Best Supporting Actor, but never the show itself). I was in attendance at the Beverly Hilton for several of those nights, but I did not fly out to LA this time, because… well, I have a lot to do, I am way behind with much of it, and anyway, no one expected us to win. We faced some very formidable competition. THE CROWN had won twice before, so we knew how much the Hollywood Foreign Press loved that show. BETTER CALL SAUL and OZARK were both up for their final seasons, and usually a show that is bowing out gets a boost from that. Last chance, and all. And SEVERANCE was also in the category, one of the hottest new shows of the past year. Against that field, I figured we were the longest of long shots.

But when the envelope was opened, it was HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, and…

Miguel Sapochnik, Milly Alcock, and Emma D’Arcy were on hand to accept for us. Emma was also a nominee, for Best Actress, but Zendaya took that Globe, so… it was great to see them get up there. Ryan Condal could not make it, he’s off in London deep in pre-production on HotD season 2, but I know he’s as thrilled as I was. My hat is off to our amazing cast and crew; this is their Globe as well. And of course congratulations are due to all our friends at HBO, who made the show possible. Thanks as well to the Hollywood Foreign Press and everyone who voted for us… and everyone who voted for THE CROWN, SEVERANCE, OZARK, and BETTER CALL SAUL as well. Amazing shows, every one.

And thanks as well to all of you, our fans, viewers, and readers.

Dracarys.

Current Mood: excited excited

Tags: awards, House of the Dragon, television

Home Again

November 16, 2022 at 6:04 pm

I am back in the Land of Enchantment, as of the day before yesterday. I’ve been away for three weeks or thereabouts, in New York City, New Jersey, and finally Chicago. I don’t lug a laptop around with me when I travel; on the road, I am only reachable by phone or text. Which helps keep me sane, but it did mean that I had 2,000 emails waiting for me when I got home. I am still digging out.

The trip… three weeks, I said, but at times it felt more like three months. My latest book, the illustrated Targaryen history RISE OF THE DRAGON, was released on October 25, so I had a lot of promotion to do. My sisters and their children and grandchildren and spouses still live in New Jersey, so I needed to see them too. The last time I got back east was in 2019, before the pandemic started. I had meetings with my publishers and agents and editors, and some meals with old friends.

I am not one for writing long trip reports… and this one would need to be VERY long. It was that kind of trip. Joy and sadness, tragedy, love, a lot of work. Highs and lows, and so much to do, it really took it out of me. I will tell you about much of that, but not right now, and not all at once. I think I will make a series of small blog posts, rather than doing one enormous one. The things that happened… well, it would not feel right to mush them all together.

Let me start with the original reason for the trip: the release of RISE OF THE DRAGON.

Rather than a traditional book tour, which could have taken months I did not have, we launched RISE with a virtual event at the Random House offices in New York City. I was thrilled to have David Anthony Durham interviewing me. David is one of my Wild Cards writers, and much much more. He’s written epic fantasy, historical fiction, westerns, YA books, and he has beenpart of the team on every one of prequels we have been developing for HBO for the last year and a half. Good guy, terrific writer.

If you missed our talk, no problem — it is online now.

I am pleased to report that RISE OF THE DRAGON is doing very very well, hitting numerous bestseller lists here and abroad.

(I will post more about my events in New York and New Jersey and Chicago in the days to come, once I’ve caught up on some of those damned emails).

Current Mood: tired tired

Tags: interviews, song of ice and fire, television, travels

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