George R.R. Martin's Blog, page 239

Saw the new STAR TREK movie last night.

No spoilers here, just a resounding thumbs down. Take a pass.

The actors do a very creditable job of creating young versions of all the familiar characters from Classic Trek, but the writing sucks start to finish, and the science fictional aspects are ludicrous even for STAR TREK. Fans of the old show might like the film... but then again, maybe not, since it's a "reboot" (Hollywoodese for "retcon") and pisses all over the original continuity.

Me, I think t

I climbed to the crown of the Statue of Liberty once.

Once was enough, believe me. The interior of the statue is stifling and hot, the winding metal steps are narrow and steep, and you're in a long line of people, with someone on the step ahead of you and someone on the step behind. And once you reached the top, well, the inside of Lady Liberty's head is pretty cramped as well, and the windows are thick and pitted and do not actually offer that great a view.

It's not an experience I am eager

Well, the first two beans, anyway. There will be many more beans to come.

But HBO has signed a director for the GAME OF THRONES pilot, and the first cast member has come aboard as well.

The pilot will be helmed by Tom McCarthy, director of THE VISITOR and THE STATION AGENT.


And playing Tyrion Lannister will be Peter Dinklage, who was almost everyone's "dream casting" for the role (he certainly was mine):


You can read more details in THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, which broke the news this morning:
http://w

With my library renovations finally complete, I've been having fun with my collection of toy knights again, making new displays and recreating old ones.

The process has just started, but I thought I'd share some pics with you.

(Yes, I know, I have a whole Knights section of my webpage for this sort of thing, but my webmaster is travelling and unavailable, and backed up even when she does get home, and this is the only place I can actually post stuff without her. So if you don't give a fig about m

It's May, and this should be my last post about the 2009 calendars. Les Dabel tells me that all of them have now been shipped. Yes, even the autographed ones I signed in March. Yes, every single last one. He also tells me that they sent out some scarce HEDGE KNIGHT comic books, to help make up for the delay. The promised "extra content" -- samples from the 2010 calendar -- obviously could not be included, since the 2010 calendar has been cancelled.



No, it's not the ending we would have wish

Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a blimp!! No, it's FIVE blimps strung together!!! And here comes Jetboy...

That was how the Wild Cards series began, way way back in 1987 before some of you were born. Here we are in 2009, and the series is still going strong. The new books, INSIDE STRAIGHT and BUSTED FLUSH (and don't forget SUICIDE KINGS, coming this December from Tor) have drawn a lot of new readers to our world of aces and jokers, and many of them have been emailing me to ask where th

Ah, NFL draft weekend... nothing like it... it still amazes me that ESPN has somehow made an annual television event out of what used to be a bunch of guys sitting around a hotel ballroom writing names on index cards every fifteen minutes or so... but now it's must-watch TV for all NFL fans, a media extravaganza telecast live on two networks, and covered by all the rest. And god help me, I watch religiously every year, with all the draft magazines and a big bowl of chile con queso (thanks, Phip

The renovations on my office house that have been going on since last June are finally almost complete, and I've started moving my stuff in at last.

Two stories plus a basement (a big deal in Santa Fe, no one has basements here). The basement is just a basement, with a laundry, a furnace, and a wine cellar. The second story is for my library... books by other people.

The first floor, though, that combines my brag library -- the many and various editions of my own books -- with lighted glasse

The Wild Cards series began in New Mexico in the mid-80s with a group of writers and friends who all gamed together, players in an epic years-long campaign of the role-playing game SUPERWORLD. That gaming group included me, Melinda Snodgrass, Walter Jon Williams, John Miller and Gail Gerstner Miller, Parris, Chip Wideman, and Victor Milan... but when we decided to pitch Wild Cards as a shared world anthology, I reached out to some other writers who shared our love of comic books and superheroes

At last it can be told.

The news has finally been made public, so I'm finally free to whoop and holler and share the great news -- the HBO pilot of A GAME OF THRONES will start filming in October, in Northern Ireland. The announcement was made in Belfast. Here you go:

http://www.northernireland.gov.uk/news/news-ofmdfm/news-ofmdfm-210409-hbo-to-film.htm

Yes, I'm thrilled. Ireland should be a great place to film. And the facility we'll be using, the Paint Hall, is amazing as well:

http://www.north