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Lost is ending soon, Battlestar Galactica is over, and Heroes has faltered. Can a TV version of A Game of Thrones save the geekosphere?
A Google search of the phrase “Winter is coming” pulls up more than 4 million results, a great many of which are related to a swelling geekosphere devoted to A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin’s bestselling sci-fi fantasy series that is fast becoming this generation’s Lord of the Rings.
The phrase is a signifier of sorts in the books—in which seasons last a very, very long time—but it is also code for a development that has nerd hearts all over the globe palpitating: HBO is adapting the books, beginning with the first one, A Game of Thrones.
“I’ve never really advocated for a show to be picked up when the pilot hasn’t been shot,” said Poniewozik, “But when I read A Game of Thrones, and the rest of the series, I really had the feeling that these books were meant to be made into a TV series, and especially an HBO drama.
HBO’s timing for a sprawling fantasy series couldn’t be better. As the pilot for Game of Thrones begins shooting this month in Northern Ireland, the nerds are in a nervous state. With Battlestar Galactica over already, the end of Lost approaching (the series ends in May), and Heroes faltering, fantasy fans are hungering for a new mystical show. (As for big screen offerings, The Hobbit won’t be out until 2011, and Harry Potter is winding down: Only two more films are planned.)
In Game of Thrones—which is also often compared to T.H. White’s Arthurian epic, The Once and Future King and is set in a time-forgotten kingdom populated by warriors, lords, sorcerers, and omens—they’re finding salvation. Although nary a frame of footage has been shot, and the show’s future isn’t even a sure thing—its fate rests on the success of the pilot—fans of the books are already rallying around the project online, forming a frenetically ecstatic Thrones universe in which every bit of information about the upcoming show is dissected, debated, and celebrated. “SCORE ONE FOR THE NERD TEAM,” KamiDaHobo Tweeted in reference to HBO’s option of Game of Thrones. And on Web sites like winter-is-coming.blogspot.com and towerofthehand.com, casting news and other details related to the production—from actors’ arrival time in Belfast, to who’s doing post-production work on the pilot—are lovingly, and dutifully, relayed.
It’s not just fringe fanatics who are excited. Established television critics and reporters are already anointing the project the Next Big Thing in television.
Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune breaks news on the subject as though she’s covering Watergate. TV Guide's Matt Roush recently Tweeted: “I sure wish book 5 of GameofThrones would come out, so I could dig into book 4. This is my most anticipated pilot of 2010.” Time’s book critic and Nerd World blogger Lev Grossman has called Martin “the American Tolkien." And James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter recently posted photos of the entire cast.
HBO marketers, one assumes, are clinking glasses with each dispatch. (But they wouldn’t comment for this story, seeing as it’s so early in the show’s production process.)
“I’ve never really advocated for a show to be picked up when the pilot hasn’t been shot,” said Time's TV critic James Poniewozik, “But when I read A Game of Thrones, and the rest of the series, I really had the feeling that these books were meant to be made into a TV series, and especially an HBO drama.
“There’s a sensibility that’s common to most of the great HBO dramas, which is that they take a sort of existing popular genre and do something to it that hasn’t been done before… And what you have in A Game of Thrones is this fantasy saga that is treated with a very kind of adult, very sophisticated psychological realism that you don’t generally have in that genre.”
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crngndmhm
Steven Erickson's Malazan Book Of The Fallen series stands head and shoulders above the Fire and Ice series. Dirty and gritty it's hard to keep up with where it's going all the time but when you get there you find it was well worth the trip. If your a fan of Fire and Ice and haven't read Malazan Book Of The Fallen I suggest you do so you'll not be dissappointed.
AdamWhitehead
Steven Erikson's series is quite good (well, the first three books are quite good, the last few have been hard work), but certainly not in Ice and Fire's league. ASoIaF is gritty and realistic and focused on genuine human emotions and character-based drama, and when people die they stay dead (well, mostly). Malazan has people with silly names hurling fireballs at one another and death is never more than an inconvenience. Most characters who die come back vastly more powerful than they were before. Deus ex machina is the preferred system of resolving storylines.
It's an entertaining series (although increasingly less satisfying as time goes on) but it's oriented more towards the end of the D&D end of fantasy fiction than the newer breed of serious fantasy exemplified by Martin, Scott Bakker, Joe Abercrombie and so on. The T'lan Imass are seriously cool, though.
Bittle
Thanks for the recommendation. I needed a new fantasy series to read since both the Wheel of Time and Fire and Ice series have stalled.
AdamWhitehead
The new Wheel of Time book is out on Tuesday.
Volkai
WoT book is out Tuesday... really? Thanks for the info!
Here's hoping it's as good as some of the, well, better books of the WoT series.
I have to admit, I haven't read SoIaF at all yet - at the moment I'm still catching up on Dresden Files.
sundryd
It's good to get some positive press coverage on GoT before it even starts shooting the pilot. It makes the fans seem more sane. ;) Overall, pretty good article. I laughed over your description of 'starving piranhas,' which, as a fan myself, seems to be accurate enough. Two critiques though:
-I think the proper term is 'geek' rather than 'nerd.' :P Nerd refers to those who are academically smart, whereas geeks refer to those who are invested in obscure subjects, such as GRRM's series.
-Aside from the issue with the nose, I think most fans are pretty happy with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime. Rather than his nose, the perception that he was more ruggedly handsome rather than pretty like Jaime is described to be was more of the 'issue.' On other hand, the casting of poor Tamzin Merchant is more of an issue because she plays a character who is said to be the most beautiful woman in the world. A very difficult thing to live up to.
As a side note, I do feel bad for westeros.org (I often lurk there) and how it always gets left out of the mention. It's funny because executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss sometimes post in its forum, something that is unique to that fansite.
Balerion
Excellent article! One aspect of the buzz that I think you missed is the fact that the producers, David Benioff and Dan Weiss, were actively interacting with the fan community. Most notably, they asked for casting suggestions, and many of the actors that fans brought to light have ended up with roles.
Today they've posted a message to fans, thanking them for their support and suggestions. They also hint that GRRM will be having a cameo appearance in the pilot.
paulgude
To be fair, for every complaint about Merchant, Coster-Waldau, and Momoa, there were staunch defenders of the choices as well.
I think all fans know the transition from book to TV series will require a bit of compromise on the world that's been crafted in one's own head. No matter how bitchy we may get, at least most of us feel that the producers have the fans' best interests at heart.
sundryd
Was Jason Momoa ever really an issue though? Most fans seemed to be pretty happy with him as Drogo.
AdamWhitehead
This is a great article, although I think a shout-out for the mostly-official ASoIaF website at Westeros.org and its attendant forum is warranted, as the oldest and most popular site for SoIaF fandom over the past dozen years or so.
The buzz for the project is very impressive, and unmatched by any other single fantasy project since the Lord of the Rings movies a decade ago. That's a lot of pressure riding on HBO and producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss, but I think they're up to the challenge.
MookGaloop
If editor Tatiana Riegel doesn't blow it, this will be the greatest pilot of all time.
glindagood
WTF? Riegel showed her chops with LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, and MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS is hysterical!
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