42 replies to this topic

[Tsavong Lah]

Well right now recounts and GRRM are tied at 1 apiece for me.  I'm going to find a way to do both.

[RaceBannon42]

recounts can't start until after the 23rd anyway!

[Tsavong Lah]

RaceBannon42, on 04 November 2010 - 01:34 PM, said:

recounts can't start until after the 23rd anyway!

Yeah, but we have to go through County Canvassing Boards, Post-Election Reviews, volunteer recruitment and training for observers/challengers, etc.  There is a lot to do before the counting actually starts.  Trust me, I've done this before.

I still plan to make it, but it might be more difficult now.

[RedOctober]

Just noticed this thread, just thought I'd pop in and mention that myself and two other friends/fans will be attending this event to see GRRM. Definitely interested in the lunch plans and whatnot, if that is still happening and there is room!

Edited by RedOctober, 09 November 2010 - 01:52 PM.

[Tsavong Lah]

Does anyone know if George is only around on Saturday, or is he around on Friday and Sunday as well?  Also, what are other people's plans?

[Lord Dracarys]

Here's the schedule:

http://www.fantasyfl...chedule-web.pdf


George has a signing on both Friday, and Sunday.

I can't make it to anything at the event center on Friday because of my work schedule, but if people want to meet up Friday for dinner/drinks/whatever I'd be up for something.

[Wolfheart]

I'll be at the event with the g/f that got sucked into the books from me.

Politics can wait. Play hooky. MN should not even recount the votes. It should just revote on the final two again. And require ID from everyone to vote.

Also for those fans that cant make it. I may auction off duplicates that I receive from the gift bag and extras as I and Erika were Pre-regs.

Edited by Wolfheart, 10 November 2010 - 09:18 PM.

[Parris]

George will also be doing a signing at a local Barnes & Noble store on Monday night:

Details here.

If you're missing books in your GRRM collection, there may still be time to get them delivered to that B&N in time for the event. Call them and ask what GRRM stock they have on hand. Often the stores only think of the ASoI&F titles when prepping for a signing, and there's a whole lot more George has written than those 4 books.

[Ran]

Report has it that Davos 2 was read today by GRRM. Cool. If anyone can get in a detailed report, it would, I suspect, be very appreciated.

I've started a thread for it here.

[Ran]

The Mastiff has provided an awesome report on the Davos 2 chapter, here. He also had a non-spoiler report of the Q&A, which I'm going to quote here:

Quote

After the reading, GRRM talks for awhile. He apologizes for the delay with aDwD. He states that past claims to have the book nearly finished were not attempts to deceive, just that he is guilty of "bouts of excessive optimism". He also comments on how his publishers claimed at the San Diego Comi-Con that there are only 5 chapters remaining. He states that this is true until he finishes one of those chapters and then decides that that chapter is too long and needs to be split into two chapters and then that causes adjustments needing to be made to other chapters, ect. Please be patient, he is honestly working on it the best he can. He talked about some other stuff, but none of it was especially note-worthy. Fun for those in attendance, but really worth rehashing here.

Then he did a non-HBO series Q/A (There is another Q/A later this evening dedicated specifically to the HBO series). Zero spoilers were released here. Any question even slightly spoilerish in nature was turned away, not even any subtle hints. I found only 2 questions especially interesting. Someone asked whether any of the songs in asoiaf were fully fleshed out (The Bear and the Maiden Fair, The Reynes of Castamere, etc)? GRRM replied that only the portion of the songs that exist in the books has been written and nothing else. He did comment on how he wished he had more musical talent. He joked about how so many of his former works have the word Song in them (A Song of Ice and Fire, A Song for Lya, Songs of Stars and Shadows, Songs the Dead Men Sing, Songs of the Dying Earth, Songs of Love and Death, etc). He says that when he was younger he was friends with a group of kids that had their own garage band and once they threw a party and a lot of pretty girls showed up and the band members were having a lot of luck with the girls and when 2 pretty girls asked him what instrument he played he replied, "the typewriter". "I went on to use that line many times but it never got me laid", he joked. The other question was how does he pronounce some of the characters names? He pauses, looks at us and goes, "Jon Snow, Ned Stark". After the laughing died down he did go through some of the more challenging names, though I don't have the linguistic ability to reproduce them phonetically here.

Sorry for all that I forgot, but hopefully you enjoyed what I was able to recall.

Edited by Ran, 14 November 2010 - 04:04 AM.

[FTWard]

One thing that I GRRM mentioned that I had not read before was that he filmed a cameo for the pilot in Morocco. It had been subsequently cut because everything was refilmed in Malta. Sorry if that is old news and I missed it.

Also my wife won Longclaw!!!

[Arataniello]

FTWard, on 15 November 2010 - 09:54 AM, said:

Also my wife won Longclaw!!!

Congralations to her!  Commiserations to you!  Now you will experience the true meaning of the words "Stick them with the pointy end" whenever you forget to do something.

[RaceBannon42]

Yeah the chapter was Davos getting the lay of the land in White Harbor, hoping to get the Manderly's to declare for Stannis. It was a bit of a travelouge chapter, as this was out first time visiting the city.

George did mention you a few times Ran, He said he thought his hearaldry was pretty awesome until you actually produced them.

A few of the interseting bits that I recall off of the top of my head were some questions about the heraldry and armour.  Westeros has better technolgy with dyes, than Medieval Europe did. Thats why they are able to great consistant colors such as scarlet, crimson, or burgandy rather than just red.  Also they have ways to enamal or infuse colors to armour which weren't available to medieval smiths.

Lets see. There was of course a couple of d-bags.

During the first Q&A someone asked if he had plans if he was "unable to finish the series"
George asked for hi to be stripped naked and be tossed out in the snow.
He then said well at least you didn't say "pulled a Jordan".  He actual did go on to reiterate he had no plans, but that if he were in a sitation like Jordan, he could forsee making contingency plans.

Then during the HBO Q&A he was asked what would happen when the TV show caught up to his writing.  The audience groaned. George asked for this person to be stripped naked and tossed in the snow. He did say he felt he had a pretty decent head start, so hoped it wouldnt come to that.   He also said that if something should happen to him , that David, and DB do know how the series ends. That was news to me.

The other bit of news was that at one point George tossed out the phrase 7 or 8 books in the series. I had not heard mention of a possible expansion to 8 books before.



Anyways it was great to see everyone who showed up. Considering the 10 inches of snow we got Friday night through Saturday morning the turnout was really good.

FTW congrats to your wife. I'm very jealous. That will teach me to pay better attention and Pre register next time.

[Ran]

LOL. Yeah, George has admitted that some of his ideas weren't so hot once he actually saw them depicted (House Darry's black on brown was a particular annoyance). OTOH, some came out better than he imagined them, he's said ... like House Tarbeck, which prompted him to say that he rather wished they weren't a dead family already. Can't catch a break.

He has wavered a bit on book count. He has very recently -- like in the last six months -- reiterated 7 books a few times. But he has also said "at least seven", or "seven, I hope" on a couple of occasions too. So he's hedging his bets, but then he's always said he wasn't signing it in blood that he'd finish in X books.

FTWard,

That's one of the bits George told me when I was in Belfast a couple of weeks ago. I had wondered about his cameo, which we had all assumed was at the feast in Winterfell, but he said no, it was in Morocco, but that all that material was gone and was being reshot due to the new Maltese location and the recastings of Daenerys and Illyrio.

He hadn't said anything about it before then, though, so it's pretty fresh information.

Edited by Ran, 15 November 2010 - 10:31 AM.

[Ixodes]

George swore that if he was ever going to consider doing another cameo it would involve sitting in a chair, preferably with a large drink in hand.  The life of an extra, standing hours in costume during dozens of takes was not high on his list!

One bit I found amusing was talking about creating names for writing.  George first did a brief rundown on English names during the middle ages.  Essentially a few simple names dominate.  If your name wasn't Henry, Edward, or possibly Richard, you weren't going down in the history books.  Then he talked about hearing interesting names and keeping those for future stories.  He said when watching the NFL draft each year he picks up a couple of neat names for future use.  Now I won't be surprised when Ser Ochocinco pops up in book 7...

[Ran]

Any more reports from the event and the meal? Did everyone skip the HBO thing?

[RaceBannon42]

umm.
George had french onion soup hold the cheese hold the croutons.

[Ran]

Man, you have shattered my opinion of George, Race. Thanks a lot, man.

*mutter* The croutons are practically the only reason to eat French onion soup!

[Chataya de Fleury]

Ran, on 16 November 2010 - 06:59 PM, said:

Man, you have shattered my opinion of George, Race. Thanks a lot, man.

*mutter* The croutons are practically the only reason to eat French onion soup!

Well, it came with oyster crackers, not croutons, to be fair

The HBO Q&A wasn't earth-shattering, and it's kind of been covered - honestly, I don't remember a whole lot...I was really worn out by that point!!  But I would have remembered anything new or unusual.

[Ixodes]

I don't recall if anything specific to the books or HBO series came up at lunch.  I can tell you that thanks to Chataya, George sat next to me.  This was quite honestly a high point for me!

From what I recall of the lunch conversations:  Falconry (George got to fly a falcon in Spain was thrilled), cats (general cat behavior craziness and the group dynamics in multicat households), Minnesota accents, the movie Fargo, travel (it's great but exhausting), and the Belfast moot (an amazing experience but thinks this won't ever happen again if the series gets popular since the actors will be recognized and swarmed).  The actor that is cast for Hodor is likely facing a future where the only thing people will say to him are "HODOR."  We talked about ValleyCon and pictures of George adorned with Chataya and Panda Kitty were revealed.  I then explained to Mrs Ixodes that there was some bosom-centric activities at ValleyCon but they were done in the most tasteful manner.  

For the HBO talk there weren't many revelations.  George said the series will most likely air spring (march, april, or may) 2011.  If the show takes off, he foresees his role in the series diminishing each year.  People want to talk to and meet actors, not writers!  When asked who his favorite actors are in the series, he said everyone does awesome but Dinklage steals every scene and the actress who plays Arya has totally immersed herself in the role.  Expect some plot changes (due to constraints of filming) and don't expect epic Peter Jackson style battles in season 1.  Oh, and he said if you haven't ordered HBO yet "What is your fucking problem??"

I'm sure there are many details that I missed but this is what sticks out in my memory.