Club Jade

Sunday TV has been sucking this season: I need GoT back. (Sorry, Once Upon A Time.) Is it April yet?

Straight out of HBO’s TCA session is the premiere date for the second season of Game of Thrones: April 1st. Not soon enough!



We continue to look back at 2011 by looking at interesting fandom happenings outside of Star Wars.

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HBO aired a brief behind-the-scenes video from Game of Thrones tonight, giving us our first look at several of the new characters. Is it April yet? (via)

The Emmys were fairly predictable tonight, at least as far as the lone genre entry went… Mad Men beat out Game of Thrones for Best Drama series, but the fantasy series did get one major award: Peter Dinklage for supporting actor in a drama! And he thanked his dog-sitter in the acceptance speech. Nice.

Game of Thrones did win a Creative Arts Emmy last week for Main Title Design.

(Also very touching: The Best Comedy Actresses.)

Fresh off the heels of killing, renewing, and really killing Eureka, SyFy has renewed its most watched series, Warehouse 13 for a fourth season in 2012. Entertainment Weekly discusses Syfy’s image post-Eureka, and announced a fifth season of Leverage on TNT. Also not axed yet: Syfy had to quash rumors that its new superhuman show, Alphas, had been canned.

Can’t wait for the next season of Game of Thrones? Check out these three new character castings on Blastr. Or check out this tribute video: (Warning: NSFW!)

The Emmy nominations came out this morning, and HBO’s fantasy series is among most nominated. Game of Thrones received 13 nods, most notably Best Drama and a Supporting Actor nomination for Peter Dinklage, who plays Tyrion.

For Best Drama, the show is up against Boardwalk Empire, Friday Night Lights, Dexter, The Good Wife and last year’s winner Mad Men. Dinklage’s competition includes John Slattery of Mad Men and Alan Cumming in The Good Wife.

Thrones other nods include writing (for ‘Baelor,’) direction, casting, costumes, hairstyling, visual effects and Main Title Design.

Meanwhile, A Dance With Dragons is actually selling better in print than in eBook.

Yes, George R. R. Martin finished the book. The fifth volume of A Song of Ice and Fire got a July 12th publication date last month, but he still wasn’t quite finished with the manuscript, leaving many to doubt that the long-awaited book would actually become a reality. Well, worry no longer, because Martin posted today that Kong has been slain. For those not up on GRRM’s lingo – ‘Kong’ is the book’s nickname – his editor, Anne Groell, has confirmed in plain English.

Meanwhile, HBO’s Game of Thrones TV show has been doing well – ratings held steady for the second episode, and it’s already been renewed for a second season. And you’ll certainly want to check out Time’s four-part interview with Martin about the show, including his thoughts on how the next few volumes should be split up for filming.

Awards. Nominees for the 2011 Hugo and Campbell Awards were announced the other day, and I’m still a little in shock that two of my 2010 favorites – The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and Feed – are up for best novel.

Tolkien. The extended editions of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy will be in theaters this June. Individually, thankfully.

Dark Tower. And for new adaptations, it appears that Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) has signed on to play Roland in Ron Howard’s take on Stephen King’s epic fantasy series.

Recs. Thanks to Jo Walton, I now want to give Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet a swing. And while I was already planning to try Genevieve Valentine’s Mechanique, but Charlie Jane Anders’ review has made me even more intrigued.

Well, I’m pretty pleased with it so far. Did you watch it? What did you think?

For those who’ve read the books: Please don’t spoil anything past the first episode!

HBO’s adaption of Game of Thrones premieres tonight amid a new storm of controversy about women and fantasy. What could possibly have soiled the premiere of what is probably the biggest fantasy literature event of the year? (Well, the biggest one that doesn’t involve boy wizards and horcruxes, anyway.) Why, yet more false assumptions about women and what they watch and read, of course!

It was all sparked by Ginia Bellafante’s New York Times review. Behold this bit of ‘wisdom:’

The true perversion, though, is the sense you get that all of this illicitness has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first. “Game of Thrones” is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half.

Uh-huh. There’s plenty one can say to this, but since I am the absolute last fantasy-loving female in the blogosphere to address it, here are a few selected responses:

The reality check. Emily of The Discriminating Fangirl responds to many of Bellafante’s misconceptions. Key quote: “…How can the show require MENSA-member viewers and be too stupid/silly for HBO?”

The feminist. Sarah Louise of Bleeding Cool takes on the gender normative tone of the review. Key quote: “The main thing I find shocking about all these sweeping remarks is the fact that the piece was written by a woman. Aren’t we all supposed to be in this thing together?”

The ally. Alan Kistler wonders where the actual review was in his Newsarama Op-ed. Key quote: “We didn’t get an informed opinion on the show. In fact, in her whole review, the story premise is barely touched on and not one character, plot point or scene is mentioned. ”

The snarky: Annalee Newitz of io9 asked (with spoilers) why would men want to watch Game of Thrones? Key quote: “Who but a woman would even be able to keep all those Stark children’s names straight, let alone all the other people connected to the Stark family?”

The full package. Amy Ratcliffe of Geek with Curves talks about what she really wants to see in the series. Key quote: “I’m not tuning into the television show to see sex either. I won’t lie – I’m not unhappy about seeing Jason Momoa shirtless as Khal Drogo, but that isn’t the primary reason I’m watching. I want to see Westeros on screen.”

The author. George R. R. Martin breaks his own rules to say something about the review. Key quote: “…if I am writing ‘boy fiction,’ who are all those boys with breasts who keep turning up by the hundreds at my signings and readings?”

And naturally, amid all this? A Today piece on how ladies power viewership for SF/F TV. How long must we have to harp on this before the Ginia Bellafantes of the world catch on?

UPDATE: Bellafonte responds. What does she take from this? ‘People on the internet are mean?’ So much facepalm.