Song of Fire and Ice, coming to Cable

[MjolnirH]

I am very excited about this!!!! ;D w00t!!!!1!1!11!

HBO turns 'Fire' into fantasy series
Cabler acquires rights to Martin's 'Ice'
By MICHAEL FLEMING


HBO has acquired the rights to turn George R.R. Martin's bestselling fantasy series "A Song of Fire & Ice" into a dramatic series to be written and exec produced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
"Fire" is the first TV project for Benioff ("Troy") and Weiss ("Halo") and will shoot in Europe or New Zealand. Benioff and Weiss will write every episode of each season together save one, which the author (a former TV writer) will script.

The series will begin with the 1996 first book, "A Game of Thrones," and the intention is for each novel (they average 1,000 pages each) to fuel a season's worth of episodes. Martin has nearly finished the fifth installment, but won't complete the seven-book cycle until 2011.

The author will co-exec produce the series along with Management 360's Guymon Casady and Created By's Vince Gerardis.

Martin's series has drawn comparisons to J.R.R. Tolkien, because both are period epics set in imagined lands. But Martin has eschewed Tolkien's good-vs.-evil theme in favor of flawed characters from seven noble families.

The book has a decidedly adult bent, with sex and violence comparable to series like "Rome" and "Deadwood."

"They tried for 50 years to make 'Lord of the Rings' as one movie before Peter Jackson found success making three," Martin said. "My books are bigger and more complicated, and would require 18 movies. Otherwise, you'd have to choose one or two characters."

Aside from writing the most recent draft of "Halo," Weiss recently adapted the William Gibson novel "Pattern Recognition" for WB and director Peter Weir.

Benioff and Weiss were repped by CAA and Management 360.

[pigdish]

WOOHOOO! Great news indeed. Too bad I don't have HBO. If this series is anywhere near the quality that ROME was I will be extremely happy.

This series is my top all time favorite books. Comparing these books to Tolkien is an insult to Martin.

[Davey]

WOW! I got goose bumps when I saw the head lines. I can hardly wait to see this series.

[Dmitri]

Comparing these books to Tolkien is an insult to Martin.

Say what? Sorry man, Tolkien knew how to keep a plot together, something which at this point Martin is struggling to do and not really succeeding at. Not that the books are terrible or anything, but LOTR is still the standard in epic fantasty, along with Moorrooster's Eternal Champion books and Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle.

[Dmitri]

I wish it would stop censoring "Moorcok" with a c down to "Moorrooster"...

[pigdish]

Tolkien still sucks as far as I'm concerned. He had a rehashed "quest" story that had been done thousands of time in different cultures. At least he isn't a hack like Robert Jordan but the story is still pretty lame. More lame that the story are his characters which are two dimensional at best.

The Eternal Champion, Thomas Covenant, and the Shannara books are some better standards to apply to the fantasy genre. The Earthsea books were good but are too 'childish' for me now like the Belgariad and Mallorean books. But I loved them long time when I was a teen.

The "Moorrooster" thing was funny.

[Dmitri]

We'll have to agree to disagree about Tolkien - I have a hard time calling Frodo 2D given the maturation throughout the story, and I don't see how the "quest story" is overdone or lame - it is a classic bildungsroman like Huck Finn without the dialect. The argument can be made in Martin's work that the characters are essentially 3D cardboard cut-outs lifted from a bad soap-opera. Their complexity can also be their weakness. And the story can (at this point anyway) be compared to a poorly-woven tapestry, a painting without a focus or theme.

I haven't read the Thomas Covenant books or Shannara, so I can't speak to them. But from what I have heard (at least of the Thomas books) you would seem to prefer a more relativistic approach to your fantasy. I mean, the Eternal Champion saga is about as far from Middle-Earth as you can get in its moral outlook. But just because of the differing emphasis on morality and good/evil, law/chaos I hesitate to blow off one side of the equation. I think that the ridiculous number of copycatting that has been done might indicate at the very least the impact of Tolkien's work.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll watch and continue to read Martin's stuff - he hasn't finished his writing yet, so maybe I'll find something more to like later. But I have read them all to this point.

[DM]

Oh, you really should read The Thomas Covenant books they are very detailed and excellent characterizations. I have all the TC and Shannara books if you want to borrow them.

I think you are correct in saying that I prefer more relativistic fantasy. I like fantasy where the environment puts a unbearable burden on the characters but they find a way to overcome it or die trying. J V Jones is another author that creates such worlds.

Did you know that G R R Martin was the creative consultant for Beauty and the Beast TV show from the 80s? I got the first season on DVD and saw his name in the credits.

[Dmitri]

I would likely be interested in reading the Thomas books. I'll have to snag em sometime...

Oh, and if you only read the first 3 Le Guin Earthsea books, you oughta check out the rest - they get more adult and actually better I think.

[pigdish]

lol, I posted as the DM.

I think my wife bought the box set of those Le Guin books. I'll have to check them out.

[Davey]

I enjoy Martin's, a song of ice and fire, but that last book -a feast for crows sucked. I understand that he had a lot of material and needed to write that book to combine character threads. But it was all fodder.