Monday, March 28, 2011

A SWARM OF SYNERGIES ... A TRUCKLOAD OF TIE-INS ... A TAKE-AWAY CARTON OF CROSS-MARKETING ... A LOT OF ALOTT5MA FAVES: Beginning today, and presumably for a limited time, New York and Los Angeles will be visited by food trucks serving menus designed by Tom Colicchio to celebrate George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire fantasy franchise.

Coincidentally, on April 17, HBO will launch their Game of Thrones series, based on Martin's first Ice and Fire book. Around here, we almost resubbed HBO for Boardwalk Empire. Probably we should have. Now, I'm guessing it's a done deal. IMDB doesn't seem to have the complete cast list, so here's the Official Site.

Equally coincidentally, I'm sure, Ol' George himself is supposed to release the long, long, long, long anticipated Dance With Dragons installment of the franchise come July (though I could swear I read a press release a month ago that said it would be out in June).

In summary: Fantasy nerds rejoice! And the rest of you just consider that if Tom Colicchio is willing to associate his brand with this franchise maybe we're on to something. He's more than likely getting paid good money, after all, in the hope that it will get you to consider just that.

16 comments:

  1. Andrew10:22 AM

    Everything I've seen so far with the series looks like it fits in well with my reading of the books. The casting seems spot on (although Peter Dinklage is perfect for Tyrion, what I've heard of the accent he's speaking with sounds slightly odd.)

    But the food cart promo is brilliant. The books' vivid descriptions of food is one of their more striking features. And how better to promote the series than through a food-based promotion?

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  2. Alyssa10:56 AM

    Hey - I'm a long time lurker and a huge fan of GRRM (nerd alert: I actually did a book report on this first book in 1997).  I've been following the production at www.winter-is-coming.net, which has the full cast list and anything you could ever want to know about this TV series.  HBO has also developed another promotion in the form of a  puzzle site at www.themaesterspath.com, where you complete puzzles and win sneak peeks at fan favorite scenes.  The last puzzle will be released today, and all sneak peeks have been uploaded to youtube (if you don't want to spend time solving the puzzles) if you search on "Maester's Path."  I have been doing all the puzzles and suffice to say I'm very excited for Apr 17.  Oh, and Apr 3...when they will be airing the first 15 min as a sneak preview.

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  3. This was one of the two reasons I decided to keep HBO (the other was Real Time). That being said, totally pumped and the casting for this is near spot-on.

    Scares me a bit that the manuscript for Dance with Dragons is larger than my head, but happily pre-ordered from Amazon and will be the first thing I pick up when it arrives. Been waiting long enough (OK, not the 20+ year post-death finish of Wheel of Time or anything, but I'd like GRRM to finish the thing before *he* dies.)

    As for the food trucks.... Thought kind of ends there. I live and work in the 'burbs and not in NY or LA, so not really here nor there for me.

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  4. Tonight's truck will be serving trout, rabbit, and lemon cakes, and will be around Union Square starting at 6.

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  5. My only quibble with Dinklage as Tyrion is that Dinklage is way more handsome than I ever imagined Tyrion.  However, I found Tyrion to be the most intriguing character and I'm so glad they scored someone that's as good an actor to play what I think is the most complicated role in the series.

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  6. Paul Tabachneck12:52 PM

    Dammit.  I have a show in the West Vlg starting around 6.   Anyone want to bring me a packed bag?  *beg**beg**beg*

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  7. ericjnies2:58 PM

    love the GRRM . . . never liked the Top Chef, but at least this brings my wife and i closer together.

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  8. Tosy and Cosh3:20 PM

    I bounced off of the Jordan series after TWO tries each equalling at least 800 pages of reading and thougth I had soured on epic fantasy for good. In the last two years I have read Books 1-3 of A Song of Ice and Fire twice, and Book 4 once. I too have been following news of this series and pretty much everything I've seen so far seems spot-on. There are changes (aging up some young characters, the aforementioned prettying up of Tyrion) to spot, and of course even 13 hours won't allow for all of the story to earn a spot, but this looks very very good. Let's hope Nielsen box owners are fans . . .

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  9. Craig3:28 PM

    At this point, I'm only reading/suffering through the Jordan because I've devoted so much time to it over the years, I need to see how it ends. The series long ago started driving me toward taking a power drill to my skull once or twice.

    Sadly, I can't get the wife to read the GRRM stuff because she doesn't like series where the author does Really Bad Things(tm) to his characters.

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  10. GRRM's penchant for killing off presumptive reader favorites, even some that have been built-up to that status over the course of thousands of pages, still amazes me.  (Though I would argue that he does spare his innocents the stickier horrors of the world he's creating.  Sexual brutality, for example, is reserved for bit players.)  More amazing perhaps is how the surviving characters evolve and elaborate themselves as events reshape their world.  It's not so much that there is anyone here that we haven't seen before, in one form or another, but that recognizable fantasy archetypes are, page by page, given depths and complications that enthusiasts of the genre are frequently content to forego.  Or, content or not, that they're frequently denied.

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  11. slowlylu5:43 PM

    I am ridiculously excited for this. Primarily because I hope the additional commercial pressures drive George RR Martin to complete the series sooner rather than later. Though, of course, to paraphase Neil Gaiman he is not my b#@ch.
    Winter is Coming just not quickly enough.

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  12. I did get the Swamp People Food Truck packing up outside my office when I was leaving tonight.

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  13. Lou W9:15 PM

    I'm also way excited about AGoT on HBO...but I can't bring myself to order it just for one show that I know I'll be buying on DVD anyway.  So the next few months may well suck as I hear about how awesome it is.

    As a related note to the Wheel of Time discussions above.  I highly recommend the other mega-length fantasy series of the last 10 years, the Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson (the series begins with Gardens of the Moon).  10 books, each doorstoppers, but they've came out evenly paced over 12 years, and the series just concluded last month.  3.5 million words!  It's absolutely brilliant, it's innovative, it's immense in scope, and it's packed with 100s of memorable characters.

    That said it is also, by far, the most complicated work of fiction I've ever read, by no small margin.  This is a series that thinks nothing of having a character show up in Book 3, and then show up again, the next time on screen, in Book 8, and expect the reader to keep track.  It has at least 50 point of view characters, heck, probably more than 100, and at one point in the middle of book 10 I counted 18 unfinished plots/scenes, and I think I missed some.  Oh yeah, and lots, and lots, of bad things happen, and there are few truly noble characters, and yet in many ways I've found it inspiring.

    I think if GRRM ever finishes a Song of Ice and Fire, it may overtake Malazan as my favorite epic fantasy series ever, but right now I'm giving the edge to the completed work.

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  14. Andrew3:33 PM

    I did stop by the food truck last night. The rabbit dish and lemon cakes were tasty. Fortuantely for Tom, he didn't have any competition to judge directly against, but the food evoked a little feel of Westeros. If I can get out early to get in line by 6, I may go again this week, but it was a slow line. 

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