Finally – some ‘Game of Thrones’ news

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The good old SciFi Wire is reporting that the above-pictured Peter Dinklage has signed on to the HBO adaptation of George R. R. Martin‘s Game of Thrones.  This is great news for so many resons.  Lets list them, shall we?

  1. This means there actually is a project.  Up until now, there was talk, but little or nothing concrete.
  2. Dinklage is perfect to play Tyrion, a brilliant and complex character who is also a dwarf.  When I started reading this series, I was floored at how much there was to this character.  Although there are many aspects to the story which don’t concern Tyrion, the material that revolves around him and his supremely f-‘d up family is, in my opinion, the best part of the book.
  3. Director Thomas McCarthy is Dinklage’s running partner from the Station Agent.  HBO’s choice of McCarthy tells me a lot about how important Tyrion’s character will be to this adaptation and that is outstanding.

I’m not expecting anything to actually air anytime soon, but at least the thing is moving forward and there some good thinking about how to do this project.

Paranoid

Given the timing and the context, and the fact that I’m reading a heavily paranoid thriller make me think that there is no way this flyover could have just been a mistake.  Not with the concurrent story of swine flu dominating the press.

The purpose of such a thing would, of course, be to give everyone (in NYC) getting ready to panic about swine flu a little reminder.  You don’t just want to control people – you need to control their emotions.

I’m waiting for music

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I have literally just started this book (on Scalzi‘s recommedation) and, so far, its a fascinating techno thriller, centered around a 15 year-old girl who has never been able to see.  The acknowledgments show that the author spent a lot of time trying to get it right – working with physicians, scinetists, blind people, to be able to tell much of the story through this character.  There is so much about how she hears the world, and it really resonates with me.  So far, and it’s very early in the story, there is really no music to speak of.