It's every fan's nightmare: You wait six years for a book, and then a couple weeks before it finally hits bookstores, the spoilers start popping up on fansites.
As "Game of Thrones" author George R. R. Martin wrote on his personal not-a-blog blog, "Amazon Germany screwed up big time and started shipping "A Dance with Dragons" before they were supposed to. I am told that about 180 copies got out before they were made aware of their mistake and shut down shipping."
Martin's response to the situation would make Tywin Lannister proud: "If we find out who is responsible, we will mount his head on a spike."
Because of the early shipping, spoilers for "Dragons" are popping up everywhere on the Internet -- especially in "A Song of Ice and Fire" forums.
Elio M. Garcia, Jr., webmaster for Martin fansite Westeros.org (which also manages A Wiki of Ice and Fire) explains that, at first, the website was planning to keep "Dragons" spoilers in a separate forum. (The Westeros.org gang got an early look at "Dragons" when Martin personally sent the book to them for "continuity checking.")
But after "Dragons"' UK publisher, Voyager, issued a statement pleading for people to avoid spoilers, "We've now tried to move to being spoiler-free," says Garcia. "But that sort of made us a target."
While noting that most of the spoilers are inaccurate or garbled -- "Most of the trolls have been misled by other trolls," he jokes -- Garcia notes that real genuine spoilers are out there...and predictably, they're mostly coming from horrible teenagers with nothing better to do.
"There's an 18- or 19-year-old guy from Kentucky. There's a teenager out in Australia that we've had problems with before, who occasionally sneaks in and causes trouble. It's just guys having a laugh."
"Dragons" publisher Random House had no comment on the early shipping, and indicated that there were no plans to bump up the book's July 12 release date.
So, if you're a "Dragons" fan, you might want to avoid fan forums, Facebook...heck, maybe just don't go on the internet or speak to anyone for the next 11 days.
Source: EW


lol!!!!
ReplyDeleteThis news makes me wish I was still reading paper books, GErman and had pre-ordered ADwD! XD
ReplyDeleteFew tidbits related to Game of Thrones:
Currently all four books of the A Song of Ice and Fire Saga are in the New York Times Bestseller top ten list... and currently in the top 8 technically! With a fifth book released in a couple weeks, five Top Ten Bestsellers at once is a distinct possibility for GRRM. Yay!
- Camelot being cancelled has spawned rumors of HBO looking at Starz former stars as possible actors for Season Two. James Purefoy as Mance Raydar anyone? Eva GReen as Milisandre? Joseph Fiennes as Stannis? All three certainly fit the roles to some degree, but I think it's all a pipe dream right now.....
*sighs* I've been reading about this for days now, but it doesn't make me any less sad whenever I see it brought up again. I hate trolls :(.
ReplyDeleteHaha. Oops.
ReplyDeleteI've already had something from the book spoiled for me. It really sucks because I'm one of those people who got Book 4 right when it came out.
ReplyDeleteI've been putting off reading Book 4 for a couple of years now in anticipation of Book 5. Funnily enough, I don't think I'll be far enough along in my re-read to actually get to Book 5 by July 5th XD.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, that sucks majorly :(. Spoiler fans or not, these books aren't available for everyone to read and its lame that stuff has started popping up. If you want to discuss GoT (the novels) in a fairly safe environment, check out westeros.org's forums.
Ugh! Sorry to hear!
ReplyDeleteI'm one of the lucky ones that doesn't hit too many fan threads for ASoIaF so I hope I won't be spoiled. I try to stick to a couple sites I trust with no trolls, or a pattern of erasing spilery fiarly fast.... I still have a couple weeks to avoid ADwD spoilers......
*tries to find a white tree with a face in the meager park behind my house to pray to*
I was wondering if you would be at that point by July 12th..... I read you were 400 pages into Book One and I was skeptical.....
ReplyDeleteNot that I doubt your reading speed... but there are some big ole books in the saga! XD
Yeah, I've been stuck there for a while. It isn't that I find it dull, I just worry that, if I do ever get around to some of those Book --> Screen articles, re-reading later books will further pollute my opinion of characters. As such, I've been sitting around not reading OR writing :P. I think I'm just going to suck it up and get through some reading first.
ReplyDeleteStarting later this week, I'll begin to run some experiments for a lab I'm working in for the summer. This gives me time to get some reading done as there isn't much I can do until I have all the data for analysis.
I've also been watching a LOT of TV. Just watched the first two seasons of Scrubs. I'm saving the Boston Legal series finale for a special occasion. I also just started The West Wing and Studio 60 and am replaying Donkey Kong 64 XD. Lots to do.
Awwww... Sad finale. Funny, but sad too.
ReplyDeleteI miss Crane, Poole & Schmidt! Everytime I say that or write it I hear Candice Bergen, Larry Miller and Shatner saying their names while in an uncomfortable group hug! XD
Putrefoy was recently interviewed if he could imagine taking on a role on GoT and he said absolutely if it's the right role. And then he also praised HBO for a while. Would be awesome!
ReplyDeleteI'm reading my way through Book one for the first time atm... loving it.
ReplyDeleteI've heard book 4 isn't as good, is this true?
Adam D. Harris Its good and well-written but Book four is hlaf of the planned Book 4 with half of the POV charcters.Book 5 being the other half of the chracters. Book 4 has very few of the Stark kids or Lannisters that are in the first 3 books. So ir takes some getting used to getting to know a new "cast" and thhe new locations.
ReplyDeleteWell, I tend to avoid places where people knowingly spoil things. I had the Table of Contents 'spoiled' for me via a broken spoiler tag and a surprise was spoiled by an annoying troll on an otherwise friendly forum.
ReplyDeleteBook 4 is okay. It is well-written but I think the pacing can be rather bad and as @darq said a lot of good characters are absent from it. I think it will be better for you though since you won't have to wait years to read the next half.
ReplyDeleteAhhh yea. I can see how that could spoil some things. I have deliberately not looked at any ADwD posts... Iv'e no tread any of the released chapters either. I just want it to be fresh in my first read I guess.
ReplyDeleteWhat? You also like to play old school games? If you were living somewhere close and not on another continent I'd say we would have to hang out some time.
ReplyDeleteThat s ABSOLUTELY the worst part - having to wait 5 or 6 years to find out what our favorites are up to!
ReplyDeleteIs Dany in Book Four?
ReplyDeleteAnd no Starks & Lannisters is sucky! How come they are ditched, what location does the story focus on?
Do book four and five take place at the same time then?
I imagine Martin is gonna have to speed up a bit, he hasn't got 5-10 years to write the final two with the TV show now... :P
Cersei, Jaime, Arya, Sansa are the only POVs you would recognize by name. Oh and Samwell Tarly. The large majority are new faces in new places.... or places we have read about but now get to read about in detail.
ReplyDeleteBut no Jon, Bran, Tyrion, Daenerys or the other POVs we get to like in Book Two and Book Three.
Wow... My guess is that book four and five will merge for two TV seasons then... They couldn't pull such a trick on TV.
ReplyDeleteAnd Cersei and Jaime haven't had any POV chapters in the 200 pages I'm in so far... they've barely shown up at all.
I don't know Samwell Tarly yet either I don't think :P
It's quite late in the game (book 4) to introduce so many new places, obviously book five won't focus on those characters so they only have 6/7 to wrap up all the storyline he has.
Are 6/7 going to be individual storys with all the characters or a split again?
The reason he split Book 4 into two books is that it was over 1500 pages and he was only like half done. So he decided to give half the POV characters full story arcs in one book and the second half full story arcs in the next book, instead of giving them all half stories in two books. Interesting approach...
ReplyDeleteTyrion is the only Lannister with a POV in the first book. Jaime gets his own POV in Book Three and Cersei gets her own in Book Four for the first time.
ReplyDeleteYou do know Sam... he's the fat and funny coward that is Jon's brother in arms in the Night's Watch.
I think you're right and the plan is to have 2 seasons merged from the two books.
ReplyDeleteI don't think GRRM will do any huge shifts in storytelling again for the final two books. As far as I can guess (and tell from the 4 books I have read), all the material will be set for the overall saga in books 1-5 and that will complete the "second act" if you will.
From that point on it should be maneuvering all the pieces into their final positions with less new characters and subplots.
I am just speculating of course seeing as I have not read even Book 5 yet and I have no clue of the content within Books 5 & 6.
Ha! XD
ReplyDeleteI just had a thought....
There's absolutely no way that a major TV series could ever ignore 75% of the cast and have an entire season revolve around a new set of characters and "pull that trick" on TV... I agree.
Well, other than LOST did that in Season 3....
Adam D. Harris There's absolutely no way that a major TV series could ever ignore 75% of the cast and have an entire season revolve around a new set of characters and "pull that trick" on TV... I agree.
ReplyDeleteWell, other than LOST did that in Season 3.... XD
I've been on a nostalgia kick recently too. Just finished replay Zelda; OoT and now going back to play Star Ocean: The Second Story. Good times.
ReplyDeleteEdit: I wrote this in word. Techincal issues, one sec :P.
ReplyDeleteThat would be awesome :D. Well, if you're ever in Canada... *waves*.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, I don't actually own a next gen console and have been trying to FINALLY get around to playing through FF1 - FF9 on the PS2. At one point a couple months ago, I picked up my N64 to play Perfect Dark with some friends. This got me back into that stuff. I realised that I had never completed DK64 (stupid Rareware Coin), so, 100% completion, here I come :D!
Otherwise, yeah, I will probably play through Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask sometime.
I just picked up Star Ocean 1 and 2 for the PSP! They've been a bit of a letdown actually, as Star Ocean 3 is absolutely fantastic.
ReplyDeleteBy 3 do you mean Blue Sphere or Till the End of Time? Because I think Second Story was way better than Blue Sphere lol.
ReplyDeleteTil The End of Time. The story was just so... epic. As was the game. I just beat the last boss... 75 hours into the game... and half another hundred hour of post-game content to look forward to :).
ReplyDeleteOkay then you're definitely right. I burned through that game when it first came out. I loved the depth of it compared to the past ones. I know on my second play through I spent way too many hours with the crafting system.
ReplyDeleteOops, someone's fired.
ReplyDeleteLongest.Post.Ever?
ReplyDeleteChallenge accepted! (but not right now)
Query that I'd meant to ask but forgot... the White Walkers are 'The Others' right? When do they start being called White Walkers in the book, as I'm 200 pages in and I haven't seen them called White Walkers yet I don't think...
ReplyDeleteHa, I'll keep it in mind.
ReplyDeleteI've recently got my old Sega Genesis out of the attic. Played some classic Sonic games, Streets of Rage, Mortal Kombat, Golden Axe and even bought a couple of "new" games on ebay and a peddlars market. So now I'm busy playing Deep Space Nine: Crossroads of Time.
Quite I often I find myself having much more fun playing these old games than playing new games with high end graphics.
Whitewalkers do not equal the others. Osha the one that attacked Bran and is now under house arrest at Winterfell is an "other". The only appearance of a Whitewalker in the first book is in the prologue. The undead victims of Whitewalkers are more mindless wights I believe.
ReplyDeleteThe bad news, the Whitewalkers still are pretty much a mystery where I'm at now in the novels - done with Book 4. They do come up more in the books, but my guess is that they are part of the endgame. Their mystery will be revealed and all the other plots meld together in an epic finale scenario.
The good news is that we do get to see a great deal behind The Wall in Book 2 and even more so in Book 3. There is more that lies behind the Wall than simply Whitewalkers...
Nooo, you're thinking of wildlings.
ReplyDeleteOthers = White Walkers
Wights = The Undead
Wildlings = Osha and her people.
Yes, the White Walkers are the same thing as The Others. As a Lost fan, I'm sure you can appreciate that the term "The Others" is a familiar one. I think they changed the term to White Walkers on the show to make it less confusing. That being said, they do occasionally get called White Walkers in the novels. When, I couldn't tell you.
ReplyDeleteA Great Game of Thrones resource is a site called Tower of The Hand. They let you look things up and set the website to whichever book you've finished. For now, you'll want to look things up having not completed any novels, but yeah, great resource.
Is Brianne in book 4 ? Davos? Stannis?
ReplyDeleteLol, I was always a nintendo kid, so when my friends would bust out segas, it was always a treat. I LOVED Streets of Rage :D. Actually, I got a couple of games entitled "Capcom Classics" Volumes 1 and 2 for the PS2. They include games like Golden Axe. Also, on Steam, you can get a bunch of sega packs for relatively cheap. I have them all now. No Sonic, but lots of other fun games (like STREETS OF RAGE!).
ReplyDeleteBrienen is for sure. I can't recall Davos or Stannis, but I haven't read it in a while now.....
ReplyDeleteLol! You clearly watch HIMYM :P.
ReplyDeleteI always considered it to be Whitewalkers and then everything else behind the wall was others.... But I guess in the text they use you're right.
ReplyDeleteI thought of itas Whitewalkers = The Others (capitalized and specific), but others as a non-specific vague group - a collection of wild humans or other non-humans that lie beyond The Wall.
Ha! Ya... I was going to add " , but not right now. I have someplace AWESOME to be!"
ReplyDeleteAlas, I don;t .... I decided to stay in since its so hot and grilling in near 90 heat is not my idea of fun....
I was one of those lucky few that got both, Sega & Nintendo.
ReplyDeleteStreets of Rage might be the best Sega game ever created, it's a classic! And I heard about this Sega Classics game for Play Station with loads of the old classics.
I never really heard of this DS9 game when I was a kid, but stumbled across it when I was looking for new Sega games. It's pretty cool and I'm also currently re-watching DS9, but it's going forward rather slow. Always liked DS9 a lot.
My sister's boyfriend talked a while back how much he enjoyed playing Super Mario Kart, so I got him an old Super Nintendo and the game for Christmas. We played a lot during the Christmas break and he still challenges me every time I'm at their place.
I guess it's just always cool to play those old games you grew up with, brings back a lot of good memories too. There definitely are excellent games these days too, but I kind of enjoy the good old ones a bit more.
Yeah I think I thought what you did upon reading the series. It's really unclear. I only know this because I read Ellio/Linda's Book-->Screen analyses over on westeros and they're really in the know.
ReplyDeleteAnd like I told Adam, Tower of the Hand is a BRILLIANT resource. Sadly, no entry for white walkers.
I spend far too much time in my lab/tiny air conditioned apartment. Like I said, have been doing a LOT of TV watching and game playing. Even my exercise is in an air conditioned gym two blocks away.
ReplyDeletei should check out 3 played 1 and 3 ages ago but for me nothing beats Fire Emblem!
ReplyDeletethe HBO series has helped the sales of the book I see...
ReplyDeleteGood that I've just started reading book two and haven't ordered the new book on Amazon.de Otherwise I might have had it in my hands already. lol
ReplyDelete