I began watching the GAME OF THRONES TV show in 2013, having purchased the DVD box set of the first season on a whim at the (now closed) Newbury Comics in Bellingham, Massachusetts (yeah, I had $60 to blow that day). I quickly became a big fan, not only of the TV show itself but also the book series that inspired it: shortly after I watched the first season I read the first book... then in the summer of 2013 I read the second book before watching the second season... then I read the remaining 3 books (in fact by the end of 2013 I had the entire 5 book series read) before watching season 3. At some point I got some of my younger brothers interested in the show as well, so I watched the first 3 seasons again (this time with them), and by the time we were done with that season 4 had just been released on DVD, so we caught that as well. By season 5 we started to watch the shows as they aired in real time (our dad subscribed to HBO for the two months or so they were on, then cancelled once the season was done, only to repeat the process the following year). At some point our parents also got interested so we watched the early seasons with them: as a result of all this I actually ended up seeing the first 3 seasons 3 times and saw seasons 4, 5 and 6 twice. It's a period of my life I'm quite nostalgic about: I remember, from season 5 on, how after each watching each new episode I would go onto various web forums and see how the fanbase had reacted to it, places like the Westeros forums and the (now sadly defunct) Watchers on the Wall site, along with reading reviews of the episodes from various websites that did such things, like ROLLING STONE and the A.V. CLUB. I also began to collect some of the other media that spun off from the show, such as the trading card sets and the CD soundtracks and also some of the associated books (while on the subject, I HIGHLY recommend GAME OF THRONES: THE COSTUMES by Michele Clapton, which is just a beautiful book). It's gotten to the point that a lot of my friends like to tease me about my obsession with the show, and it's hard for me to pinpoint just why I fell for it: I think some big things were the show's quasi-medieval look/feel and also the fact that it had a big ensemble cast: I like shows and books and movies with big ensemble casts (one reason why I've gravitated to THE OFFICE (American version) in recent years). And in all actuality it was a very well-made show, with (mostly) impeccable production values, great sets, incredible costumes... I remember how one of my friends at the time, the now sadly deceased Kevin Killian, once told me he was really impressed because the show really put its money on the screen.
One fairly recent associated book is FIRE CANNOT KILL A DRAGON by James Hibberd. Unlike some of the other books I've featured in this series, this book I read in an official context, when it first came out in the autumn of 2020, so as a result it shows up in my reading lists. It's one of those "oral history" pop culture books which I notice have become increasingly popular: in recent years I've also got one for the making of David Lynch's DUNE, DAZED & CONFUSED, and STAR WARS (the latter of which I'll spotlight at some future point). With such books the author interviews a bunch of people associated with the show or movie in question, then breaks the quotes up into a chronological order. Such books tend to be breezily readable and the different viewpoints/contrasting opinions offered up by the contributors in regards to the pop culture artifact on discussion can be interesting to observe. In regards to FIRE CANNOT KILL A DRAGON, Hibberd was EW's official GAME OF THRONES writer, and over the years he visited the show's sets many times and spoke to many of the people involved with the show. Some of the material that appeared in his EW articles reappear here (yes, I collected the EW GOT issues as well), but there's also lots of new interviews as well, not only with many members of the show's cast but also the people involved in the making of the show, from producers to the showrunners to even George RR Martin himself. It's well illustrated with over 80 color photographs, and provides some highly interesting observations: for example, we find out the reasons why the book character Lady Stoneheart was cut from the adaptation (reasons I agree with, incidentally). I know some people have accused Hibberd of being a shill and a bit too fawning when it comes to the showrunners, but really, considering how much over-the-top vitriol that has been directed at the show by the toxic fandom since its controversial conclusion in 2019, it's nice to see someone with something positive to say about it (speaking as someone whose defense of the show on the A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE reddit forums is notorious: yeah, if you see someone on there defending the show with the handle James_Champagne, it's me... needless to say, I get downvoted a lot, but I like to think I'm a well-informed and articulate defender, at least).
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