Greetings from the Dothraki sea, everyone! And by Dothraki sea, I mean Mongolian steppes.

First and foremost, the podcast crew would like thank everyone who has been leaving interesting, funny, and awesome comments on our blog. We love reading the replies so much that we want you to record them! Send us an audio mp3 file of your insights, questions, and general feedback to staff@podcastoficeandfire.com. We would love to include listener sound bites in our future episodes so we can discuss and respond. Windows Sound Recorder and Audacity are great, easy tools to record an mp3 with. If you have any questions about how, don’t be afraid to ask!

Secondly, we’d like to start receiving email submissions of questions for two upcoming episodes: the What If? podcast and the Ultimate ASOIAF Trivia Contest.

Ask us the “what if…” scenarios that were always on your mind as you read through the books. What if Ned had taken Renly’s or Littlefinger’s advice during the last hours of Robert’s reign? What if Khal Drogo had survived and took the Dothraki to Westeros? What if the Starks had stayed in Winterfell?

For the trivia contest, pose some great questions! We need a lot, ranging from mildly easy to mind-rackingly difficult. Try to avoid the no-brainers like “What is the first book of the series called?” as well as the tediously detailed ones that require book consultation such as “What is the third word of the fourth paragraph in the UK edition of A Clash for Kings?”. Send us as many or as few as you’d like, we’d like to make this episode a big group effort.

staff@podcastoficeandfire.com.  Get emailing and you’ll get some love letters in return!*

*love letters not guaranteed

Episode 8 for the week of May 18th, in which the superior (female) members of the podcast (Mimi, Ashley, and Ashley 2) discuss the female characters of ASOIAF, sex scenes, and who we would like to see play the characters on screen. This is the counterpart episode to the Guys Night Out, and yes, we also answer the question posed by Amin in the last episode but with a little twist.

Episode 7 for the week of May 11th, in which the male members of the podcast crew (Chris, Aaron, Amin, and Ben) discuss brews and battles, warriors and wenches. This is the first of two special episodes- the second one will be the girls night out version. Stay tuned for the end of this episode to hear a special closing discussion that may get more than just Aaron fired for once.

(Mini) episode 6 for the week of May 4th, in which we criticize/compliment A Song of Ice and Fire cover art for the foreign language editions of the books, discover that Japanese publishers really don’t like Tyrion, and Croatians love camel toe.

Follow along the discussion by viewing all the foreign language edition art at George R.R. Martin’s cover art gallery. Or just listen to us giggle nonsensically for an hour and a half.

As you may have noticed, we’re a couple of podcasts behind our weekly publication. A couple of listeners have asked when our next episode will go up. But things have been super hectic recently within the crew.

Mimi is in the process of graduating, moving out, and is flying to Mongolia in one week. Chris is taking night classes that conflict with the routine recording schedule and has a lot going on with work. Aaron is busy with finals and eating ice cream. Ashley 1 has recently suffered the loss of a close friend in her life, for which she has all of our condolences and the understanding that the podcast is definitely not a priority for her right now.

We can’t guarantee any timely publications as of right now, because it’s hard getting everyone together amidst all of our personal issues currently. But here is what we know for sure will be gracing your ears in due time:

Episode 6, already recorded and undergoing editing. This one is a mini-episode since it doesn’t feature real discussion, but it’s relevant to the books (and somewhat interactive!) and will (hopefully) be funny.

Episode 7, the big prophecies podcast. It’s taken a long time for us to get around to this one because we want to do it justice. We’ll be recording it this week.

As well as two more, guys night out and girls night out episodes. Apparently these are sneaky, competitive, secretive recordings and I have no idea what will be featured in either. But expect bad jokes!

Thanks for being so patient with us, we love reading the recent comments and discussion on the blog!

Episode 5 for the week of April 20th, in which we discuss the religions of the series, compare ourselves to the seven deities of the faith, and talk about boobs (boob talk not included). Thanks for participating in the poll, everyone! If you’d like, please comment and share your reasoning for your favorite ASOIAF religion.

Also, we’d like to give a big thank you to Tower of the Hand for their recent post about our podcast, and welcome the new listeners who followed over from their link. Our goal to make it to 100 subscribers is becoming a possibility! On the day we do, Aaron and Chris will post pictures of themselves dressed up as the ASOIAF characters of your choice.

P.S. – And once again, I mess up and tell Aaron to say “week of April 22nd” in the intro. I’m double-fired.

Episode 4 for the week of April 13th. Sorry for the publishing delay! For this episode, we took a trip up north to the Wall and the Night’s Watch, cross-examining the mental capacity of the Others and learning more about Chris’ Jon Snow fanaticism. The crew for this episode is minus Amin but plus the new hosts!

P.S. – Oops! I call it the 5th episode in the outro message. Don’t pay any attention to that. I know nothing.

Episode 3 (part two!) for the week of April 6th, in which we do our best to get back on track with the theme of love and lust in A Song of Ice and Fire. This week, we took some time to discuss the role of homosexuality in the series, the cultural values of marriage, and why Aaron wants a fishwife.

Episode 3, part 1 for the week of March 30th. Here’s what happened. What was originally intended to be a thoughtful, intellectual discussion on the romantic relationships and cultural values toward sex and marriage in the series quickly devolved into a very long discussion about which characters we’d like to make sweet love to. At the thirty-minute mark, the podcast takes on all the insight and intellect of a high school boy’s locker room. Therefore, we have decided to split the subject into two episodes- the more relevant, latter section to be released within the week.

Don’t hate us, we love you.

Episode 2 for the week of March 23rd, in which we focus on the central theme of death in the series. Here, we discuss the character deaths that impacted us the most, and make lousy predictions.

Don’t forget, you can alway subscribe to our podcast episodes via iTunes by clicking the iTunes button on the sidebar. This way, you can keep up-to-date on our episodes as we publish them without having to go through the hassle of streaming/downloading each individually. You can also put us on your iPod now (it’s like carrying five nerds in your pocket, hooray technology!).

For the next episode, we’ll be discussing deaths in the series. If you have any theories, questions, or points for debate you want to contribute, please let us know!

The debut episode of the Podcast of Ice and Fire, in which we focus on the major noble houses of A Song of Ice and Fire and discuss why Dorne is the ultimate vacation hotspot in Westeros.