Spoilers flood the Internet after 'Dance with Dragons' ships early

By Darren Franich, EW.com

July 4, 2011 -- Updated 1510 GMT (2310 HKT)

George R. R. Martin, author of "Game of Thrones" which the HBO series is based on, had his latest book shipped too early
(EW.com) -- 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.