registered members in 2012. Martin himself has checked with García (whom The New Yorker dubbed a "superfan" with encyclopedic knowledge of Martin's works) to confirm details of his own series, and has referred HBO researchers to García as well. The very first fan website and messageboard (as recounted by García, Antonsson, and Martin) was a site called "Dragonstone", which only lasted for about one year between the release of the first novel in 1996, and the site crashed in 1997, never to be rebuilt. The creator of "Dragonstone" moved on; however, several of the earliest online fans who had met on the site (Elio García among them) coalesced again to create Westeros.org. Though his work at Westeros.org is voluntary, García has been a paid consultant for licensed tie-in merchandise. García and Antonsson are Martin's coauthors of a companion book to the series, The World of Ice & Fire (2014). Martin had approached the pair about the project in 2008. Brotherhood Without Banners The Brotherhood Without Banners is an unofficial fan club operating globally. George R. R. Martin attends their gatherings on his travels and counts their founders and other longtime members among his good friends. Game of Thrones Since the creation of the television series in 2011 there has been a proliferation in the number of fansites dedicated to the show and novel series. These include 'ToweroftheHand.com', which organizes communal readings of the novels, and 'Fleabottom.net', an online discussion forum. In addition to these there is further discussion on more general sites, such as Reddit, and tumblr, where there are many fan-created blogs. Moreover, there are also many podcasts covering the series. These podcasts, such as 'Game of Owns', and 'A Podcast of Ice and Fire' provide discussions of each book chapters, and each episode in the television series, as well as discussing the current theories in the fandom. GRRuMblers While Martin calls the majority of his fans "great", and enjoys interacting with them, some of them turned against him due to the six years it took to release A Dance with Dragons. A movement of disaffected fans called GRRuMblers formed in 2009, creating sites such as Finish the Book, George and Is Winter Coming?. It is not uncommon for Martin to be mobbed at book signings either. The New Yorker called this "an astonishing amount of effort to devote to denouncing the author of books one professes to love.