George R. R. Martin's "The Winds of Winter" Wiill Not Be Published In 2015

Dave Knott (2917251) writes George R.R. Martin's "The WInds Of Winter", the fifth book of his bestselling fantasy saga "A Song Of Ice And Fire" (known to television fans as "Game Of Thrones") will not be published in 2015. Jane Johnson at HarperCollins has confirmed that it is not in this year's schedule. "I have no information on likely delivery," she said. "These are increasingly complex books and require immense amounts of concentration to write. Fans really ought to appreciate that the length of these monsters is equivalent to two or three novels by other writers."
Instead, readers will have to comfort themselves with a collection, illustrated by Gary Gianni, of three previously anthologised novellas set in the world of Westeros. "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" takes place nearly a century before the bloody events of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Out in October, it is a compilation of the first three official prequel novellas to the series, The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight, never before collected.

Comments

Never finish

[danbuter]

I think the chance of GRR Martin dying before the series is finished is up around 99.99999 %.

Re:Never finish

[MightyMartian]

He may not finish it, but you can be damned sure the producers of the series have a solid plot line at their disposal should he kick the bucket. This is a cash cow of monumental proportions, and they won't let something as minor as the author's death get in the way of continuing production.

Re:Never finish

[Anonymous Coward]

Also known as, "Pulling a Robert Jordan".

Re:Never finish

[Em Adespoton]

Martin already stated that to avoid pulling a Jordan, he wrote the ending first, and gave copies to interested parties. He also wrote the storyline, so it's just the actual textual details and plot twists that haven't been fully hammered out yet.

What got me to start reading the series in the first place was his promise that he wouldn't leave the story arc open-ended and then die. He also got a thorough check-up from his doctor giving him a full bill of health prior to starting the TV series.

Re:Never finish

[Moridineas]

Martin already stated that to avoid pulling a Jordan, he wrote the ending first, and gave copies to interested parties. He also wrote the storyline, so it's just the actual textual details and plot twists that haven't been fully hammered out yet.

That's pretty much exactly what Jordan did.

What got me to start reading the series in the first place was his promise that he wouldn't leave the story arc open-ended and then die. He also got a thorough check-up from his doctor giving him a full bill of health prior to starting the TV series.

So that was at least five years ago. I'm not a big fan of the macabre speculation around his health and calculating the odds of his dying vs finishing the series first, but what does seem clear is that he has either written himsef into a wall and doesn't know where to go or he's just bored with writing the books. Can't say I blame him on either side. If I could build a turret on my house, buy a customized Tesla, and fly around the world to meet legions of fans, I would probably be doing that instead too!

Re:Never finish

[Darth Muffin]

I was at a small convention where he was the guest of honor, got to hear a lot of him talking about this type of stuff.
Basically, he confirmed that the studio does have a folder sealed and locked in a safe somewhere with plot outlines to finish the rest of the series should something happen to him. Also was interesting to hear that he *does* have a plot outline, he knows how it will end, who lives and dies and who comes out on top, but doesn't know all of the details about how to get there. Some people say he's dug himself a pretty deep hole and is having trouble writing his way out to get to the ending he wants.

Re:Never finish

[Pinhedd]

He died on my birthday.

Worst birthday present ever :(

Re:Never finish

[dasunt]

He may not finish it, but you can be damned sure the producers of the series have a solid plot line at their disposal should he kick the bucket.

True, but I don't expect them to have the same level of detail or intricacy the completed series would have.

It's quite a complicated world. It's easy to miss out on the little clues scattered here and there - such as Young Griff's possible ancestry; who was responsible for Balon's death; the creaking hinge of Aeron's memories; the identities of the Sphinx, the new Pirate King in the Stepstones, the brother on the Quiet Isle, Robert Strong, and more; or what actually happened at the Tower of Joy, etc.

And that's what we actually can claim to be pretty certain about, if you're a careful reader. There's so much unrevealed or left ambiguous - what is up in the Land of Always Winter, who is Septa Lemore or Coldhands, what happened to Benjen (and no, he's not Coldhands, they killed him "long ago"), what's on the Isle of Faces, what did Rhaegar read that lead him to become a warrior, where did Tysha go, etc. Now some of these won't be answered most likely, but we'll get more answers, both in the main series and in the Dunk & Egg novellas.

I think the television series can pull off a satisfactory conclusion, especially since it veers off on its own direction occasionally (Yara's plotline, for example) and by the necessity of the television medium it must be more simple than the books. But I don't think the written series will be the same if someone else finishes it.

Re:Never finish

[Noah Haders]

Also was interesting to hear that he *does* have a plot outline, he knows how it will end, who lives and dies and who comes out on top

Valar morghulis man, valar morghulis .

Re: Never finish

[Anonymous Coward]

Much like "Dune 7" ended up following Frank Herbert's death.

Re:Never finish

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw Martin speak at a small conference a few years back. He flat out said if he dies, the story dies with him. He had no plans to have anyone finish the series if he goes. I saw him do 3 Q&A's over the course of the weekend, and someone at each session asked if he had a plan similar to Robert Jordan. He repeated basically the same lines each time. He really, really seemed offended by the question. It was just after Jordan died so it was a question that came pretty naturally but Martin really had no sympathy for the fans in this regard.

He seemed equally annoyed anytime he got asked about why it was taking so long to get the next book out (A Dance With Dragons was long overdue at that point). He basically went off on how entitled the fans acted thinking he was a monkey who should dance to their tune and produce things on their schedule.

The only caveat to this is that he said when he signed the deal with HBO he had to give the a general idea of where the story was going so that the TV series could wrap up if the books never got completed (because of death, or whatever). He also said enough about the TV series to make it sound like it was seriously impacting his writing. He evidently does not write while traveling.

Re:Never finish

[beelsebob]

I saw Martin speak at a small conference a few years back. He flat out said if he dies, the story dies with him. He had no plans to have anyone finish the series if he goes.

That's been flat out denied multiple times. The TV show creators have repeatedly stated that part of the contract terms for doing the show are that he produces a series a year, and that they know how it ends already.

Basically, whether he's dead or not, and whether the books are written or not, you'll know the end in 3 years.

Re:Never finish

[gweihir]

As long as Arya gets to kill more people and comes out alive and fine, I am happy with whatever ending he has in mind ;-)

Re:Never finish

[geminidomino]

He seemed equally annoyed anytime he got asked about why it was taking so long to get the next book out (A Dance With Dragons was long overdue at that point). He basically went off on how entitled the fans acted thinking he was a monkey who should dance to their tune and produce things on their schedule.

That sort of prima donna act, combined with the ridiculously wait between Feast and Dance, was basically what killed my interest in the series. When he was doing his tour for the fourth book (Feast), he claimed that the book was too big to be bound properly, and would have to be split into two books, and the spectacularly mediocre Feast for Crows was the first one we got: the next one would follow shortly behind. Then years of ass-thumbing. By the time Dance came out, I didn't have any emotional investment in the story anymore.

Re:Never finish

[shutdown -p now]

This is exactly why the ending will involve the Others taking over all Westeros, and putting up the reanimated zombie Joffrey on the throne.

JRRM does not write books to make people happy.

Re:Never finish

[interkin3tic]

Do we have any indication that Martin would allow the books to be finished if he died? The only way I could see him allowing that in his will would be if A: it was a sticking point for a contract with HBO or B: if he trusted a writer enough.

As you said, obviously the TV show wouldn't be as detailed,. But the TV show is good enough that I wouldn't throw myself off of a rope bridge if Martin died.

Re:Never finish

[billstewart]

The Hugo Award Nominees reading package last year includes the entire Wheel of Time series (which I thought was a classy move by the publisher, and a nice contrast to Orbit Books including only excerpts for their three nominees.) (If you're a member of the appropriate Worldcon, you're eligible to vote for the Hugos, and in recent years they've provided an electronic package of most of the written and graphical works that are nominated.) The bad part about this is that the tablet I use for reading has the bloody entire bloody Wheel of bloody Time series on it, and I'm about 90% of the way through :-)

I hadn't read it before Jordan died, and probably that wasn't my birthday anyway, so for me it wasn't the worst birthday present ever; for that one I'll have to thank my little brother for giving me chicken pox when I was 10. There wasn't a vaccine for it back then, but there is now, and if your parents didn't give you the vaccine and other kids didn't give you the disease, trust me, it's one of the vaccines you want to get. (I also got measles the hard way, but I was young enough I don't remember it very well. Got the polio vaccine, though, unlike a neighbor's kid who was a couple of years older and had to use crutches.)

Re:Never finish

[billstewart]

I read Books 1, 2, and 3 all pretty much around the same time. Five years later, when Book 4 came out, I'd forgotten who most of the characters were and found I didn't really care about them when I read it; I skipped Book 5.

Re:Never finish

[Nyder]

He may not finish it, but you can be damned sure the producers of the series have a solid plot line at their disposal should he kick the bucket. This is a cash cow of monumental proportions, and they won't let something as minor as the author's death get in the way of continuing production.

I'm more concerned about his book, not the HBO show. It would be very nice if he finished the series in his lifetime, let alone my lifetime.

Re:Never finish

[Anonymous Coward]

oh gawd they all become farmers except for two who are angels! Or as it based on Britain should that be Angles?

Re:Never finish

[TheRaven64]

JRRM does not write books to make people happy.

My favourite book that he's written was Tuf Voyaging. Far lighter than the Song of Fire and Ice and the endings did make me happy...

Re:Never finish

[Anonymous Coward]

he confirmed that the studio does have a folder sealed and locked in a safe somewhere with plot outlines to finish the rest of the series should something happen to him.

Big mistake. Never make yourself more valuable dead than alive.

Re:Never finish

[Xest]

Reminds me a bit of Lost. Seemed like a great series at first but it's pretty clear based on the ending they'd dug a hole they had no idea how to get out of so made some shit ending about being in limbo or whatever.

It was so blatant because most things were never even explained by the ending they chose, the ending they chose merely answered (badly) the main plot line, but completely failed to factor in and explain countless side plots, and so was largely just completely broken.

At least in this case he has some guidelines as to how it should all play out though, that's something. Lost basically felt like a really desperate live improvisation.

Re:Never finish

[Anonymous Coward]

If something happens to George HBO will just make everyone gay.

Re:Never finish

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh...by the time he died, I had lost interest anyway. It seemed like he had no idea how to end the story, and instead of advancing the plot he had it drifting around aimlessly.

Re:Never finish

[Rich0]

A problem with this approach is spoilers. The shows cut out characters/events all the time. If the next season of GoT leaves out some character from Book 4, it stands to reason that this character is a dead-end plot wise. So, you end up getting the trimmed down version first, and then you get the richer version of the same story, knowing that the parts that make it richer don't really matter all that much.

Re:Never finish

[anagama]

My opinion will be unpopular, but I think RRMartin is just milking it at this point. I've listened to all the books published so far as audiobooks, and my experience was that the first two books were very fun, and then it started to drag out -- more and more characters introduced, the same sort of imagery and conversation patterns repeated, and time just stopped moving altogether. By the last book, I was just bored silly and it was all I could do to trudge through it.

RRMartin got famous, got money, and has been milking it, extending it, trying to make sure it never ever ends. I'm interested enough in how the story turns out, should it be finished, that I will read the wikipedia synopsis of it. But I would never deal with the whole repetitive unabridged bullshit ever again.

NOTE: I've only seen the first season of the TV show, and I liked it a lot. The TV show is quite likely way better than the books because there are some natural constraints in that context. I won't pay for the shows though. I don't want to give RRM anything -- he took a promising interesting story, and is just torturing it now for the money. Fucker.

Re:Never finish

[canadian_right]

I disagree, I do not think he is milking it. I'm not generally a fantasy fan, preferring SF, but the Song of Ice and Fire series has been great, each book being an excellent read. Once it is all done I'm planning on going back and reading the whole thing through.

It is true that due to the delay between books it takes a while to refresh your memory about some of the minor characters and sub-plots.

Re:Never finish

[witherstaff]

I haven't read the series. I got burned out on long unfinished fantasy series with Wheel of Time. Does RRMartin spend a few pages describing a dress like would happen in WoT? (Now there's a trilogy that slowed waaaaaay down to milk everything it was worth)

Re: Never finish

[witherstaff]

The fans have been pressing to see the original notes. I doubt we'll ever see them as there is no way any of Frank Herbert's work actually made it into that horrid 2 part Book 7.

Re:Never finish

[gweihir]

I agree. On the other hand, if you read only the 20% or so of chapters you like, even the last books are pretty good. I have to admit that there were quite a few things I only understood when watching the movies though ;-)

Re:Never finish

[gweihir]

Sanderson actually delivered pretty good books to conclude tWoT. Far better than the last few by Jordan.

Re:Never finish

[phorm]

"He died on my birthday. Worst birthday present ever"

Was it? The early WoT was engaging and interesting. Later, it got to be very drawn out and over-detailed. It's a shame that RJ passed away, but the edition starting with Brandon Sanderson does a pretty decent job and is actually more interesting than Jordon's later books.

Re:Never finish

[Pinhedd]

You're absolutely right about the pace of the books slowing down but honestly, I really liked the depth and detail.

Re: Never finish

[cthulhu11]

Are we discussing GoT, or Lost?

Damn the editor

[kakaburra]

Fifth book? SERIOUSLY?

Re:Damn the editor

[sexconker]

For those who don't know:

Published
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords
A Feast for Crows
A Dance with Dragons

Not yet published
The Winds of Winter
A Dream of Spring

Re:Damn the editor

[MightyMartian]

Eagerly awaiting the sequel series:

A Poop for Penguins
A Tit for Tyrion
Another Tit for Tyrion
A Gaggle of Geese
Yet Another Tit for Tyrion
A Bunghole of Bratwurst

Re:Damn the editor

[SeaFox]

Eagerly awaiting the sequel series:

A Poop for Penguins

The two questions on everyone's mind...
  1) Is that going to be a LTS release?
  2) Does it have systemd?

Re:Damn the editor

[ganjadude]

Im waiting on The Flock of Moosen myself

Re:Damn the editor

[kencurry]

R + L = "poop" -> brilliant!

Re:Damn the editor

[Anonymous Coward]

If only systemd could incorporate systemd somehow!

Re:Damn the editor

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it have wieners?

Re:Damn the editor

[gweihir]

You mean like Hamilton 95?

Re:Damn the editor

[Anonymous Coward]

There is only one thing to say: Screw you, Dice.

I bet the editors do not actually exist. There's just intern posting under the names we see here, this is the only explanation. The current editors seem to care so little and seem to have so little actual geek clue that I cannot possibly imagine them doing an actual "job" or being "actually there".

Re:Damn the editor

[Anonymous Coward]

2) Does it have systemd?

Well, GRRM does like horrible things to happen.

Re:Damn the editor

[Anonymous Coward]

2) Does it have systemd?

That would be the "Poop".

Re:Damn the editor

[ArsonSmith]

I thought systemd was "A Poop for Penguins"

Sixth book...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sixth book of his bestselling fantasy saga, not the fifth.

Apologies for slight errors in the article

[davidknott]

My apologies for the typo in the summary and also this factual error: "The Winds Of Winter" is the sixth book in the series, not the fifth as stated in the article.
I brought it to the attention of the editors in a comment on the submission, but I think they posted the article to the front page before they noticed my correction. Mea Culpa!

Re:Apologies for slight errors in the article

[davidknott]

Erk! Sorry... I meant "typo in the headline" and the error was in my summary as submitted to Slashdot, not in the original article. I cannot win today...

Re:Apologies for slight errors in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

You have made too many mistakes, to the Wall with you!

Re:Apologies for slight errors in the article

[killkillkill]

Don't feel too bad, I don't think those even count as errors by slashdot submission standards. At least it was intelligible english.

Re:Apologies for slight errors in the article

[Ksevio]

Maybe the books are 0-indexed

Re: Apologies for slight errors in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, Feast and Dance were supposed to be one book, but were split up into two parallel story lines solely based on book size. A 2,000+ page book isn't easy to bind or hold.

Is anyone surprised?

[Sycraft-fu]

I think some forget, or never knew, that his first book was published 1996. This guy is not a fast writer.

Personally doesn't bother me, since I stopped reading after the third book because the quality tanked so hard. The original Game of Thrones is my all time favourite fantasy novel and I will recommend it all the time. A Clash of Kings was good, but a major step down. I enjoyed it though. A Storm of Swords wasn't very good at all.When A Feast for Crows I asked some people and the answer I universally got was "don't bother" so I didn't. It was also a bit harder to maintain the "givashit" with 5 years intervening instead of 2.

It seems like he more or less ran out of ideas and has bogged things down in to a whole bunch of characters nobody cares about. Ok, he can do as he pleases, but I'll keep my money thanks.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[MightyMartian]

He has managed to out-Tolkien JRR Tolkien. Even with three or four contiguous story lines going on, Tolkien had to map out the chronology of events carefully so that he always knew where all the main characters and events were happening in relation to each other. Martin has something like two or three times as many plots going on, and he must spend have his time keeping the plotting straight.

The Game of Thrones series is essentially a shared universe with one writer.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. The first novel was excellent, and I was vastly disappointed to see the original family characters mostly ignored after the second book - I'm especially thinking of the young girl.

He kept introducing massive amounts of minor characters, and completely ignoring them in the subsequent books. I don't see how he could hope to bring it all back.

In another Slashdot posting, someone said the plot is taken from the War of the Roses. Can anyone confirm? I'm not sure how the dragons fit into that scenario...

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[Em Adespoton]

Tolkien had to do it all by hand -- Martin has the luxury of software development and movie writing tools that will plot out all the charaters/relationships etc. and point out any potential inconsistencies. He also releases his manuscripts out to test groups, who among other things go over it for inconsistencies.

So doing something this complex isn't really all that complex these days. He can have the software split it all up into workable chunks that just have to hold together on their own, and meet up with the overall story arc at some point. The later books indicate that he's using some of these techniques because of how the writing style changed. I'm pretty sure he didn't do that on the first two or three.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[Stormy Dragon]

I think some forget, or never knew, that his first book was published 1996. This guy is not a fast writer.

If you look at pages of output per year, he's actually one of the fastest writers ever. It's just the book are so big that it's still a long wait from one ot the next.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[Moridineas]

I think some forget, or never knew, that his first book was published 1996. This guy is not a fast writer.

That's not quite backed up by history. He was pretty darn fast for the first three books, but then it all kind of fell apart. Personally I would say that the first three are very equivalent in terms of quality and I (again, IMHO) continue to enjoy them over several rereads. I have not had any inclination to reread Feast or Dance, though I've had other people tell me that reading them back-to-back was more fulfilling than with a six year gap! My introduction to the series was through the Daenerys chapters from AGOT published as a Novella in Asimov's. I've been reading the other books as soon as they came out, so my perspective is perhaps different from someone who got their first read through in in larger chunks.

Book 1 (AGOT) -- 1996
Book 2 (ACOS) -- 1998 (2 yr)
Book 3 (ASOS) -- 2000 (2 yr)
Book 4 (AFFC) -- 2005 (5 yr)
Book 5 (ADWD) -- 2011 (6yr)
Book 6 (TWOW) -- ?? (at least 5yr)

I definitely agree that he's killed off most of his interesting and fun characters, introduced a bunch of boring plotlines ("I am Darkstar--and I am of the night--and I'm mysterious and cool!"), and written himself into an awkward place!

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

GRRM famously writes everything on an old DOS PC of WordStar 4.0. Try harder.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[CanadianMacFan]

Try the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss. The first two (The Name of the Wind, The Wise Man's Fear) of the trilogy are out now. I enjoyed them much more than GoT.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[jfmiller]

Robert Jordan's Wheel of time was just as good (better IMHO) and an equally complex ploy and still got a new installment every 2 years until Jordan's illness and death. Brandon Sanderson (who stands alone at the top of the epic fantasy prolific writer heap) finished the series writing one book a year for a plot-line he did not create, and still managed three other novels (not short ones either) in between.

I'm not saying I could do it myself, nor that writing a complex epic is easy, but I expect 90MPH with good movement from pro baseball pitchers and I expect a book every second year from pro epic fantasy writers. GRRM need to work on his game.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost any author can "out-Tolkein" Tolkein these days, just because there has been sixty years since LoTR was written. "The Sword of Shannara" series did a good job at this.

What we need to compare Martin to is a relatively contemporary author:

Is he even in the same league as David Eddings, Michael Moorcock, or Roger Zelazny? Heck no. Piers Anthony? Maybe. Raymond C. Feist and the Riftwar books? Still better fantasy.

Comparing to someone who made the fantasy genre, sure. He is "better" than Tolkien, just because writing tools are better now. However, if you pair him up with a modern author, or even one from 20-30 years ago, his writings just don't measure up.

Re: Is anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

His first book was published in 1977. You may never have heard of The Dying of the Light but it came out almost twenty years before A Game of Thrones.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[plopez]

"He has managed to out-Tolkien JRR Tolkien"

We'll see if his stories are still selling 40 or 50 years after he dies.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[dasunt]

Pffft, this is the wrong crowd to sell unfinished fantasy series to.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[drinkypoo]

Martin has something like two or three times as many plots going on, and he must spend have his time keeping the plotting straight.

Apparently a lot of writers have Wikis now, if he doesn't have an equivalent he's only fooling himself.

I imagine actually drawing the conflict out from early to late on a whiteboard if I were trying to construct a work of any kind of scope, so I could simply look up and see it any old time, taking pictures as I meddled with it so I could see where I'd been.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but Kvothe is too much of a Mary Sue for me. I like the setting, and the world, even the story, but the way the character acts and thinks?

Just not as enjoyable as Martin. It's not as bad as fan fic, but somehow I just feel a bit like he's going to end up in a three way with Kirk and Bones.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[I'm New Around Here]

Even if that were true, it doesn't remove the possibility to use another computer with the plot-following software Em mentioned. He could do the actual typing on an old Selectric, and still use help with consistency.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[I'm New Around Here]

They will be filling the shelf at the local Goodwill for a number of years. Does that count?

Re: Is anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jordan is simplistic teenage drama, angst and extremely shallow characters.

Hell, book 10 was so bad and empty ge apologized fÃr it.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[plopez]

Still in publication and with cultural impact. How about that for a measure?

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Martin has something like two or three times as many plots going on, and he must spend have his time keeping the plotting straight.

Couldn't he just watch the show to see the order that things happen?

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[SuperKendall]

I've read several of the Wheel Of Time books, and all of the GoT books so far - even though the reading gets harder in parts of the later GoT books I still could easily read through them in a sitting, where I just cold not face any more WoT books after three or four. I find the GoT stuff vastly more interesting.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you're welcome to your opinion, but personally I thought the WoT series was crap. It started off good, but by book 5 he seemed to have run out of ideas for how to advance the plot. I could barely get through 7 and 8, and didn't even bother to try book 9.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[pastafazou]

I don't think you appreciate just how fantastic JRR Tolkien's work is. He wrote literally thousands upon thousands of pages that were merely backdrop to his story. References to ages past and heroes long dead that only get a couple of sentences in the actual Lord of the Rings series, but he took the time to write out the stories of those heroes and their deeds. I like Game of Thrones, and think it's a fantastic piece of work, but I don't think it surpasses what Tolkien managed to achieve.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

To each his own, But you as a critic = terrible.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[cmorgan503]

Still waiting on the series announcements for Shannara and the Belgarion/Belgariad series. I can hope, right?

Re: Is anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aye. And don't forget that Tolkien also wrote a complete Elvin language just for the saga.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[canadian_right]

I've enjoyed all the books in the series. I thought A Dance with Dragon's was a very strong entry. I've seen authors lose steam in a long series, but I'm still enjoying this series. Lots of other people are too - just look at the book sales.

I generally avoid series, especially if over three books. Few authors can keep up a long series without running out of good ideas. Stores set in the same universe, but not one long story can often work better, like the Iain M. Banks Culture series.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[3247]

Tolkien had to do it all by hand -- Martin has the luxury of software development and movie writing tools that will plot out all the charaters/relationships etc. and point out any potential inconsistencies.

Pretty much explains the delays.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can atest to this as being fact. Btw his office is next to the front door of his house in Sante Fe, NM. He also had a nice hot tub in the back yard. His neghbor had a crap ton of snow mobiles. His wife Paris is a real practiceing witch. They had a really nice asian couch. Anything else you wana know?

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[MightyMartian]

I found it sucked right from the beginning. It was like Tolkien rewritten by a fourteen year old. I got halfway through the first book and gave up. Unreadable pap.

Re: Is anyone surprised?

[MightyMartian]

He created three separate Elvish languages, a Dwarfish language (though with a much more limited vocabulary) and at least the morphology of the Adunaic language (the native language of the Numenoreans). His Middle Earth narrative writings (prose and poetry) largely existed to populate a world with people who spoke his invented languages.

Not to take anything away from George RR Martin and Michael Moorcock, but frankly the only other author I know of who put that much effort into the underlying world creation aspects of their stories was Frank Herbert, and even he only put a fraction of the effort into the world creation aspects that Tolkien did. For Tolkien, it quite literally was a lifetime pursuit, with the earliest version of the languages dating back to his teenage years, the earliest versions of the mythos to at least his service in World War I, and continuing on well into his twilight years.

better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[rogoshen1]

So the dude has a set of lofty ethics for his work.. i fail to see how this is a bad thing.. What fans should really appreciate is that he's not doing the quick cash grab (which he could surely do.)

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[cheesybagel]

Six books. Each is a monster in its own accord. He's milking it. Regardless of how complicated the plot was he could have gotten it over by now.

I don't blame him though. I mean people want more books so he just writes them. The Dune books also went past what most people would say was reasonable. Then there are infamous book series like the Wheel of Time series. But I digress.

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[Gavrielkay]

He's doing a slow cash grab. The quality of the books went steadily downhill after the first few and then he split the storylines so that he wasn't even advancing the main plot for the major characters for an entire novel. The story lost so much momentum that I quit buying the books. So, no, not a quick cash grab, just a slow plot to split the story into so many convoluted and pointless books that it's not worth reading any more.

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[MightyMartian]

I may actually be the only person who actually likes God Emperor Of Dune, but I get many peoples' observations that after the third Dune book, the series changed pretty substantially. Being a big fan of Herbert's work, what I saw was that the later Dune books began in many respects to resemble his other later era books in prose style, and it was that which likely turned off many people.

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[Em Adespoton]

The funny thing is, he's been working on 6 books over a span of 20 years.

Compare that to Terry Pratchett: 22 Discworld novels in the same timeframe, all in the same universe, all hanging together, including hanging together with the previous 18 novels he had written over the previous 13 years. And that's with him having Early Onset Alzheimer's which has caused his writing to slow considerably in the last 8 years.

Sure, they write in different sub-genres, but Martin could easily have broken his novels up in this manner as well, but chose not to.

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[Moridineas]

It's been years since I read the entire Dune series as a teenager (I've subsequently reread the first several times), but I remember enjoying God Emperor more than any book other than Dune. I can't say I remember much about it, but given your post, I'm inclined to go back and reread the rest.

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[Stormy Dragon]

Yeah, but each of those 6 books was the length of half a dozen Pratchett novels, so it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison, is it?

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, each of those Pratchett books is infinitely more enjoyable than one of Martin's, to me at least.
I enjoy parts of his books. Specific stories for specific characters.
His last 2 books were some of the few books where I found myself just skipping entire chapters and not missing anything, as far as I could tell.

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[Rakarra]

I do like the format for the TV series. The last two seasons have borrowed equally from books 3, 4, and 5. Everyone has actually been getting character advancement.

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Six books. Each is a monster in its own accord. He's milking it. Regardless of how complicated the plot was he could have gotten it over by now.

I don't blame him though. I mean people want more books so he just writes them. The Dune books also went past what most people would say was reasonable. Then there are infamous book series like the Wheel of Time series. But I digress.

Ever read the Sword of Truth series? Or the Magician series (i.e. Midkemia)? Or the King's Blade series? Those are like the energizer bunny, and just goes on, and on, and on, and without a overall arc between the books. Those are more like "milking it".

The Wheel of Time at least have a huge overall story, and however slowly, the plot moved forward to it.

Hopefully, the Song of Ice and Fire will also goes like that, but we can't really know until the series completes.

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[radarskiy]

Where I come from, ethics includes completing work for which I have been paid in advance and doing so in a timely fashion.

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[I'm New Around Here]

I just picked up Chapterhouse Dune to read. I read Heretics last year, and liked it. I read the first four as a teenager, but at the time couldn't find the last two.

I reread those first four over the last couple years, and Heretics finally. I enjoy all of them. God Emperor is obviously a breaking point in the story line, but it works.

I also have The Dune Encyclopedia. Two copies actually. It is a great book in itself to go along with Herbert's work.

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[shutdown -p now]

The first time I've read the series, I waded through God Emperor, and got completely bogged down on Heretics. After that, I had re-read the first three books several times, but each time I tried to go further I'd immediately remember why I stopped last time ...

Fast forward ten years, and I tried re-reading the whole thing again - and found that I actually enjoyed it. I still like the earlier books more, and the later ones are definitely harder and a slower read, but they no longer bore me.

Perhaps it just takes a certain amount of life experiences to appreciate them?

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[Ramze]

The Dune series is a definite case of "the search for more money," but RR Martin's work is very different. You can tell when a writer is out of ideas or throws something together with a new book. With the Dune series, it's especially obvious when they change authors or when characters and plot lines don't overlap between books.

RR was a well established writer long before Game of Thrones, and from how these books are written -- especially how they've progressed -- He's got an ending in mind and multiple plot arcs and story lines to complete - there's just too much to fit into a short book. His books are easily twice as thick as a normal novel. He considers this to be his masterpiece, so he's going to do it the way he wants it done, then only return to it in largely independent novellas. He spoke about how he progresses. His books are between 700 and 1100 pages each. He starts from one character's perspective, then shifts perspectives to another on another plot line, then decides what he thought of as a minor character deserves their own background story and side story... and down the rabbit hole he goes. 600 pages later and he hasn't finished his original train of thought from when he sat down -- and now he has even MORE stories to tie up because he went off on a tangent. This is why he already has an ending in mind - he thought of it at least a book or two ago and all this is tying up loose ends to get there, yet he keeps inventing new characters and back-stories to weave new webs.

He has a hard time deciding where to just STOP a book and publish already and then push his remaining ideas down the road to the next book.

Having characters on multiple continents and so many locations, plot lines, and characters... I'll honestly be surprised if he really only has 2 books left in the series. He started out thinking he'd only have 3 books... now it's up to 7. I'm betting there will be an 8th. He just can't help himself.

I do wonder if this is just how his mind works... like if you sat down to talk with the man if he'd change subjects 10 times and fail to express his thoughts fully on the original topic... which he'll try to get back to you on later... much later.

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[Ramze]

Diskworld books averaged less than 300 pages each (I'm too lazy to do the math, so I took a random sample. Many were in the mid to low 200s, but more were just at or slightly above 300, so I think 300 is a generous guess).

RR Martin's averaged about 900 pages so far. His latest is his biggest yet, so if you include how much is written so far plus the side novellas he's written, I'd say he's at least on par.

Let's say Diskworld averaged 300 pages * 22 books = 6600 pages

Now RR Martin:
900*5 books = 4500 pages + 140+160 + 832 (novellas and short stories) = 5632 plus 1000 or so pages already written on book 6 and 7 = about 6600 pages
plus, it's not like he hasn't done other non-"Game of Thrones" work in the meantime. He's also doing consulting work for the HBO series as well.

RR gets a lot of flack for taking time between releases, but his books are so thick and his plot lines and characters are so numerous, it's a wonder he publishes at all. Many publishers won't print a book that's nearly 1000 pages - the'll send it back for editing or force the author to split it into multiple volumes. RR has trouble deciding where to end and begin books b/c to him, it's all one big story and he doesn't want to leave the reader waiting for years hanging on a plotline.... but it happens anyway. hahaha

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[bruce_the_loon]

Pratchett's are too short for this argument.

To really drive the point, use Steven Erickson's Malazan Book of the Fallen instead. 10 books, one at 700 pages, 4 at 1000 pages and 5 at 1300 pages from 1999 to 2011. Love it or hate it, he kept the plot lines neat, didn't forget major characters and actually came got it to an end.

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[TomGreenhaw]

He has a bit too much pride IMHO. He could accomplish much more if he developed a team of writers to make larger better stories. What would Linux be if Linus Torvalds was the only author allowed to develop its code?

Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit.

[3247]

Compare that to Terry Pratchett: 22 Discworld novels in the same timeframe, all in the same universe, all hanging together, including hanging together with the previous 18 novels he had written over the previous 13 years.

And full of contradictions.

The effort to write a single consistent story is not O(n), after all. Even if it's only O(n log n), Martin wins:

22 * 300 log 300 =~ 16000
1 * 6000 * log 6000 =~ 22500

Is anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first book wasn't even beginning the plot! It was an introduction of the world and some of the characters, nothing more.

I bet you enjoy watching movie trailers better than movies too.

"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[Godwin O'Hitler]

Or so says Neil Gaiman, at which point one of my favourite authors lost all respect I had for him. What I say is call me back when it's finished.
GRR Martin is taking the piss. He took the piss with a Feast for Crows, among the dullest fantasy books I've ever read. He took the piss when he forgot about the readers for five years to go for the TV money. He is taking the piss trying to fool us into believing he knows where this story is heading.
A Song of Ice and Fire is a totally worthless work with no ounce of merit. Fuck you, Martin.

Re:"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[Intrepid imaginaut]

His format is interesting even if his prose is weak though. 70 chapters in his first book, distributed amongst approximately 7 characters, none of whom have died so far. Another heavily promoted book I've recently read was called Leviathan Wakes, and it followed the exact same format. Not until I read the interview with the author at the end did I learn that he was one of Martin's protégés.

Re:"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[MightyMartian]

I can tell you right now that if I was a successful writer, doubtless making a meaningful, but still modest wage, and someone waved the big bucks in front of me to make my unfinished series into a major multinational television production, I would not hesitate for the briefest moment in taking the cash.

I'm not a fan of the television series, but do enjoy the books. The only thing that really pisses me off is that there is such a length of time between each book that I end up having to reread the entire series from the start just to remember all the characters and story lines. Thus far I've read the first three books three times.

Re:"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing that really pisses me off is that there is such a length of time between each book that I end up having to reread the entire series from the start just to remember all the characters and story lines. Thus far I've read the first three books three times.

I take it that you have not read the Wheel of Time... :)

I have done the rereading 6 or 7 times, and don't need to do that again for the rest of the series.

Re:"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[Anonymous Coward]

Writing a story that long is like writing a feature complete Apache clone from scratch, without a debugger or beta release. Fiction writing is a technical art.

Re:"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[lgw]

I'm not a fan of the television series, but do enjoy the books

I enjoyed the first few, but the latest book was rubbish and I've entirely lost interest in the story thanks to the pace of his writing. He doesn't seem to have much in the way of original plot ideas, so it's mostly about character moments, and you have to keep that sort of writing coming for me to stay interested in those characters.

The series, however, I rather enjoy. While it's probably the first series to ever make me say "there is such a thing as too much gratuitous nudity", the pacing is vastly better than the books, the important character moments are all there, and the gaps between seasons aren't so long that I forget who everyone is.

Re:"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[Rakarra]

I take it that you have not read the Wheel of Time... :)

I have done the rereading 6 or 7 times, and don't need to do that again for the rest of the series.

The Wheel of Time books are really easy to reread.
First, you read all of book 1 cover to cover. That one is pretty well written with a good pace.
Then for all the other books, read the first chapter, skip the next 600 pages where nothing of consequence happens, then read the last 3 chapters where all the mind-blowing developments occur.
I've yet to decide if book 2 and 3 fall into the "read all of it" or "skip most of it" camp.

Re:"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[SuiteSisterMary]

I'm sorry, it's all my fault. CSB inbound:

Several years back, I took my wife to a signing for Feast for Crows at the (now gone) World's Biggest Bookstore in Toronto.

The info said he'd sign anything he'd written, and I happened to have the first Wild Cards volume, so I grabbed it and off we went.

Well, when we got to the table, he seemed surprised to see it, and said something like 'Ah, that takes me back.'

A month later, he announced a ton of new Wild Cards stuff. So I think it might be my fault. Sorry.

Re:"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[wisnoskij]

The best thing to happen to the Wheel of Time series was Robert Jordan's death.

Re:"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[I'm New Around Here]

I read up to book 4 or 5 as they came out. Then didn't have the time or patience to wait for the next. Recently I picked up book 3 at Goodwill just to read it and reminisce. It was still a fun read. But I don't plan to read the whole series until I have a lot of time on hand.

Re:"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[Smauler]

I read all the Wheel of Time books until about 7 or 8, after which I lost interest. However, I've currently nearly finished listening to the total series on audiobook (half way through a memory of light). It's 19 days, 5 hrs, 25min long, so if anyone spoils the end for me now, I may well be a little pissed off.

No, I won't be reading any replies to this comment.

Re:"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[Anonymous Coward]

Rand dies.

Re:"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[Anonymous Coward]

He dies at the end.

Not a spoiler, that's pretty much been a given from the first book.

Re:"GRR Martin is not your bitch"

[Kevin Stevens]

I really asked myself why I was even bothering with the series when I decided I was just going to read online chapter summaries for books 7-10, and even then I found the pace to be glacially slow.

Stop working on the compilations, companions...

[Anonymous Coward]

unrelated series, atlases, encyclopedia, etc. and finish the damn thing!

just like him...

[Tumbleweed]

Killing off hope now, instead of just characters. Well played, sir, well played.

While you're waiting, it's time for merchandising

[fustakrakich]

T-shirts and action figures. Keep them in the box, and your grandkids might get something for them on eBay.

Wiill

[Iniamyen]

Wiill it be on Wii?

Is that a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the fact he's juggling 10+ plot points a sure sign he hasn't out Tolkiened Tolkien?

None of Tolkien's plotlines were extraneous they all had a member of the fellowship or Sauron himself

For me ASOIF is a sprawling out of control mess: Greyjoy overload.

Obligatory Axis of Awesome...

[Anonymous Coward]

Rage of Thrones... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CLCOvZOh1o

Dunk & Egg FTW

[Culture20]

Hedge Knight stands a head taller than Martin's other works.

What slowly making steaming piles of shit?

[Sycraft-fu]

Because sorry, but that's really what they've become. If each was a masterpiece like the original book, I'd be all on board. However they aren't. They are a mess of characters nobody cares about.

It will never be finished

[Anonymous Coward]

He seems to relish procrastination. In the mean time he's appearing at fanshows, is working on other books that use old material. Anything to keep him from finishing his work. He will be known in history as the writer that didn't finish his books because he simply didn't want to.

Re:It will never be finished

[tylersoze]

His main problem is that he has said the only time he *ever* does any writing is when he is at home, so do the math on how many days out of the year he's actually been working on anything minus all the other ancillary stuff he's been writing.

GRRM shouldve hired coauthors

[globaljustin]

GRRM should have hired a co-writer as soon as HBO picked up Game of Thrones for its second season.

At that point, there's no way he could have not known that the show would overtake him.

He let his fans down.

He's a hack writer who did a good job world-building but has no talent to finish it as a story.

I'm happy for him in the sense that he was a working writer who got rich...good for him as it goes...but we have to stop pretending he's a good writer if his behavior is to be understood.

But imho, he's more than just a hack who made good...he should have known better than to let his fans down like this...he should have hired some help.

Re:GRRM shouldve hired coauthors

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, and I wouldn't be surprised if the show's producers leaned on him to hire a co-writer. I sure he could have picked someone really good. Now I think that Weiss and Benioff will just push forward on their own.

Re:GRRM shouldve hired coauthors

[Anonymous Coward]

His writing makes him a good or bad writer. His taking a long time between books is utterly irrelevant to whether his writing is good or not.

This should be obvious to anybody with a modicum of intelligence. Now Im not going to call you a retard, but am very very tempted to do so.

Re:GRRM shouldve hired coauthors

[Maxo-Texas]

Harsh and really unrealistic.

I enjoy the series- not a fanboy. It's a big book series. I doubt that anything you do in your life will approach this size of work.

It's comments like this that drive creators to away.

But creators should be aware that there are probably a thousand patient fans enjoying the work for every bitter unrealistic comment. And there's always at least one person who will spit in your face even when you try to give them a 20 dollar bill.

I hope he finishes the series. He owes us nothing.

Re:GRRM shouldve hired coauthors

[jecblackpepper]

I would agree with you if each book was a stand alone. However, he's writing the story as a series of books. A writer who doesn't finish the story is not a good writer. I think ultimately we'll be able to decide whether the series as a whole is good is only when the series is finished.

Looking at the individual books, the first few we excellent and why the series has the good reputation that it has, but they had something in common, they each had a beginning, middle and end within the context of the overall arc. Where I think things have gone downhill is that he hasn't yet finished the book that started in Feast and continued in Dance. Originally this was intended as one book. First he split it into into Feast and Dance, and then when the TV series was launched, he had to deliver Dance so that it could be published that summer. He hadn't finished it in time, so had to leave off the ending deferring it to The Winds of Winter. So one could argue that he's not actually published a finished book in the series for fifteen years and counting.

He better not Pull a Jordan

[germansausage]

If he dies before finishing the series, I swear, by all that is holy and all that is not, that I will find his soul wherever it lands and drag him back to this vale of tears. And then, when his undead shade has finished the series I will kill him myself for being such a dick.

Re:He better not Pull a Jordan

[Anonymous Coward]

With that sort of an attitude you could finish the series yourself.

Re:He better not Pull a Jordan

[Anonymous Coward]

Brandon Sanderson was the best thing that ever happened to Wheel of Time.

Re:He better not Pull a Jordan

[Ramze]

I hear the ending has The Others win, all the main characters die -- and the white walkers reanimate Joffrey's corpse so he can rule as the Litch King of Westeros!

But, it's all written from Hodor's perspective.

Hodor. Hodor hodor hodor. Hodor!

Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Snore.

For the record.

[Virtucon]

I just hope it's not full of penises and contrived dragons that will show up eventually. I'm not sure why people think his shit doesn't stink because this guy is a hack.

Re:For the record.

[buckfeta2014]

I think South Park hit the nail on the head on how I feel about this entire series. Yawn.

Re:For the record.

[Mahldcat]

...Or just pulling something out of thin air at the last second to meet some publisher deadline (like the Eragon series)?

Re: For the record.

[Anonymous Coward]

Weiner weiner floppy weiner weiner floppy

Which he needn't do

[Sycraft-fu]

If you choose not to use the tools available, well don't expect anyone to have sympathy for you or marvel at how hard you had it. You've only yourself to blame. When I wish to mount something in my house I get out a laser level, cordless electric drill with titanium bits, and so on. As such things get put up easily, quickly, and dead level. You could do the same with a rock and sharpened metal pieces, but don't expect me to be impressed with how long it took you or the problems with the results. You could use modern tools, if you chose.

Re:Which he needn't do

[jimbo]

I haven't seen him complain. In fact he seems perfectly happy with his method and pace, as is his right. Everybody constantly asking to the fate of the series if he croaks does seem a bit distasteful.

I do believe he has an assistant who could be interfacing to any number of laser levels, or not.

Re:He writes.......

[I'm New Around Here]

You need to stop sneaking into your grandmother's closet.

These novels do take a lot of effort to write

[Anonymous Coward]

And Tyrion dies in the third chapter of Book 4.

On the brighter side of things

[dysmal]

That's one more year before a Stark dies!

What Neil Gaiman said about GoT future

[billstewart]

@NeilHimself wrote a nice, sensitive blog post about the position writers are in with their stories and their lives, but the tl;dr punch line is (rot13 for spoiler) Trbetr E.E. Znegva vf abg lbhe ovgpu.

Re:What Neil Gaiman said about GoT future

[ultranova]

The problem is, NG's only partially right. Yes, it's also unreasonable to expect the author to dedicate every waking moment for years - perhaps even decades - of his life to finishing the work on schedule, much less a schedule that exists only on reader's minds. But it's also unreasonable to start releasing a series, start dragging your feet halfway through, and act surprised when the readers treat that as a betrayal. It is; the "to be continued" on the first book is why publishers and readers both tolerated the plot being unfinished and helped drive sales for the next book.

The author is not the reader's bitch, but neither does he get to make a deal, pocket the payoff, fail to deliver his end of the bargain and then act like people vilifying him for that are treating him as one. They aren't, they're treating him as a fraud.

Gaiman simply wants the best of both worlds for the author: the ability to start selling a long work before it's finished, and the freedom to bail out anytime without getting any flak. That's unreasonable, and not going to happen, because at the end of the day, the readers aren't author's bitches, either.

Re:What Neil Gaiman said about GoT future

[Anonymous Coward]

His wifey wants free music (for her, but not for us).

Re:What Neil Gaiman said about GoT future

[Bugamn]

Ohg ur vf Wbua Ebzreb'f

Re:What Neil Gaiman said about GoT future

[canadian_right]

And how could any reasonable person see it as a betrayal that an author is taking a while, or years, to complete a book? He isn't painting a house, or some other rote, mechanical task - he's writing. Writing can't be forced if you want good work.

Publishing a book isn't some sort of implied contract to keep writing at a pace that will keep all fans happy. The author owes nothing to his fans. It is supremely self centered to think buying a book makes the author owe you anything.

he should finish it.

[Karmashock]

People have been waiting for it for a long time now.

Re:he should finish it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think maybe some good advice for him is that he should try to write a little bit each day, maybe with some days off now and then, so that it gets done. Really, he needs to put words down, in order, one after the other. So I think that's what he should do. Then when he gets to the end, he should stop.

Or maybe he should stop wasting time writing so much, and finish the book. It's really what he should do, as a writer.

The Series

[tylersoze]

Honestly, after the slog that was the last two books, I'd be happy to just consider the series the "canonical" version. I've really like all the adaptation choices they've made so far (except for Lady Stoneheart). The upcoming seasons looks like they're getting rid of a lot of tediousness, unnecessary plot lines of the last two books and making a more enjoyable story. It's kind of sad when the best way to improve on the source material is to cut stuff out. Dude needed a serious editor on those last two. The Aegon plot thread has to be the most egregious plot padding I've ever encountered.

The funny thing is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Many many years ago I remember seeing Martin talk at a convention and make fun of the sort of writer that he's become. Now he's too full of his writing to actually bother to write.

It's never going to be on any publishing schedule.

[Yeeshkul]

A Dance with Dragons wasn't on the schedule when it was published in 2011 and my guess is it's going to be the same for The Winds of Winter. Not that I'm hopeful that it will be out this year, but they're not going to break the news by lumping it in with the rest of their books to be published throughout the year.

The Armageddon Rag...

[BeCre8iv]

R.Rs' contemporary(ish) novel is the best thing he wrote. Evr!

Better done right...

[Anonymous Coward]

...than a rush job. I want the next one too, but Jesus guys. Take your time George.

Renewing My Vow

[Anonymous Coward]

To never, ever start a book series until it is completed.

2/3 series I have ever read and enjoyed ended with the author's death leaving major cliff hangers (or worse, hacks coming in an "finishing" them).

I'm looking at you KJA. Burn in hell.

Re:Renewing My Vow

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep on thinking and living. While you're at that, imagine thinking and writing a story that other people will want to read.
Have fun with that.

Daenerys Targaryen

[Anonymous Coward]

Searching this thread long after its stale:

I'm disappointed: no mention of Daenerys

For the record.

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed it is mediocre schizophrenic fantasy pulp, but apparently this is what the most common denominator wants these days. Alas, we can't forbid them this trivial culture and literature eroding trash.

Typos

[rbanzai]

Typo in the tagline (Fransico) and the first sentence of the article (WInter.) Web journalism at its finest.

Why do I see

[wringles]

a new "Method for Madness" in the writing (or more precisely, not writing)?

from the generalissimo-fransico-franco .. dept?

[Saija]

Hey
The name of the 'Generalísimo' was Francisco not Fransico...

George Martin Doesn't Want To Write/Finish

[Anonymous Coward]

If writing WoW was important to him he would have done it already. It's been YEARS. I mean it's pretty obvious if you follow what he does with his time. He fills it with needless distractions. He clearly would rather do all those other things than actually write.

Re:George Martin Doesn't Want To Write/Finish

[deek]

Feels the same with me and housework. I guess I can sympathise with him.

Gee...What a HUGE Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the series will finish without him. I assume he'll map out the character development and complete the story with the studios (He is probably contractually obligated to do so), but I don't see him finishing the books.

Also, the story is great, but the editing is AWFUL. The books are so large, I assume, because editors are either too lazy, or too timid to cut (or he delivers the books so late that they don't have a chance for anything more than a cursory grammar edit).

Chtorr

[AJWM]

Hell, I'm still waiting for David Gerrold to release the next in his "War Against the Chtorr" series. The volumes are almost as thick as Martin's, and I don't think he's released one this century. (And I still haven't read the final volume in Tubb's "Dumarest" series, which DelRey dropped with like two volumes left to go. It's now available on ebook, some thirty years later.)

That said, as a writer myself I understand some of the problems in writing a series (one where there's an overarching storyline and character development, rather than just a series of episodes with the same characters and setting.) But yes, in beginning a series you're making a promise to the reader, and the more readers you have, you start to lose the excuses that the publisher dropped the series or that you couldn't quit your day job to write full time.

Wake me up if it ever finishes

[hawk]

I last read one several years ago, which was pretty much a side trip.

I'm not bothering again until his series actually has an end.

So if that ever happens, wake me up . . .

hawk

bad writing not a function of time

[globaljustin]

His taking a long time between books is utterly irrelevant to whether his writing is good or not.

you said this, not me

i did not say GRRM's writing was "not good"....I said he is a hack.

alot of people have good imaginations and GRRM does that no doubt, but to be an actual storyteller is a different kind of talent

GRRM is a ****hack storyteller**** who uses shopworn storytelling devices and trite interpersonal conflicts and moves the goalposts as he writes

that's why his writing is bad...

getting help isn't harsh

[globaljustin]

what's harsh and unrealistic about GRRM hiring a co-writer because he got in over his head?

GRRM is out of his league...his only option was to hire help.

It doesn't matter at all to this discussion whether yo *think* he owes you anything or not.

I'm not talking about the question "Does GRRM owe Maxo-Texas anything?"

i'm talking the question of "What could GRRM have done to salvage his books after he wrote himself into a corner?"

I'll save you all a little time...

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens in Winds of Winter?

1) Everybody eats. A whole lot. Over and over again. And you'll hear all about it

2) We are introduced to about six dozen new characters, mostly ham-fisted men with their massive-teated wives

3) Characters walk and talk about their families more than the Hallmark Channel reboot of West Wing

4) Everyone keeps saying "something is going to happen" and then nothing does

5) Tyrion Lannister strangles a bitch or two

Re:I'll save you all a little time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cersei and Jamie fuck on top of his corpse.
Sam finishes up his degree while dealing with intricate political plots in the citadel.
We learn all about the entire Greyjoy family linage going back at least two thousand years.
Cersei gets drunk and rapes her maids and curses imps and Tyrells.
Ramsay tortures some whores.
Davos spends the entire book en route to that island, meeting many people that we are supposed to remember from years ago.
More warging.
The inn at the crossroads is attacked again.
Varys and Theon meet and have hot eunuch sex.
The Rains of Castamere.
A detailed account of the comings and goings in all of Dorne.
WHERE ARE MY DRAGONS?
Tyrion drifting about aimlessly.
Littlefinger fingers Sansa a little.
Arya trains some more.
Jon fills out Night's Watch TPS reports.
The Others finally admit that they really just aren't interested in going south and continue keeping mostly to themselves where ever the fuck they are.
Winter lingers on for a bit more.

George Martin

[Anonymous Coward]

There... I said it.

Winter is NOT coming.

[Anonymous Coward]

(The Winds of) Winter is NOT coming this year, then.