George R R Martin and "The Winds Of Winter"

[Famous Mortimer]

It's been so long that my time on the forum designed solely to troll him and his most ardent defenders is a long-distant memory.

https://screenrant.com/game-thrones-winds-winter-release-date-delay-martin-response/

From October 2023, but this little section caught my eye.

By 2022, ten years later, Martin confirmed the book was 75% complete, with an estimated 400 to 500 pages left to write.

It's going to be 2,000 pages? And there's still another one to go after this, by which time people born while the TV show was going will be old enough to vote, and people who read the first book when it was published will have died of old age. Or this from Reddit:

Dany entered Slaver's Bay back in November 2000.

During the Clinton administration.

Any other emotion than a shrug seems silly at the moment. However big it is and whenever it comes out, I'm unlikely to read it. He wrote himself into a corner a couple of books ago everything since then (by volume of pages, the most significant section of the series) has been dull. Not bad, particularly, just not really worth the effort of engaging with.

Perhaps this could be a nice thread of reminiscence. Remember when you actually wanted a new GRRM book? Remember fantasy casting the TV show when it was but a twinkle in HBO's eye?

[bgmnts]

Are they actually worth reading in a hypothetical scenario where he finishes them?

Never knew it existed until the TV show came out and wasn't interested in that either, but obviously they're insanely popular.

Glad I never got into now as it would have driven me insane not knowing what happened.

[13 schoolyards]

I remember enjoying Martin's Wild Cards series back when I was desperate for anything that took superheroes seriously (I probably shouldn't have wished on that monkey's paw). Guess you can't really go wrong treating fantastical ideas super-seriously no matter what the genre

[Dayraven]

It's going to be 2,000 pages?

He's most likely counting manuscript pages, which have fewer words per page than most standard book pages. You can almost halve it for an estimate of what that might amount to printed, which would still be very long but a bit more reasonable.

(Am still in the 'probably the book never gets finished' camp, though,)

[Milo]

Was one of the books told from the perspectives of characters who were a bit more on the periphery? I remember enjoying that if indeed it happened.

[Mobius]

Are they actually worth reading in a hypothetical scenario where he finishes them?

I think so. I loved the books, before the TV Show was ever thought up. I don't know if the books would feel different now, having images of all the characters/cities in your head from the show.

The books had chapters from lots of different characters POV, yeah. Some characters that don't exist in the show, some that are further along/behind/doing something quite differently to what they did in the show.

I've long since accepted he'll never finish the books, and the rubbish ending of the TV show has definitely made me care less about the whole endeavour. Shame really but I do still think the books are worth reading, even if it's never completed.

[Gladys]

Never read the Game of Thrones books but I really enjoyed his Wild Cards stories back when they came out and he's done some really good stuff besides. The Sandkings is an excellent short story and rightly keeps popping up in 'Best of' science fiction anthologies and such over the last 40 years or so since it was written.

[Mr Trumpet]

I like the books - one of those things like Star Trek that I got really into and developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of (well not really, but I could probably name most of the Houses and there are shitloads of those). Not too bothered about whether he does any more at this point, same as most people.

I liked his American Civil War paddle boat/vampire story, Fevre Dream. Showed he can write well in different styles, not just long-winded epic fantasy stuff.

[elliszeroed]

If he dies before he finishes, does he have a son to ruin the ending?

(Perhaps with the help of Kevin J Anderson...)

[Famous Mortimer]

Are they actually worth reading in a hypothetical scenario where he finishes them?

The first three books are excellent, but I presume a re-read would show the bit where GRRM switched from it being a trilogy to whatever it is now.

[BritishHobo]

It just seems like they're growing exponentially. First it was three books, then five, then seven - with the fourth and fifth so long that they had to be split into two parts when printed in paperback. I've always wondered if he got to a point of wanting to push it to eight or nine, but has been told he's pushed his luck with the main books and needs to contain it to the number he agreed to this time. Fanny about all you want with prequels and histories and side stuff, but yer main series is remaining at seven, no matter what.

[Mr Vegetables]

I like Game of Thrones quite a bit. In a strange way it feels like a better way to do historical fiction than actual historical fiction?

You don't know what's going to happen next and you don't have any idea how all the weird magical stuff works— the smug smile of hindsight is lost to you, where it isn't for things that have actually happened. You can't just laugh at everyone for not knowing the Earth goes round the sun and Henry VIII is going to have lots of wives