George R R Martin unhappy again

[Famous Mortimer]

https://www.avclub.com/george-r-r-martin-winds-of-winter-sorry-for-house-of-d-1848638663

I feel like this argument comes from a simpler time. I'm not sure that there are that many people who expect GRRM to finish A Song Of Ice And Fire, and even fewer who expect to enjoy it. I feel like if he'd not spent so much time over the years giving people sample chapters, or saying it was a few months from completion, then there'd be less expectation. Like he's created a rod for his own back.

My favourite theory is that the story ends pretty much the same way the show does, and he got a good dose of reality from the response to that, so is either uninterested in publishing what he knows will be savaged, or is occasionally trying to work out a slightly better ending. But there are plenty of others.

It's been fun to revisit those arguments for a few minutes, though. Took me back to the days before Trump and COVID.

[Alberon]

He did tell the showrunners how the books ended, but the problem people had with it was less where the characters were at the end of it and more how few of those endings were 'earned'.

The last two seasons went massively off the rails as the show lost the framework of the already published novels. I don't mind Bran being king, or Daenerys going tonto (the hints to the latter are bleedingly obvious in both the novels and the show) but the show rammed three full seasons into two shortened ones and buggered the whole thing up.

I have a feeling the penultimate book is going to be a long one, and no, he won't finish the last.

[13 schoolyards]

I suspect that if he dies even five pages from the end, someone else is going to be hired five minutes later to punch out a trilogy (or more) to "expand on his notes" or whatever

[SweetPomPom]

I think he's done. His heads been turned and he now has an easy, fairly risk free career putting his name on stuff without actually ever having to do anything himself.
He was already treading water and world building instead of story telling long  before the tv stuff kicked off.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

I sympathise a bit with him, it must feel like "oh well the TV show finished the story, it's over now, bleh can't be doing with it any more".

[Alberon]

I have a feeling he's going to do an Agatha Christie and only publish the material he has written after he's dead. Christie saved the last Poirot novel for years, partly because of the ending, I believe, so she didn't have to deal with fan outrage at the twist.

[badaids]

Here's hoping that, when it's eventually published, Winds of Winter is 1000 pages of erotic bumming between Renly Baratheon and the Knight of Flowers.

[MojoJojo]

Pfffp, it's only been 3898 days since A Dance With Dragons was released. I've been waiting 4031 days for the Doors of Stone. Also, George R R Martin didn't promise to do a live reading of a chapter if fans raised a load of money for his charity. Only been waiting a few months for that though.

I wonder what it is about beardy US fantasy authors and 2011?

Meanwhile, Brandon Sanderson's publishers are hiring more staff. Again.

[Gurke and Hare]

I don't understand why the publishers let him get away with it. Why don't they say "No George, we don't want the biography of a Targaryen prince nobody's ever heard of before, we want the fucking books that anybody's going to buy"?

[Poobum]

I'm just so desperate to know what Victarion is up to. What of young Griff? Really though, I hope the issue isn't that the show ending is the same as the book ending, I'm waiting for the books for some kind of vindication for investing my passion in all the tits and dragons, and Daenerys forever padding about.

[willbo]

https://www.avclub.com/george-r-r-martin-winds-of-winter-sorry-for-house-of-d-1848638663

My favourite theory is that the story ends pretty much the same way the show does, and he got a good dose of reality from the response to that

I think that's just a silly meme personally. (1) - there's no way the novels could end like the show - there's too many different characters and plots at this point, they've diverged too much (2) I don't think GRRM cares about reactions to the show, and (3) - the complaints with the final episodes wasn't what happened, but how badly it was all rushed - I think Dany being taken over by vengeance and Jon having to oppose her, would be fine, with GRRM having 100s of pages to flesh it out, for example.

And the problem with the "he stopped caring" rhetoric is that he could easily just let some other author co-finish them if that's how he felt. I think he still clings to the series and considers it his life's work. That's the problem - he knows its what he'll be remembered for, so he can't release it until its perfect.

[Alberon]

There is a theory that he's actually deep into the final book and that he'll release both back to back, though I think that's more wishful thinking than reality.

[Famous Mortimer]

I think that's just a silly meme personally.

Eh, no sense getting too deep into an argument about it, but I'm talking broad strokes here. I'd be very surprised if GRRM's ending features anything other than a minor supporting role for anyone who's not there at the end of the show.

And...if he was that bothered about perfection, he wouldn't have released the fairly boring last couple of books in the series. I don't think he owes me anything, I don't think he's being lazy, I just don't care.

[Kankurette]

Say what you like about The Wheel of Time, at least it got an ending.

[Mr Trumpet]

In the meantime I very much enjoyed Martin's Mississippi steamboat vampire novel Fevre Dream. All the violence and wistfulness of GoT, but a complete story in one short volume.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Yeah, Fevre Dream is marvellous stuff. His 'rock apocalypse' novel, The Armageddon Rag, and his linked short story collection Tuf Voyaging are well worth getting and reading, too.

[H-O-W-L]

But what is fevre d.rem's tax policy?

[madhair60]

hope everyone who ever read one of these books shits themselves in public

[Mr Trumpet]

hope everyone who ever read one of these books shits themselves in public

Granted

[willbo]

hope everyone who ever read one of these books shits themselves in public

way ahead of ya bud

[kitsofan34]

I've been reading the books recently, am currently up to book 2.

Martin has been blogging quite consistently about the sixth book recently, most notably today.

https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2022/07/08/a-winter-garden/

It's made me feel more hopeful that he'll release the sixth book than for quite some time. Can't help bit morbidly feel even if he does finish it, he'll die before finishing the seventh. It's the same worry I have about Brian Cox and Succession.

[Mister Six]

How many books is he supposed to be doing? Seven?

[kitsofan34]

Yes, personal hunch is that he'll finish number 6 but, sorry for being morbid, die before releasing 7.

[willbo]

I always thought he'd release it about 12-15 years after "Dance". I've never been bothered about the "he'll die and it will be unfinished" stuff. He's the same age as Trump and Hilary and they were gonna be President, not just write 2 novels. And I'm sure they'll be some co-writer thing arranged if he does. He may have said he'll never allow that but then he also said he was against fan fic and he let the show be made.

[13 schoolyards]

Wasn't the story with the delays that he was really struggling with finding a way to bring everything he'd set in motion together (AKA book 6), but once he did that then everything else (book 7) was pretty much all worked out and would be relatively close behind because it was all but written already?

[Gambrinus]

Wasn't the story with the delays that he was really struggling with finding a way to bring everything he'd set in motion together (AKA book 6), but once he did that then everything else (book 7) was pretty much all worked out and would be relatively close behind because it was all but written already?

I'm not optimistic.

Started these in 2005, after my mate was banging on about them. I picked up the first one from a secondhand bookshop for a 5 hour train journey and was hooked. Finished the first three just as Feast For Crows came out, and since then it's been slim pickings.

I'm not expecting them to be finished.

[touchingcloth]

It should be ILLEGAL to not finish a book so the authors should write the whole Game of Discworld of Time before they release the first one or else get SUE.

I've never read Game of the Rings.

[BritishHobo]

That blog post just feels like him saying "I know everyone hates the show now, must distance myself from it". A naively optimistic person, a hopeless dreamer idiot (ME!), could read that as him being nearly finished and so beginning to think for the first time beyond the writing to the publication and reception stage. Still be another decade though won't it.

[Alberon]

I'm still convinced he'll be writing and tinkering with the last two volumes for the rest of his life.

It's got too big for him to deal with the reception the last two books will get as there is always going to be large groups that hate it.

[Kankurette]

He should just do a Robert Jordan and give a load of notes to Brandon Sanderson.