OT: A Song of Ice and Fire Series (spoilers inside)

[Galaril]

Wow, I was searching for an another thread and saw this one and was shocked to see there hasn't been a post on the book in months. I guess that is becuse there is little news on the next book. I just checked the authors site and he has like 25 blog posts in the last 5 weeks and not one mention of the next book or any work. I am now of the mind he will be lucky to finish the next book let alone the series books left (3-4?) I am now see why people have accused him of being indifferent to his fans and it seems to me kind of takes them for granted in his writing. I may buy the next book he writes and I am think of this and not.

[DaddyTorgo]

it's frustrating. that being said, if he finishes it i'll have no complaints really. but idk

[Edward64]

Unlike Frank Herbert, I don't think he has a son to carry on!

I've gotten to the point of 'it'll come when it's ready' and not worry about it. I have started collecting the hardcover versions, so I'll be p*ssed if its not completed.

[Senator]

My mother in law bought me all the books in hardcover and first edition. Looks good in my library, but if I had to sit down and tell you details about the thousands of pages I read - I am not sure I could remember much.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Wow, I was searching for an another thread and saw this one and was shocked to see there hasn't been a post on the book in months. I guess that is becuse there is little news on the next book. I just checked the authors site and he has like 25 blog posts in the last 5 weeks and not one mention of the next book or any work. I am now of the mind he will be lucky to finish the next book let alone the series books left (3-4?) I am now see why people have accused him of being indifferent to his fans and it seems to me kind of takes them for granted in his writing. I may buy the next book he writes and I am think of this and not.

I'm telling you; it really does look like he's completely lost interest. I've speculated that he really doesn't care so much about the series since Storm of Swords.

[DaddyTorgo]

yeah - i think he has lost a large degree of interest in the series too.

[Chief Rum]

Well, I am sure that will make for great writing.

[Fidatelo]

I'm the same way; I always go gangbusters on something for awhile, then lose steam half-way in. Only difference is, I don't generally sell my something to a few million folks. Generally.

[Galaril]

On thing I am wondering with the HBO gig a go you would think he would be more professional vested in tryin to wrap it up since I am sure they will want a finish to the story incase they decide to keep it going . Though I doubt it will go more than a season or two like "Rome" and Deadwood".

[JAG]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I'm telling you; it really does look like he's completely lost interest. I've speculated that he really doesn't care so much about the series since Storm of Swords.

I think he's so caught up in making it perfect that it makes it much more like work than any of the other projects he is involved with. I mean, didn't he talk about spending 3 years or some ludicrous amount of time working out one Bran chapter?

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JAG

I think he's so caught up in making it perfect that it makes it much more like work than any of the other projects he is involved with. I mean, didn't he talk about spending 3 years or some ludicrous amount of time working out one Bran chapter?

I think it's a combination of the two. He's so focused on making it perfect that he's paralyzed into inaction.

[flere-imsaho]

I don't think he's lost interest so much as he's created a monster (a highly-detailed multi-volume epic) and churning out each new book is considerably more "work" than "fun". Actually, maybe that's the definition of losing interest. Nevermind.

Edit: What DT said. I know that happened to me when writing my thesis.

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

churning out each new book is considerably more "work" than "fun".

That's clearly the case.

He's not lost the desire to write - he's put out short stories and wild cards stuff. He seems to have lost the desire to write Song of Ice and Fire. Some of his blog comments definitely refer to ASoIaF as something he "has" to get back to.

[DaddyTorgo]

It's a shame really. If he'd kept it tighter/more manageable then this likely wouldn't have happened.

Maybe it's the way he has to write, but it's also in some respect somewhat selfish I guess hmm?

[Honolulu_Blue]

These are my thoughts (from earleir in the thread) on the reasons for the delay. I still think this is what's happening.

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

It's pretty clear Martin is having a hard time tying all of his threads together and getting things moving again. "Storm" was a natural breaking point for a lot of what the first three books had set up. While there were still dozens of threads hanging, many were tied up.

He struggle mightily with "Feast" and since "Dance" is pretty much 1/2 of "Feast", I can see where he's having similar problems. "Feast" was all about setting up the pieces all over again. I imagine "Dance" will be more of the same, but zeroing in on the North and Dany as opposed to the Kingslanding, Dorne, and the Iron Men.

I think he had to go back and re-write a lot of what he thought he'd done. Remember, his initial plan following "Storm" was to have the next book start 4-5 years later. I'd imagine his decision to pick things up right after "Storm" changed things considerably.

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

It certainly could be boredom, but I think it's just a case of something that's become difficult. If I'm at work and have a long, difficult project that I know will take a lot of energy and time to finish, I much more apt to turn to smaller, less important and less difficult things in an effort to remain productive while putting off the challenge.

Martin has never had anything near this big. This is his magnum opus. The pressure has to be intense.

I am currently listening to "A Game of Thrones" on my iPod. I think this makes it my 5th time around for this book. I never really get bored with it and it's something to listen to while I'm walking the dog, washing the dishes, picking up dog crap, exercising, etc. Since my mind is apt to wander, listening to "new" material is often difficult.

I hope he's able to resolve his issues and finish the series.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

I don't think he's lost interest so much as he's created a monster (a highly-detailed multi-volume epic) and churning out each new book is considerably more "work" than "fun". Actually, maybe that's the definition of losing interest. Nevermind.

Yeah, I was about to say, isn't that the same thing . Thinking a series is more work than fun seems to me to a clear case of losing interest.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

These are my thoughts (from earleir in the thread) on the reasons for the delay. I still think this is what's happening.





I am currently listening to "A Game of Thrones" on my iPod. I think this makes it my 5th time around for this book. I never really get bored with it and it's something to listen to while I'm walking the dog, washing the dishes, picking up dog crap, exercising, etc. Since my mind is apt to wander, listening to "new" material is often difficult.

I hope he's able to resolve his issues and finish the series.

it's your pup who is named after who...aemon...right?

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

it's your pup who is named after who...aemon...right?

Good memory!

He's actually named after Aegon. My parents and I both went to the shelter together to adopt a dog. My wife and I originally were going to name our dog "Frodo", but parents ended up adopting a dog with the name "Duncan" and decided to keep his name. So, since they had a "Dunk", we decided to adopt an "Egg" (The shelter had named him Dakota.)

We considered trying to stick wtih Targaryen names for all of our future dogs, but after this one's temperment, we think we may try for something a little tamer like "Samwell" or something along those lines. He's a great dog, but like many Targaryen's he's got a touch of the madness in him.

I believe ReneR's kid is named after Aemon.

[DaddyTorgo]

bah. i was close!

I knew there were 2 people with names derived from the series in their lives - hopefully RendeR and Telle don't hurt me for thinking their kid's name was your dog's name - thus implying his kid is a dog.

Jeebus - why would you name your dog after the conqueror and expect him to be mild-mannered and kind? I'd save that name for a pitbull or a mastiff.

[flounder]

He should take a cue from JK Rowling and just finish the thing, even if objectively the last few books aren't as good as the first few. As long as they are reasonably satisfying, the series will have been a success.

[DaddyTorgo]

yeah, because if he doesn't finish i dunno bout anyone else, but i'm going to be more "meh" about the whole thing

[Samdari]

GRRM updated his blog yesterday, with a post explaining why there would not be an update, followed by an update longer than any yet.

Not A Blog - A Dance With Dragons

The short answer: For the third (fourth?) consecutive year, he expects to have it done this summer and published in the fall.

Long answer: excuses, yada, yada.

[Honolulu_Blue]

It'll get done when it gets done.

[ISiddiqui]

LOL! What a clusterfuck.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

LOL! What a clusterfuck.

I agree. I feel bad for him. Writing these books clearly can't be an enjoyable experience for him anymore. Whoever these assholes are who decide to take time out of their day to send him a nasty email or post a nasty message on his blog are absolute losers and really aren't helping anyone with anything. It's got to be frustrating.

[ISiddiqui]

I was refering to the clusterfuck of his constantly evolving "release date".

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I was refering to the clusterfuck of his constantly evolving "release date".

That, indeed, is a clusterfuck.

[path12]

I'm about halfway through the third book (Storm of Swords?). Had to put it down because I was just getting tired of the whole Ser and lady mother and the "new/old" chivalry stuff -- or it might also have been that the Bran and Catelyn threads were really not doing much for me.

I'll get back to it (this happens to me in many series) but I'm also wondering if it's worth the payoff. I would really like to find out what happens with Dany and Tyrion though.....

[ISiddiqui]

Wow.... Storm of Swords is one of the best books I've ever read in the fantasy genre. At least finish that!

[path12]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Wow.... Storm of Swords is one of the best books I've ever read in the fantasy genre. At least finish that!

Oh, I will. It may also have been a by-product of reading the first two and a half pretty much straight through.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I agree. I feel bad for him. Writing these books clearly can't be an enjoyable experience for him anymore.

I don't feel sorry for him anymore, I feel sorry for his fans ... He had time to write, co-author other novels, short stories, travel, have seminars, watch football games etc. (and I'm sure there are other distractions).

He needs to suck it up and get it done (or have a co-author that can help him along). I am tired of his excuses.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Edward64

I don't feel sorry for him anymore, I feel sorry for his fans ... He had time to write, co-author other novels, short stories, travel, have seminars, watch football games etc. (and I'm sure there are other distractions).

He needs to suck it up and get it done (or have a co-author that can help him along). I am tired of his excuses.

Yup, my felligns exactly. He really somes off as a premadonna with all his whinning. I also say suck it up "you were the one who decided to be a writer" I only wish I could ignore deadlines on my projects for years and get away with it. His publisher's must be dumb asses. I will say chances are excellent he get off his ass and finishes it fast since with the recession in full force there aren't any more free lunches and his must be a sizable one going 4-6 years. Unfortunately that still leaves three more books ughhh

[DaddyTorgo]

I'm almost at the point where I'd say I will literally eat my hat if the series ever gets finished. which is a crying shame.

[Shkspr]

O fickle Interwebs, how vicious you are to your little darlings!

[bronconick]

Well, Stephen King had two six year gaps and a 5 year gap in writing the Dark Tower series, but he also wrote other things.

The thing is that AFFC ends with that damned authors note that made it sound like the next book just needed a bit of polishing since he had already written "so much that it couldn't possibly fit into one volume."

He ought to just shovel some sort of unsatisfying series ending into the vaporware he calls the next book, because it's painfully obvious he's not interested anymore.

At least then people will get off his back about writing something he doesn't want to do, and he can go back to traveling the world and what not with all his money.

[Grammaticus]

Don't get me wrong here, I want to see the series complete as much as the next person. But, I think Martin should just post on his website that he will get it done when he wants too and anybody who doesn't like it can go pound sand. It is not like he needs the money. He ain't no little boy blue.

[Senator]

Which happens first -

A Dance of Dragons or a sports release by Jim Gindin?

[OldGiants]

Robert Jordan dragged his series out to the point where he died before he could finish it.

Martin is risking that now.

Only Terry Goodkind has whipped his horses home on time in the multi-volume Fantasy tome market this century.

[path12]

Originally Posted by Shkspr

O fickle Interwebs, how vicious you are to your little darlings!

Yet again, Shkspr wins the thread. Now where the fuck is that sequel for Romeo and Juliet?

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by bronconick

The thing is that AFFC ends with that damned authors note that made it sound like the next book just needed a bit of polishing since he had already written "so much that it couldn't possibly fit into one volume."

That's probably the main problem. He basically had all these overoptimistic predictions for when the next book was going to come out and then wizzed right by them to set another overoptimistic prediction before he said "it's done when its done".

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by OldGiants

Robert Jordan dragged his series out to the point where he died before he could finish it.

Martin is risking that now.

Only Terry Goodkind has whipped his horses home on time in the multi-volume Fantasy tome market this century.

Too bad Goodkind's tales pale in comparison to Jordan's and Martin's.

I'm a bit annoyed that Martin has done other writing, but not this. He just needs to push through and do the hard work. Which ain't all that easy while enjoying a pretty remarkable success.

[Shkspr]

Originally Posted by path12

Now where the fuck is that sequel for Romeo and Juliet?

Can't talk; too busy firing my lawyers over some lapsed IP management.

[MrBug708]

Since we are on the subject of book series to read, does nayone have a good series to read? Or suggestions at least? I loved ASOIAF and just finished the first book of Terry Goodkind, but it's not really what I'm looking for. I enjoyed it enough, but I'm looking for a book series with a bit less magic around it (not devoid of it), does anyone have any suggestions? Wheel of Time didn't seem to appeal to me for whatever reason

[Shkspr]

Other names close to Martin on the spectrum include Steven Erikson, Robin Hobb, Tad Williams, Glen Cook, and Gene Wolfe.

Erikson's work is comparably epic in scope, Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series gets good ink, Cook has both the Black Company series that shares the nihilism of ASOIAF, and the Garrett, PI series which plays with genre conventions the way Martin's other work does. Hobb is a cozier fantasy writer, but shares a hefty overlap in fans with Martin, and Gene Wolfe is just the most literary, maddening, rewarding fantasy writer extant.

[sachmo71]

interesting essay by John Scalzi, author of the Old Man's War series, about "Pissy Fans", relating specifically to Martin.

Clips: Doomsday Strikes DC Universe Online

My attention has been drawn to George RR Martin’s recent posting on his LiveJournal, in which he notes that some of his fans have begun to get testy that Dance With Dragons, the next installment of his fantasy series, is not already on their table to be read, and that they think he’s spending too much time doing other projects, or traveling to various places, or watching football, or sleeping, or whatever. His response was to quote Ricky Nelson at them, which, aside from probably confusing the substantial chunk of his fans whose only aquaintance with Nelson might be a vague recollection of the musical twin terrors his sons turned out to be, is also ironic because Nelson died relatively young, leaving fans who were hoping for a comeback well in the lurch.

But that wasn’t GRRM’s point; the Nelson song GRRM was pointing to was “Garden Party,” which was Nelson’s reaction to pissy fans who were upset that he was doing things he was interested in, not things they were interested in. The relevant quote in the song is this one: “you can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself.” There is irony in that the song, in which Nelson basically told his fans to piss off, became one of his biggest hits. But never mind that.

What you should mind is the fact Nelson was right, and GRRM was right to quote him. Some fans do have a tendency to forget that the creative folks they love are not simply black boxes, who produce desired product at regular intervals. They’re actually real people who do other things than just what the fans want them to do, because humans from time to time want to do the things they want to do, not the things other people want them to do. Yes, some fans don’t like that, but you know what, screw the type of fan who thinks a writer (or musician, or actor, or whatever) exists only to provide them with the entertainment of their choosing.

I’ll go personal here and talk about my own experience. As most of you know, the books in my Old Man’s War series are my most popular ones; each of the four novels have done very well and even the shorter works are pretty popular. There are people who would be delighted if all I did was write OMW universe books from now until the hopefully long-future date at which I drop. But thing is, at the moment, I have no plans to write any more OMW books. It’s not to say I never will, if I figure out what I want to do with that universe from here. I expect I may. But at the moment: Nope. I’ve got other things I’m working on which at the moment interest me more.

Now, I know this annoys some people — my matrix of ego-surfing search engines alerts me to many incidents of fan entitlement, particularly as regards the OMW universe — but I don’t think they understand what they’re asking for. Yes, I could write OMW #5 at the moment, but I guarantee it would suck, because at the moment I don’t know what I would write about, and thus OMW #5 would simply be a bit of commercial hackery, and it would show. And these same fans would say “Yeah, the series used to be good, but then he started phoning it in around book five.” You know, if I’m going to annoy a fan, I’d prefer to annoy a fan by not writing a book that sucks, than by writing one that does.

Bear in mind that my success, in terms of sales and notoriety, is a notch or two down from GRRM’s; I have fans who are annoyed that I have no OMW books in the pipeline, but he has legions of fans enraged that he’s not finished with his book. And I guess my question for them is: Well, do you want the book now, or do you want the book that GRRM is happy with? I suppose we could shove GRRM into a room with a word processor and put him on the Brian Wilson diet, in which we all give him a cheeseburger only after he’s completed a new chapter, but the book you’d get isn’t the book those fans would want.

I don’t want to hazard guessing how GRRM does his creative thing, but I’ll say this: The reason GRRM’s series is so damn popular is because he’s created this immense, complex world strewn with characters readers love to follow. When you do this, it doesn’t get easier building on it, it gets harder, especially if you’re trying to maintain quality control. This isn’t like a television series (or their literary spinoffs), where you have several writers working in the universe sharing the load; it all comes down to this single guy, pulling it all out of a single brain.

Seriously, people, WTF? Give the man a friggin’ break. Yes, it’s taking a while. Yes, he’s doing other things. But I assume it’s taking time because GRRM believes it’s worth getting right, and I assume he’s doing other things because he wants to stay sane. Let the guy do what he needs to do to make himself happy, and happy with the writing. You’ll benefit from a book that you’ll actually want to read, as opposed to a book that is simply there to have.

All of this comes around again to the question of what authors owe their readers. My opinion on this is that what authors owe their readers is that when their book comes out, it is, in the estimation of the author, as good as the author can make it. Everything else — how much time it takes, what else the author is doing with his time, so on and so forth — is neither here nor there. Now, certainly some fans may think differently about that. But they’re not writing the book. It’s a subtle yet telling difference, there.

[ISiddiqui]

OTOH, a lot of the fans are pissy because they are basically making their frustrations known as they lose more and more interest in the series. It's basically a reminder to GRRM that he's losing fans the more delays occur.

[OldGiants]

Originally Posted by Glengoyne

Too bad Goodkind's tales pale in comparison to Jordan's and Martin's.

I disagree. I enjoyed Goodkind much more than Jordan (I could go on for several paragraphs mocking Jordan's style and plot regurgitations). Martin's story is about as good, but until he finishes it, we don't know if he is capable of bringing about an ending as fine as Goodkind's.

[molson]

I wish fans wouldn't get all pissy about stuff like that, because it certainly justifies the decisions of Jim G and others to not release any info about what they're working on.

So often the pissy fans say stuff like, "they shouldn't say anything if they can't keep deadlines". I never understood. Why wouldn't you rather have tentative news than no news? Are your feelings hurt when there's a delay? Did you put aside $30 for a book and deprive yourself of something else?

I can understand frustrations with delays - but would you really rather 4 years of silence, not knowing if he's even working on another book? Would that really be better for sales? That's so contrary to everything the entertainment industry does. They want to you know what's going on, what's coming.

I think people's emotions get the best of them. They feel "cheated", as if they're owed something, and they lash out. I mean, if you don't want news about delays, its pretty easy to avoid his blog.

[DaddyTorgo]

i get fuckin ANXIOUS everytime someone bumps this thread. Not in a good way either.

[Shkspr]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

OTOH, a lot of the fans are pissy because they are basically making their frustrations known as they lose more and more interest in the series. It's basically a reminder to GRRM that he's losing fans the more delays occur.

That's really a load of horseshit, though. People are sheep and they'll all come back when the book is published.