Martin confirms that he hasn't done s*$#

[intlzncster]

AFFC was rough, but I thought A Dance With Dragons was excellent.

Yeah, me too. Not sure why people didn't like it that much. It was a difficult book to write, for sure, but I thought it came out alright.

Martin's biggest problem is he branched out with too many characters. Erase the Iron Island chapters, and if you must include new perspectives, include only single chapter perspectives that advance the plot in an appreciable fashion.

 

[intlzncster]

Neil Gaiman says that "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch."

duckck Gaiman.

I tried to think of a bad Neil Gaiman book so I could make fun of him. He doesn't really have an true duds though.

 

[August_West]

Plus, he's showed up at every goshdarn convention on the circuit for the last 5 years. Stop watching the (sucking) Jets and pick up your pen!

I walked by him at the Grateful Dead reunion in Chicago this summer. Felt like telling him to go home and write.

 

[intlzncster]

I walked by him at the Grateful Dead reunion in Chicago this summer. Felt like telling him to go home and write.

Sorry about the Jets comment but I had to. Martin makes it worse by also pulling for the Giants. Root for one team man. And don't watch the game unless you've knocked out 50 pages that weekend.

 

[CTMike]

Think about how his earliest readers feel. I have sitting on my bookshelf the first print of the first edition of Clash of Kings. It was published in 1996. I graduated high school and started attending UConn that year. I am 37 years old now, and the guy is talking about how he tried to finish the series in a timely manner. . . . . .

I would have put money on you being twice my age... Amazing.

 

[Scalito]

I walked by him at the Grateful Dead reunion in Chicago this summer. Felt like telling him to go home and write.

I would have paid to see you do that.

 

[Scalito]

I would have put money on you being twice my age... Amazing.

Just prematurely crotchety.

 

[John]

Yeah, me too. Not sure why people didn't like it that much. It was a difficult book to write, for sure, but I thought it came out alright.

Martin's biggest problem is he branched out with too many characters. Erase the Iron Island chapters, and if you must include new perspectives, include only single chapter perspectives that advance the plot in an appreciable fashion.

I agree - too many characters and plot-lines that never went anywhere, which wasted the reader's time. He would have been much better served writing it in the style of LOTR, with tons of characters, locations, but with much more efficiency and general sense of direction.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I agree - too many characters and plot-lines that never went anywhere, which wasted the reader's time. He would have been much better served writing it in the style of LOTR, with tons of characters, locations, but with much more efficiency and general sense of direction.

The huge backstory is what makes A Song of Ice and Fire interesting. I wouldn't have gotten 100 pages into the first book if it was another straight line story of good and evil. Martin being a lazy sack of spit is an entirely different issue.

 

[Scalito]

The huge backstory is what makes A Song of Ice and Fire interesting. I wouldn't have gotten 100 pages into the first book if it was another straight line story of good and evil. Martin being a lazy sack of spit is an entirely different issue.

I agree with you about the backstory; I also agree with John and intlzncster that Martin created too many characters and plotlines. I mean, the guy added so many more different points of view that he had to split a single timeline of events into two parallel books. If you need two decent sized books to advance one timeline, you've created too many characters and lost control a bit.

Then again, all of that would be forgivable if he wasn't a lazy sack of spit and spit the books out at a higher clip.

 

[John]

I agree with you about the backstory; I also agree with John and intlzncster that Martin created too many characters and plotlines. I mean, the guy added so many more different points of view that he had to split a single timeline of events into two parallel books. If you need two decent sized books to advance one timeline, you've created too many characters and lost control a bit.

Then again, all of that would be forgivable if he wasn't a lazy sack of spit and spit the books out at a higher clip.

I like back story too - I love LOTR, and hell, that trilogy is nothing but one huge back story. But yeah - Martin just did too many different branching streams (using a river anology), whereas Tolkien did one major river, just with a lot of eddies and currents, etc. Heck, does Marin even have a river???

 

[nelsonmuntz]

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/george-r-r-martin-am-130047030.html

Sounds like Martin is feeling a little guilty that Winds of Winter is still basically just an outline after seven years.

 

[John]

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/george-r-r-martin-am-130047030.html

Sounds like Martin is feeling a little guilty that Winds of Winter is still basically just an outline after seven years.

Honestly, you think he's 400 lbs? 450?

 

[intlzncster]

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/george-r-r-martin-am-130047030.html

Sounds like Martin is feeling a little guilty that Winds of Winter is still basically just an outline after seven years.

“I am not writing anything until I deliver WINDS OF WINTER. Teleplays, screenplays, short stories, introductions, forewords, nothing. And I’ve dropped all my editing projects but Wild Cards.”

Translation: I'm not doing anything else........except Wild Cards. Outside of Wild Cards, Winds will be my secondary main focus.

Honestly, he should have said (and done) this 6 years ago.

 

[mike012]

This book series is going right along with the Wheel of Time. Not sure if anyone every read that one here but it took so long the Author actually died during the process. I think it took 20+ years. I was able to finish high school, college, married with a kid, divorce , new wife in the amount of time it took that series to finish. By the end I only read it because I had invested so much time from before in it. I have a feeling this is going the same way, I think I started it in 98 or 99 with the Game of Thrones. I refuse to watch the tv show also.. I started the book I am going to finish with the book........ maybe.

 

[intlzncster]

I refuse to watch the tv show also.. I started the book I am going to finish with the book... maybe.

I'm of the same philosophy as you with this in general, but I gave in on the series for a couple reasons:

1. It's fun to be able to discuss the TV series in real time, both with people who've read the books and those who haven't. And the acting and production value is phenomenal.

2. As you say, Martin may not even finish. So I'm not waiting 10 years to watch a completed TV series.

3. The corollary to that is that a rough approximation to the ending will be out there in the cultural ether, if you will. It will be impossible for you to avoid it. So you won't really be spoiling any thing by watching the TV series.

4. It's fun. Why rob myself of fun for what is essentially a silly principle? Self imposed deprivation is not fun.

 

[Scalito]

This book series is going right along with the Wheel of Time. Not sure if anyone every read that one here but it took so long the Author actually died during the process. I think it took 20+ years. I was able to finish high school, college, married with a kid, divorce , new wife in the amount of time it took that series to finish. By the end I only read it because I had invested so much time from before in it. I have a feeling this is going the same way, I think I started it in 98 or 99 with the Game of Thrones. I refuse to watch the tv show also.. I started the book I am going to finish with the book... maybe.

First, you have the best avatar on the board.

Second, I too went through hell with Jordan's Wheel of Time and also often make the comparison.

Third, the comparison is unfair to Jordan. Jordan at least published a new book every year or two during those twenty years. He didn't finish the series, but it wasn't for lack of writing. He lost control, rather than took advantage of his fans. And when he was diagnosed with a rare disease at a relatively young age, he thought of his fans and spent his last days finishing the final chapters of the series and leaving notes and an outline for another writer to pick up and fill in the gaps. Martin is, comparatively, a big fat .

Fourth, watch the series. HBO is to Martin what Brian Sanderson is t Jordan. It's giving us closure in a manner that's faithful to the original storyline. I might not even buy the new books when they come out. Of course, I will read them. Just thinking of getting a library card in protest.

 

[Deepster]

I started reading the first book when the TV show was in between seasons 2 and 3. I realized that, book 1 followed season 1 pretty closely. Sure, I got a lot more backstory and detail into some things, but reading it just made me think back to the parts of the show where it happened. So I scrapped reading any more and just lived with the show.

Martin is now at the point where the show is going to be done waaaaaay before the books ever could. Is he going to lock himself in a room 20 hours a day, churning out pages now when it wouldn't matter and the show will give everyone "an end" before he could write one? Whether it's the same end is irrelevant, isn't it? I think he's resigned to just enjoying the cushy ride the last couple seasons of the show will afford him.

The show has made writing the end of the book something that just doesn't need to get done any time soon.

 

[Scalito]

Good point. Plus, Martin hasn't ever needed a reason not to write. It's his default position.

 

[intlzncster]

I think he's resigned to just enjoying the cushy ride the last couple seasons of the show will afford him.
The show has made writing the end of the book something that just doesn't need to get done any time soon.

This really sucks. And unfortunately, it's true.

Feel bad for the dude who's waiting dutifully for the books to be done. The over/under is 10 years, and I'd be leery of taking the under. The odds of Martin going the way of Ed Stark before that are too damn high.

 

[Scalito]

This really sucks. And unfortunately, it's true.

Feel bad for the dude who's waiting dutifully for the books to be done. The over/under is 10 years, and I'd be leery of taking the under. The odds of Martin going the way of Ed Stark before that are too damn high.

I would take the over, give you odds, and feel bad for taking advantage of you. Seriously (except for the feeling bad bit).

 

[StoweD210]

From Deadspin: Vocativ offers one plausible answer to the question of why George R.R. Martin has no pages: his furious NFL blogging. (They count 56,829 words, which is a lot of pages.)

 

[Fishy]

If I was George RR Martin and I was a) rich as f---, and b) constantly dealing with whining fans, I wouldn't write a blessed thing either.

I'd put out a four-page pamphlet in which everyone dies and a new character named Tonald Drump becomes king of everything. Then I'd head to the Caribbean with my money, a boatload of rum and just laugh my ass off every day until I died.

 

[Scalito]

If I was George RR Martin and I was a) rich as f---, and b) constantly dealing with whining fans, I wouldn't write a blessed thing either.

I'd put out a four-page pamphlet in which everyone dies and a new character named Tonald Drump becomes king of everything. Then I'd head to the Caribbean with my money, a boatload of rum and just laugh my ass off every day until I died.

Your imagination is stunted. It's basically called reality.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

If I was George RR Martin and I was a) rich as f---, and b) constantly dealing with whining fans, I wouldn't write a blessed thing either.

I'd put out a four-page pamphlet in which everyone dies and a new character named Tonald Drump becomes king of everything. Then I'd head to the Caribbean with my money, a boatload of rum and just laugh my ass off every day until I died.

I imagine his publisher is not that concerned. One of two things will happen: 1) Martin actually writes something and it sells millions of copies, or 2) Martin eats himself to death, and the publisher hires another writer to finish the series.