Winter ain't coming
May 5, 2018 3:59 AM Subscribe
Well we're not getting a new Game Of Thrones book this year (well we are, but not a new novel). Anyway there will be a big battle in the next and final tv series. Here's a reminder of how effective the previous series vfx were.
I swore to myself I would never be in the position of Robert Jordan fans, but...it seems like life laughs at your plans.
posted by corb at 6:14 AM on May 5, 2018 [27 favorites]
posted by corb at 6:14 AM on May 5, 2018 [27 favorites]
Personally, I don't think Martin will be finishing Game of Thrones, nor do I think he wants to. He fundamentally wants to tell stories, and writing was his primary outlet for that. However, the story is told. He's passed the torch to the TV show, and the books don't have to be written.
He wants to tell more stories; spin-offs from GoT that won't make it to the show, like Dunk and Egg, and stuff unrelated to GoT. He doesn't need to write the last 2 (or 3 or 4) books, and so his motivation to do so is much lower.
In this light, I really sympathize. I understand why fans are salty, because from their viewpoint GoT is incomplete. But from his viewpoint, he's just using multiple media to tell the story.
posted by explosion at 6:15 AM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
He wants to tell more stories; spin-offs from GoT that won't make it to the show, like Dunk and Egg, and stuff unrelated to GoT. He doesn't need to write the last 2 (or 3 or 4) books, and so his motivation to do so is much lower.
In this light, I really sympathize. I understand why fans are salty, because from their viewpoint GoT is incomplete. But from his viewpoint, he's just using multiple media to tell the story.
posted by explosion at 6:15 AM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
GRRM Has No Pages...whatever pages he does or doesn’t have have to deal with literally dozens of nonsensical plot lines, most of which are extremely complex and involve open questions that any reasonable person couldn’t be assed to answer, so that if the dude has any sense, he probably is saying or has said, “Ah, fuck it!”
Another possibility is that the internet has correctly guessed all those plotlines, and Martin doesn't look forward to burning thousands of hours and pages on a revelation JonTokezzzz98 already spelled out on some wiki or other. (See also Rothfuss, Patrick.)
posted by Iridic at 6:28 AM on May 5, 2018 [12 favorites]
Another possibility is that the internet has correctly guessed all those plotlines, and Martin doesn't look forward to burning thousands of hours and pages on a revelation JonTokezzzz98 already spelled out on some wiki or other. (See also Rothfuss, Patrick.)
posted by Iridic at 6:28 AM on May 5, 2018 [12 favorites]
If the show's version of events is close to Martin's original outlines, then I don't think I want to suffer 800 pages of his prose to fund that out. Talk bout wasted narrative potential.
posted by codacorolla at 6:31 AM on May 5, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 6:31 AM on May 5, 2018 [9 favorites]
I remember being a child finishing the Lord of the Rings for the first time and excitedly wanting to write Tolkien a letter to thank him for the saga...only to be heartbroken when I found out he had died a few years earlier.
I’m a relative latecomer to GoT, having watched a couple of Season 1 episodes then pausing to read the available books. Now caught up with both show and books and am awaiting the final season on tenterhooks that are I’m sure less sharp and embedded than those of bookreaders who have been waiting for a conclusion for actual ages.
I imagine it would be not unlike reading King Théoden’s fall to the head Nazgûl on the Pelennor Fields, then the book ends abruptly, and you’re stuck waiting for a decade.
posted by Celsius1414 at 6:32 AM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
I’m a relative latecomer to GoT, having watched a couple of Season 1 episodes then pausing to read the available books. Now caught up with both show and books and am awaiting the final season on tenterhooks that are I’m sure less sharp and embedded than those of bookreaders who have been waiting for a conclusion for actual ages.
I imagine it would be not unlike reading King Théoden’s fall to the head Nazgûl on the Pelennor Fields, then the book ends abruptly, and you’re stuck waiting for a decade.
posted by Celsius1414 at 6:32 AM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
We're gonna end up with an elderly Brandon Sanderson (meh) writing the last two novels some time during the Trig Palin administration.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 7:18 AM on May 5, 2018 [19 favorites]
posted by jeff-o-matic at 7:18 AM on May 5, 2018 [19 favorites]
If the show's version of events is close to Martin's original outlines, then I don't think I want to suffer 800 pages of his prose to fund that out. Talk bout wasted narrative potential.
Unfortunately you can tell the show is suffering without sufficient narrative backup. They may have an outline, but we're missing all the attendant character development. Look at the scenes between Arya and Sansa, they were close to fighting to the death...then one scene later best friends against Littlefinger. Why? What happened? Where was that development? We didn't get it because Benioff and Weiss aren't great at little character portraits like Martin is, and don't want to spend the time giving it to us where there's another bullet point to check off on the way to the last battle crammed into 7 episodes. Sure we might get all the major points, but we're never going to know the outcomes or the inner feelings of all the little side characters like the Hound or Thoros or even the insufferable and innumerable Greyjoys from the books that mercifully didnt make the screen. Lacking all of that makes everyone worse off, casual fans of the show and the hardest core book nerds alike.
Sure, George is rich, fine, good for him. Yes, he doesn't owe us anything. I get it. But he did cheat us all out of the best possible version of his story.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:24 AM on May 5, 2018 [18 favorites]
Unfortunately you can tell the show is suffering without sufficient narrative backup. They may have an outline, but we're missing all the attendant character development. Look at the scenes between Arya and Sansa, they were close to fighting to the death...then one scene later best friends against Littlefinger. Why? What happened? Where was that development? We didn't get it because Benioff and Weiss aren't great at little character portraits like Martin is, and don't want to spend the time giving it to us where there's another bullet point to check off on the way to the last battle crammed into 7 episodes. Sure we might get all the major points, but we're never going to know the outcomes or the inner feelings of all the little side characters like the Hound or Thoros or even the insufferable and innumerable Greyjoys from the books that mercifully didnt make the screen. Lacking all of that makes everyone worse off, casual fans of the show and the hardest core book nerds alike.
Sure, George is rich, fine, good for him. Yes, he doesn't owe us anything. I get it. But he did cheat us all out of the best possible version of his story.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:24 AM on May 5, 2018 [18 favorites]
Yes, he doesn't owe us anything.
I disagree. While George has been working on this story, he's been releasing completed books always with the explicit note that there is a complete story still to be told. People bought his books not merely because they were entertaining in their own right, but also in significant part because, while what we have was incomplete, the full story would be told.
GoT isn't some episodic series where everyone is harassing the author for more sequels. GoT is a series where readers have been told, from day one, that there is a Complete Story in progress, and the author has lost interest before his fans did. He hasn't had financial troubles, he hasn't had injury or illness. He has tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars, and it's likely that he just ain't feeling it anymore.
His fans made him rich on the promise -- they have said "yes, it's great so far, we're giving you enough money now that you don't have to hustle to make money doing something else." I think it is reasonable to expect him to keep that promise.
posted by tclark at 7:35 AM on May 5, 2018 [20 favorites]
I disagree. While George has been working on this story, he's been releasing completed books always with the explicit note that there is a complete story still to be told. People bought his books not merely because they were entertaining in their own right, but also in significant part because, while what we have was incomplete, the full story would be told.
GoT isn't some episodic series where everyone is harassing the author for more sequels. GoT is a series where readers have been told, from day one, that there is a Complete Story in progress, and the author has lost interest before his fans did. He hasn't had financial troubles, he hasn't had injury or illness. He has tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars, and it's likely that he just ain't feeling it anymore.
His fans made him rich on the promise -- they have said "yes, it's great so far, we're giving you enough money now that you don't have to hustle to make money doing something else." I think it is reasonable to expect him to keep that promise.
posted by tclark at 7:35 AM on May 5, 2018 [20 favorites]
Yeah, the problem is that much like Jordan actually, GRRM wrote some fiendishly complicated books, with prophecies that all are supposed to tie together. It’s impossible to wrap up in the show, because many of these characters don’t even exist in the show or major plotlines or events are gone. Imagine having a beloved character and just never finding out what happens to them? A better Lord of the Rings analogy would be if they introduced Strider, spent a lot of time talking about his complicated and mysterious backstory, and then moved to a TV series where Strider was not a character.
Sadly, I do think in many ways the Internet combined with the popularity of the TV series is what has spoiled GRRM’s taste for writing. No one was expecting the Red Wedding, and everyone was so stunned that now you regularly have TV sites going into the depths of the ASIAF forum to bring out theories. Consequentially, all the shocking possibilities that could exist in the future are already spoiled.
And add that to the fact that GRRM has always done best when he’s been the underdog. When he was writing for the first time, it was genuinely shopping they killed Ned Stark. Dark high fantasy along those lines was not in the zeitgeist- it was all happy endings and traditionally beautiful princesses. When he started it, what he did was bold. Now others have moved past him. There’s no motivation anymore.
posted by corb at 7:36 AM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
Sadly, I do think in many ways the Internet combined with the popularity of the TV series is what has spoiled GRRM’s taste for writing. No one was expecting the Red Wedding, and everyone was so stunned that now you regularly have TV sites going into the depths of the ASIAF forum to bring out theories. Consequentially, all the shocking possibilities that could exist in the future are already spoiled.
And add that to the fact that GRRM has always done best when he’s been the underdog. When he was writing for the first time, it was genuinely shopping they killed Ned Stark. Dark high fantasy along those lines was not in the zeitgeist- it was all happy endings and traditionally beautiful princesses. When he started it, what he did was bold. Now others have moved past him. There’s no motivation anymore.
posted by corb at 7:36 AM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
I think it is reasonable to expect him to keep that promise.
You're not allowed to say that to George though. People get Very Upset On The Internet over it. And George gets mad and writes 3 more prequel stories just to spite you.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:38 AM on May 5, 2018 [13 favorites]
You're not allowed to say that to George though. People get Very Upset On The Internet over it. And George gets mad and writes 3 more prequel stories just to spite you.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:38 AM on May 5, 2018 [13 favorites]
I'm very sorry for everyone who's mad about this, this must suck.
Signed, someone who's got burned a lot by this genre's WIPs to even start on GoT
posted by cendawanita at 7:42 AM on May 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Signed, someone who's got burned a lot by this genre's WIPs to even start on GoT
posted by cendawanita at 7:42 AM on May 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
I have a solution: GRRM writes the script for Half Life 3 while Gabe Newell retrieves the completed GoT saga from the future with the GLaDOS-run TARDIS that Valve built with their Steam billions.
posted by Celsius1414 at 7:44 AM on May 5, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by Celsius1414 at 7:44 AM on May 5, 2018 [11 favorites]
And George gets mad and writes 3 more prequel stories just to spite you.
Right, and that's really the other part of my point.
He does owe his fans the work he has promised to give them. At the same time, George can do what he wants. People Very Upset On The Internet frequently have trouble with both of these things existing at once. It's not a paradox.
posted by tclark at 7:45 AM on May 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
Right, and that's really the other part of my point.
He does owe his fans the work he has promised to give them. At the same time, George can do what he wants. People Very Upset On The Internet frequently have trouble with both of these things existing at once. It's not a paradox.
posted by tclark at 7:45 AM on May 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
If he's really not feeling it, he could just publish whatever outline he gave to the TV show. I think at this point fans are mostly interested in the Canonical Answers and not in actually reading 800 pages of food descriptions.
posted by Pyry at 7:50 AM on May 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by Pyry at 7:50 AM on May 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
Well we're not getting a new Game Of Thrones book this year
no! who ever could have predicted.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:54 AM on May 5, 2018 [18 favorites]
no! who ever could have predicted.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:54 AM on May 5, 2018 [18 favorites]
I'd argue that GRRM had already cheated us out of the best possible version of the story by introducing all sorts of superfluous storylines that the series has proven weren't really necessary to the story, even as the prospect of resolving them all painted him into a series of ever-tighter corners. Lady Stoneheart? Kind of a neat visual description, but honestly, the sort of thing that you'd expect from the third or fourth iteration of a horror movie franchise which has ended up straight-to-video. fAegon and his buddy Jon Connington? Soap-opera crap. corb, I think that the better LotR analogy would be Tom Bombadil, a character much beloved by many book fans but whose absence in the movies mattered not one whit. You can put a lot of good character description and development into a character or subplot that, from a structural viewpoint, was a horrible idea.
Personally, I feel a lot for the guy, an old man who is in the extraordinarily peculiar position of having created one of the most popular fantasy franchises of all time (and one of the most popular TV shows), and yet having to slog his way to completion on this project for which he seems ever-less enthusiastic and for which he's guaranteed to be criticized no matter what he does. Even if he manages to wrap everything up in a manner that's better than "fell overboard" or "exeunt, pursued by a bear", no doubt many people will take him to task for that noted lack of enthusiasm. Small wonder.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:55 AM on May 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
Personally, I feel a lot for the guy, an old man who is in the extraordinarily peculiar position of having created one of the most popular fantasy franchises of all time (and one of the most popular TV shows), and yet having to slog his way to completion on this project for which he seems ever-less enthusiastic and for which he's guaranteed to be criticized no matter what he does. Even if he manages to wrap everything up in a manner that's better than "fell overboard" or "exeunt, pursued by a bear", no doubt many people will take him to task for that noted lack of enthusiasm. Small wonder.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:55 AM on May 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
I can understand why he doesn't want to, but really the best thing GRRM could do is hand over everything he has to a ghostwriter to finish the story for him. He obviously doesn't want to write the rest of it, but the fans who have stuck by him for decades and made him comfortably rich deserve to see the end of the story. I hear Brandon Sanderson is available.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:15 AM on May 5, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:15 AM on May 5, 2018 [9 favorites]
No, please not Sanderson. He couldn't handle the sex and swearing. I would much prefer the writing team of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. They're two books away from being done with the Expanse series and that won't take long. Compared to GRRM's glacial pace they could wrap it all up in a couple years. And remember, Franck used to work for Martin, it's a natural fit.
posted by Ber at 8:34 AM on May 5, 2018 [13 favorites]
posted by Ber at 8:34 AM on May 5, 2018 [13 favorites]
I said a while back that I would be utterly astonished if WoW appears before the tv series finishes... that was before they announced a bigger gap than normal before the final series appears but I still stand by it. The final(?!) book will never appear of course, at least not in GRRM's lifetime.
I'm in the camp that if you are going to write a series like this then, yeah, you should make a reasonable attempt to get it done at a reasonable rate... a book a year/two years not five or six or whatever. And yeah - if you've got that many people clamoring for it and have you have made that much gold already - if that means bringing in co- or ghost writer(s) to do the heavy lifting, then so be it. That happens more often than you might realise from what I've heard. But for whatever reasons GRRM has not done that.
It's pretty obvious he's lost enthusiasm for the main series (I said this a while back and was brought to task over it but you hear a lot less complaints maing that point now). He wants to get lost in past GoT histories, edit some more Wild Card books, watch some football etc.
I think the trouble started when he started on book 4 which was supposed to take place some time after book 3 - to allow the Stark children and the dragons to grew up, Danny to get some practice as a queen etc - but GRRM said he could not write the time jump... so book 4 becomes mainly endless wheel spinning with characters wandering all over the map for no real reason.
I wouldn't mind so much if D & D were better writers... the Littlefinger stuff was pretty bad last season - his death should have been a major even, shocking, clever, not 'well I saw that coming a mile off'. Even worse was Danny's north of the wall rescue mission which made no sense at all.
Not I just want to see it end, see who sits on the Iron Throne... if there was a leaked treatment for the last season I'd read it in a heartbeat.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:41 AM on May 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
I'm in the camp that if you are going to write a series like this then, yeah, you should make a reasonable attempt to get it done at a reasonable rate... a book a year/two years not five or six or whatever. And yeah - if you've got that many people clamoring for it and have you have made that much gold already - if that means bringing in co- or ghost writer(s) to do the heavy lifting, then so be it. That happens more often than you might realise from what I've heard. But for whatever reasons GRRM has not done that.
It's pretty obvious he's lost enthusiasm for the main series (I said this a while back and was brought to task over it but you hear a lot less complaints maing that point now). He wants to get lost in past GoT histories, edit some more Wild Card books, watch some football etc.
I think the trouble started when he started on book 4 which was supposed to take place some time after book 3 - to allow the Stark children and the dragons to grew up, Danny to get some practice as a queen etc - but GRRM said he could not write the time jump... so book 4 becomes mainly endless wheel spinning with characters wandering all over the map for no real reason.
I wouldn't mind so much if D & D were better writers... the Littlefinger stuff was pretty bad last season - his death should have been a major even, shocking, clever, not 'well I saw that coming a mile off'. Even worse was Danny's north of the wall rescue mission which made no sense at all.
Not I just want to see it end, see who sits on the Iron Throne... if there was a leaked treatment for the last season I'd read it in a heartbeat.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:41 AM on May 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
Personally, I don't think Martin will be finishing Game of Thrones, nor do I think he wants to. He fundamentally wants to tell stories, and writing was his primary outlet for that. However, the story is told. He's passed the torch to the TV show, and the books don't have to be written.
The other factor is that GRRM no longer has any financial incentive to finish the GoT series. The HBO series has made him wealthy beyond any offers a publishing house could hope to tempt him with, much less keep him on schedule for what he's already been paid to write. If worse came to worse, he could probably afford to return his advance.
Moreover, he's now returned, this time in triumph, to Hollywood where he'll produce and write the adaptation of his novel Nightflyers for SyFy, develop scripts for a series of GoT prequels for HBO, executive-produce Nnedi Okorafor's novel Who Fears Death for HBO, and involve himself however in the Wild Cards TV series for Universal. That doesn't sound like the workload of someone eager to sit down at his typewriter to finish what he started in the dead tree medium.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:41 AM on May 5, 2018 [12 favorites]
The other factor is that GRRM no longer has any financial incentive to finish the GoT series. The HBO series has made him wealthy beyond any offers a publishing house could hope to tempt him with, much less keep him on schedule for what he's already been paid to write. If worse came to worse, he could probably afford to return his advance.
Moreover, he's now returned, this time in triumph, to Hollywood where he'll produce and write the adaptation of his novel Nightflyers for SyFy, develop scripts for a series of GoT prequels for HBO, executive-produce Nnedi Okorafor's novel Who Fears Death for HBO, and involve himself however in the Wild Cards TV series for Universal. That doesn't sound like the workload of someone eager to sit down at his typewriter to finish what he started in the dead tree medium.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:41 AM on May 5, 2018 [12 favorites]
Ugh, this is a bummer. I stopped watching the show when I realized they weren't going to do the Lady Stoneheart storyline--though my disillusionment started when they made Robb's wife a whole brand new character instead of Jeyne Westerling--and if they don't do that, how much else is going to be just random bits loosely assembled that vaguely represent what the real story would be.
I really hope he finds some well of inspiration and finishes the series, but I am prepared for that to not happen. I think he definitely wants to finish--it's his most well-known work, and he is on the record about wanting that elusive best novel Hugo (which he calls "the Big One"), and the final book would be practically guaranteed to win.
posted by lovecrafty at 8:47 AM on May 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
I really hope he finds some well of inspiration and finishes the series, but I am prepared for that to not happen. I think he definitely wants to finish--it's his most well-known work, and he is on the record about wanting that elusive best novel Hugo (which he calls "the Big One"), and the final book would be practically guaranteed to win.
posted by lovecrafty at 8:47 AM on May 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don’t think he can finish it. This will be fight-y to some writers, but IIRC he’s sort of stubbornly (stupidly) resistant to using new tools? As in he doesn’t outline or break his story, preferring to pants it, and he writes on some olde timey green screen text editor (not one of the ones that could support outlining features) and without a series bible?
That’s...I mean. No, you can’t pants a massive epic with dozens of viewpoint characters who all have their own arcs. There are limits to what you can hold in your head at once.
Just pay a ghostwriter, dude.
posted by schadenfrau at 8:54 AM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
That’s...I mean. No, you can’t pants a massive epic with dozens of viewpoint characters who all have their own arcs. There are limits to what you can hold in your head at once.
Just pay a ghostwriter, dude.
posted by schadenfrau at 8:54 AM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
> Just pay a ghostwriter, dude.
That gives me an idea for a reality show. 20 brilliant but starving writers! One GRRM. Each week, they each write a chapter. GRRM sits in Trump's old chair and picks the loser, who gets eaten by dragons. Winner gets to write the next book, and GRRM edits it. The NDA for GRRM's notes would also involve getting eaten by dragons, on live TV. The series could be done in like a year and a half.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 9:10 AM on May 5, 2018 [19 favorites]
That gives me an idea for a reality show. 20 brilliant but starving writers! One GRRM. Each week, they each write a chapter. GRRM sits in Trump's old chair and picks the loser, who gets eaten by dragons. Winner gets to write the next book, and GRRM edits it. The NDA for GRRM's notes would also involve getting eaten by dragons, on live TV. The series could be done in like a year and a half.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 9:10 AM on May 5, 2018 [19 favorites]
I think if you have enough interest to write 900 pages about something else in this world but not finish the imaginary future books, you must have lost all interest in actually doing them. I really nth the "hire a ghostwriter" thing. It's really obvious by now he can't do it himself for various reasons. His mojo for this is long gone. The interest and passion and motivation for them is gone. Let someone else who still has it have a go. Collaborate and move on with it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:27 AM on May 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:27 AM on May 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
I don’t think he can finish it....No, you can’t pants a massive epic with dozens of viewpoint characters who all have their own arcs. There are limits to what you can hold in your head at once.
I bought "A Dance With Dragons" on the Kindle, and, in an era of insomnia, re-read it, out of order, probably 2 or 3 times. I eventually came to decide that it's a hot mess and just isn't really that good of a novel. The excerpts of "Winds Of Winter" that I have seen indicate that plots and characters are blowing up even more; I think he's written himself into a corner that he will have a hell of a time getting out of without resorting to pretty grotesque deus ex machinas, and he probably has too much pride as a writer to just ride the snake.
posted by thelonius at 9:31 AM on May 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
I bought "A Dance With Dragons" on the Kindle, and, in an era of insomnia, re-read it, out of order, probably 2 or 3 times. I eventually came to decide that it's a hot mess and just isn't really that good of a novel. The excerpts of "Winds Of Winter" that I have seen indicate that plots and characters are blowing up even more; I think he's written himself into a corner that he will have a hell of a time getting out of without resorting to pretty grotesque deus ex machinas, and he probably has too much pride as a writer to just ride the snake.
posted by thelonius at 9:31 AM on May 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
...and Neil Gaiman is not my real Dad, either
posted by thelonius at 9:32 AM on May 5, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 9:32 AM on May 5, 2018 [9 favorites]
The absence of books to guide the teleplay writers plainly has hurt the GOT series. Martin alone was a better character-maker and scenarist than the TV writers room is collectively. The series has also plain ran out of time, having to jam into 15 epsidodes (counting the last 2 episodes of season 6) just about as much story as in the 58 episodes prior — some combination of boredom, exhaustion and contract expiry of the show-runners and main cast.
posted by MattD at 9:34 AM on May 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by MattD at 9:34 AM on May 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
All he needs to do is hire the two or three best GoT fanfic writers out there. They'll have the series complete in a couple of months.
posted by notquitemaryann at 9:50 AM on May 5, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by notquitemaryann at 9:50 AM on May 5, 2018 [9 favorites]
I think Martin should spend less time as a tugboat captain.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 9:51 AM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 9:51 AM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
My prediction for the end of the television series:
The war of ice and fire builds to a climax in King's Landing... armies of men fighting armies of undead in the streets as snow falls. Above swirl dragons and undragon. In the throne room Danny and Jon Snow face off against the Night King.... when everything just slows down and stops. All the characters just frozen; the snow flakes motionless in the air. The camera pulls back rising, past the still dragons. We see Kings Landing and then Westeros from above... and then we notice that there are not on a globe but inside a sphere... like the titles! We pull back and back and through to the other side. It's an eye! A gigantic eye! The legend was true! The whole world is the blue eye of the giant Macumber!
But then we pull back further and we see it's actually the eye of an old white beared man wearing a cap... he's in a dark room bathed in an eerie light from an old green monitor and a tv in the background where the NY Jets are winning the super bowl.
There's a pause then the man bellows. "YOU'LL NEVER KNOW THE ENDING! NEVER!"
Smash cut to black.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:58 AM on May 5, 2018 [27 favorites]
The war of ice and fire builds to a climax in King's Landing... armies of men fighting armies of undead in the streets as snow falls. Above swirl dragons and undragon. In the throne room Danny and Jon Snow face off against the Night King.... when everything just slows down and stops. All the characters just frozen; the snow flakes motionless in the air. The camera pulls back rising, past the still dragons. We see Kings Landing and then Westeros from above... and then we notice that there are not on a globe but inside a sphere... like the titles! We pull back and back and through to the other side. It's an eye! A gigantic eye! The legend was true! The whole world is the blue eye of the giant Macumber!
But then we pull back further and we see it's actually the eye of an old white beared man wearing a cap... he's in a dark room bathed in an eerie light from an old green monitor and a tv in the background where the NY Jets are winning the super bowl.
There's a pause then the man bellows. "YOU'LL NEVER KNOW THE ENDING! NEVER!"
Smash cut to black.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:58 AM on May 5, 2018 [27 favorites]
Neil Gaiman: "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch. This is a useful thing to know, perhaps a useful thing to point out when you find yourself thinking that possibly George is, indeed, your bitch, and should be out there typing what you want to read right now."
That's about the level of intelligence and nuance that I'd expect from Neil Gaiman. The idea of "entitled fans and poor, put upon writers," is an intentional misframing of the argument. Although I'd suspect it's less malicious in Neil's case and more simple lack of understanding. When people get mad at GRRM for not finishing a series they've put hundreds of hours into reading, thinking about, and caring about, it's not 'being owed' that ending, but rather an entirely justifiable reaction to having your expectations failed. If you were in a relationship and your partner promised to do something and then didn't, then a 3rd party probably wouldn't call you entitled for being mad at your partner. Books are a lot of effort to write, but they also take effort to care about, and when someone hooks you into a suspenseful and engaging series only to abandon it, I don't think that there's fault in being angry at that person.
posted by codacorolla at 10:05 AM on May 5, 2018 [36 favorites]
That's about the level of intelligence and nuance that I'd expect from Neil Gaiman. The idea of "entitled fans and poor, put upon writers," is an intentional misframing of the argument. Although I'd suspect it's less malicious in Neil's case and more simple lack of understanding. When people get mad at GRRM for not finishing a series they've put hundreds of hours into reading, thinking about, and caring about, it's not 'being owed' that ending, but rather an entirely justifiable reaction to having your expectations failed. If you were in a relationship and your partner promised to do something and then didn't, then a 3rd party probably wouldn't call you entitled for being mad at your partner. Books are a lot of effort to write, but they also take effort to care about, and when someone hooks you into a suspenseful and engaging series only to abandon it, I don't think that there's fault in being angry at that person.
posted by codacorolla at 10:05 AM on May 5, 2018 [36 favorites]
I get all the reasons why fans shouldn't be mad at GRRM, but I'm with tclark on this one, readers begin a series with an expectation that the story will be told, and they pay their money in line with that expectation.
If GRRM doesn't owe his readers anything then they don't owe him anything in return, including praise, or restraint from calling him out for profiting hugely on their gullibility.
I'm on the fence about Rothfuss, wondering whether he will finish Kvothe in one more book (as promised) and even Sanderson, who has claimed that Stormlight will be 10 books in total.
Fool me once, blah blah blah...
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:15 AM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
If GRRM doesn't owe his readers anything then they don't owe him anything in return, including praise, or restraint from calling him out for profiting hugely on their gullibility.
I'm on the fence about Rothfuss, wondering whether he will finish Kvothe in one more book (as promised) and even Sanderson, who has claimed that Stormlight will be 10 books in total.
Fool me once, blah blah blah...
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:15 AM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
I am unsurprised that a man like Neil Gaiman can only think of the relationship between artist and audience in contractual and transactional terms, though.
posted by codacorolla at 10:18 AM on May 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 10:18 AM on May 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
I mean, I’m fine with writers who quit a series because they get sick, or it’s not making them enough money (and thus the opportunity cost is sky high), or whatever. But he has every resource imaginable at his disposal, and ghostwriters are a thing. If he’s not willing to just get the thing done, that’s more about pride. At which point, yeah, I think fans are justified in being annoyed. Pretending this is a normal “writer not wanting to write anymore” situation is pretty dishonest.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:20 AM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by schadenfrau at 10:20 AM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
I've read all the books and watched all the shows and mostly enjoyed them (except that one half book). I've also cancelled HBO Now and no longer care and probably won't buy the next book(s).
It's like that friend who is always late and eventually you just move on and have fun with the people who actually show up regularly and and on time.
That guy owes me nothing and it's now reciprocal.
posted by srboisvert at 10:21 AM on May 5, 2018 [21 favorites]
It's like that friend who is always late and eventually you just move on and have fun with the people who actually show up regularly and and on time.
That guy owes me nothing and it's now reciprocal.
posted by srboisvert at 10:21 AM on May 5, 2018 [21 favorites]
No, you can’t pants a massive epic with dozens of viewpoint characters who all have their own arcs.
That's certainly how it got to the point it's at right now.
posted by atoxyl at 10:22 AM on May 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
That's certainly how it got to the point it's at right now.
posted by atoxyl at 10:22 AM on May 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
Really I'm not that mad at Martin anymore, I started reading at age 16 in 2000 when the third book was released and hung on every development for the 4th/5th book slow moving disaster. I knew the moment he signed a TV deal we'd never see another book. At this point I'm not buying book 6 out of principal unless there's somehow a book 7. And especially not if book 6 only comes out after the show ends. What's the point by then.
It's his and people like Gaiman's reactions to fan disappointment that pisses me off at this point. Fans made your work matter and made you millionaires, stop shitting on their feelings and just enjoy your money in silence if you can't do that.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:25 AM on May 5, 2018 [11 favorites]
It's his and people like Gaiman's reactions to fan disappointment that pisses me off at this point. Fans made your work matter and made you millionaires, stop shitting on their feelings and just enjoy your money in silence if you can't do that.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:25 AM on May 5, 2018 [11 favorites]
Yeah, I think it's the dishonesty that is the true core of the issue. GRRM still swears up and down that he will finish the series, it's going to happen, just wait it'll be fantastic, when it's plainly obvious he has zero motivation to actually do what he says he's going to do. He'll never actually admit it won't happen because you know what that will do to demand for the ASoIaF stories he's still interested in telling, but it's the only honest thing he can do.
He should admit the end of the story will never be written, apologize to his fans if he feels like it, then go do whatever he feels like doing for the rest of his life. At least then there would be some closure even if it's not in the form of a book with an ending.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:28 AM on May 5, 2018 [11 favorites]
He should admit the end of the story will never be written, apologize to his fans if he feels like it, then go do whatever he feels like doing for the rest of his life. At least then there would be some closure even if it's not in the form of a book with an ending.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:28 AM on May 5, 2018 [11 favorites]
I think he's finally run out of boring travel scenes, descriptions of meals, and stuff cribbed from Barbara W. Tuchman.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:33 AM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:33 AM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
an idea for a reality show
"Welcome back to the Red Keep, scriveners! Before I announce this week's challenge, I'd like you all to meet an old friend of mine: Fabrizio Freda, CEO of Estée Lauder. Signor Freda?"
"Thank you, George RR. We at Estée Lauder have been following this competition with great interest. After all, we are in the same business: the business of making dreams that endure."
"Which brings us to the challenge, scriveners: the themes for your next chapter are 'dreams' and 'endurance.' In addition to evoking those themes, you must drop hints about Hot Pie's parentage, introduce a mysterious cartographer from Lorath, and kill Garlan Martell in some novel, disconcerting way. Signor Freda will be joining us as a guest judge. He'll award an extra immunity sigil to the scrivener whose chapter best compares the magical longevity of the Wall to the staying power of Estée Lauder's All Day Lipstick."
posted by Iridic at 10:55 AM on May 5, 2018 [23 favorites]
"Welcome back to the Red Keep, scriveners! Before I announce this week's challenge, I'd like you all to meet an old friend of mine: Fabrizio Freda, CEO of Estée Lauder. Signor Freda?"
"Thank you, George RR. We at Estée Lauder have been following this competition with great interest. After all, we are in the same business: the business of making dreams that endure."
"Which brings us to the challenge, scriveners: the themes for your next chapter are 'dreams' and 'endurance.' In addition to evoking those themes, you must drop hints about Hot Pie's parentage, introduce a mysterious cartographer from Lorath, and kill Garlan Martell in some novel, disconcerting way. Signor Freda will be joining us as a guest judge. He'll award an extra immunity sigil to the scrivener whose chapter best compares the magical longevity of the Wall to the staying power of Estée Lauder's All Day Lipstick."
posted by Iridic at 10:55 AM on May 5, 2018 [23 favorites]
wait but kingkiller is still getting finished right?
Ahahahahahaha!!!
And I adore Neil Gaiman, but that piece of his is embarrassing and I wish it would disappear off the internet. First, the unnecessary use of “bitch” to mean servant. There are plenty of other words he could’ve chosen that wouldn’t have reinforced the inequality between the sexes. And when people called him out on it, he doubled down. Not his finest moment. And second, not actually “getting it.” When I bought book one, it was supposed to be a trilogy, ffs. Unlike Sanderson who said at the beginning, “this will be 10 books.” I knew what I was getting into with Sanderson. Certainly people have been ott vocal, an on occasion terrible, about GRRM’s broken deadlines, in a way that NG has never had to deal with. But you can put the blame in both places. Yes, some fans have been really shitty. Yes, GRRM broke promises and disappointed us. Both can be true.
Honestly I will probably never buy another GRRM book. Not that he’ll notice my $30 missing from his hoard.
posted by greermahoney at 10:58 AM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
Ahahahahahaha!!!
And I adore Neil Gaiman, but that piece of his is embarrassing and I wish it would disappear off the internet. First, the unnecessary use of “bitch” to mean servant. There are plenty of other words he could’ve chosen that wouldn’t have reinforced the inequality between the sexes. And when people called him out on it, he doubled down. Not his finest moment. And second, not actually “getting it.” When I bought book one, it was supposed to be a trilogy, ffs. Unlike Sanderson who said at the beginning, “this will be 10 books.” I knew what I was getting into with Sanderson. Certainly people have been ott vocal, an on occasion terrible, about GRRM’s broken deadlines, in a way that NG has never had to deal with. But you can put the blame in both places. Yes, some fans have been really shitty. Yes, GRRM broke promises and disappointed us. Both can be true.
Honestly I will probably never buy another GRRM book. Not that he’ll notice my $30 missing from his hoard.
posted by greermahoney at 10:58 AM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
Can we acknowledge that fans have the right to be frustrated AND Martin has the right to not be continually harassed about finishing? Those two things don't seem mutually exclusive to me.
posted by Ndwright at 11:06 AM on May 5, 2018 [13 favorites]
posted by Ndwright at 11:06 AM on May 5, 2018 [13 favorites]
I can understand why he doesn't want to, but really the best thing GRRM could do is hand over everything he has to a ghostwriter to finish the story for him.
Alan Dean Foster perhaps. He has experience with adaptions. Though he's as old as Martin. Lawrence Watt-Evens perhaps? No, his characters tend to have at least minimal common sense. I guess we'll have to settle for RA Salvatore.
posted by happyroach at 11:16 AM on May 5, 2018
Alan Dean Foster perhaps. He has experience with adaptions. Though he's as old as Martin. Lawrence Watt-Evens perhaps? No, his characters tend to have at least minimal common sense. I guess we'll have to settle for RA Salvatore.
posted by happyroach at 11:16 AM on May 5, 2018
I've always been in awe of writers who can confidently set out to write not just a novel but a series. I'm a writer, and a good one, but I've always written shorter things. I don't have the combination of discipline and self-confidence to write novels, and my gift doesn't bend that way. So mystery writers who can write a series of 26 books based on the letters of the alphabet, or anybody who embarks on a trilogy confident they'll finish it--and then actually finishes it!--gets my respect and admiration.
So I can't really blame him, exactly, for having such a big vision that he couldn't complete it, or for reaching a point where he has other opportunities that are more fun and interesting to him.
But I understand fans' frustration and disappointment. Patrick O'Brien died in the middle of writing another Aubrey/Maturin novel, and every time I re-read the series, I'm disappointed anew, and grieve the stories we didn't get. And there's another sci-fi series my partner and I have really enjoyed, a planned trilogy that was never finished because the first books didn't sell well enough. Of course people who love the books so far would like to see the story carried forward by its originator. And it's too bad that's probably not going to happen. Disappointed Game of Thrones fans have my deepest sympathy.
posted by Orlop at 11:19 AM on May 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
So I can't really blame him, exactly, for having such a big vision that he couldn't complete it, or for reaching a point where he has other opportunities that are more fun and interesting to him.
But I understand fans' frustration and disappointment. Patrick O'Brien died in the middle of writing another Aubrey/Maturin novel, and every time I re-read the series, I'm disappointed anew, and grieve the stories we didn't get. And there's another sci-fi series my partner and I have really enjoyed, a planned trilogy that was never finished because the first books didn't sell well enough. Of course people who love the books so far would like to see the story carried forward by its originator. And it's too bad that's probably not going to happen. Disappointed Game of Thrones fans have my deepest sympathy.
posted by Orlop at 11:19 AM on May 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Winds of Winter will be released in a set with A Nest for Nightmares, I assume.
What is it with alliterative titles and unfinished series' that I really want to read?
posted by flaterik at 11:21 AM on May 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
What is it with alliterative titles and unfinished series' that I really want to read?
posted by flaterik at 11:21 AM on May 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
i was disappointed and annoyed and low level angry for a while but i haven't cared very much for at least 3-4 years, and i care much less now that the show has gone past book canon as i firmly believe that if he now does actually write anything more, which he will not but anyway if he does, it's just fanfic of the show, and nothing anyone can say will ever make me stop believing this highly entertaining thing.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:35 AM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 11:35 AM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
Surprised everybody's so down on Neil Gaiman... I mean yeah, he might have offered a little more sympathy for people who go just a tiny bit insane over this... being a reader and a fan of other people's work as well as a writer etc...
But I imagine it's a pretty brutal to find that something you worked for all your life, i.e. people giving a shit about what you write, can come back to bite you in the ass. I'm pretty sure that any writer who can create believable characters has enough empathy to feel their fans' pain. And I can imagine circumstances where that's not great for productivity.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 12:00 PM on May 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
But I imagine it's a pretty brutal to find that something you worked for all your life, i.e. people giving a shit about what you write, can come back to bite you in the ass. I'm pretty sure that any writer who can create believable characters has enough empathy to feel their fans' pain. And I can imagine circumstances where that's not great for productivity.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 12:00 PM on May 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
Surprised everybody's so down on Neil Gaiman...
Neil Gaiman picked a very fighty way to make his point. As words are his entire deal, I can only assume the choice to be contentious - and therefore receive some measure of negative attention - was deliberate.
posted by mordax at 12:40 PM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
Neil Gaiman picked a very fighty way to make his point. As words are his entire deal, I can only assume the choice to be contentious - and therefore receive some measure of negative attention - was deliberate.
posted by mordax at 12:40 PM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
AKA he trollin'.
Martin digs his own grave by announcing public deadlines and then missing them. He even said after his last published book that he wasn't going to do that anymore, but he keeps doing it. Maybe he thinks that if he is accountable to his fans he'll feel more pressure to write but that doesn't seem to work.
posted by muddgirl at 12:54 PM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
Martin digs his own grave by announcing public deadlines and then missing them. He even said after his last published book that he wasn't going to do that anymore, but he keeps doing it. Maybe he thinks that if he is accountable to his fans he'll feel more pressure to write but that doesn't seem to work.
posted by muddgirl at 12:54 PM on May 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
If you were in a relationship and your partner promised to do something and then didn't, then a 3rd party probably wouldn't call you entitled for being mad at your partner.
Except that GRRM isn't your partner, and using that framing tells a lot about the problems that we're having in this thread just coming to a common consensus regarding the situation. Also, if you spent a lot of time and energy complaining in public about your partner's failings, then yes, any third parties who lent an ear would be entitled to question the nature of that failure and whether or not your response is reasonable. You're the one putting your business out on the street.
Also, Gaiman chose that phrasing because of the extraordinary abusiveness of some of GRRM's critics. It's uncharacteristically blunt for him, and IMO justified.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:55 PM on May 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
Except that GRRM isn't your partner, and using that framing tells a lot about the problems that we're having in this thread just coming to a common consensus regarding the situation. Also, if you spent a lot of time and energy complaining in public about your partner's failings, then yes, any third parties who lent an ear would be entitled to question the nature of that failure and whether or not your response is reasonable. You're the one putting your business out on the street.
Also, Gaiman chose that phrasing because of the extraordinary abusiveness of some of GRRM's critics. It's uncharacteristically blunt for him, and IMO justified.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:55 PM on May 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
I don't think there's ever been anything else in my life where I saw myself so clearly going through the 5 Stages of Grief as I have in my grieving for the ending of ASoIaF that will never come to be.
Denial: "Oh no he'll totally finish it! When he's ready. He's probably just waiting for the show to finish first, so he can learn from its mistakes."
Anger: "That man OWES us an ending. The fans made him rich! And fuck Neil Gaiman, what does he know?"
Bargaining: "Okay, he'll probably never finish the whole series, but we'll at least get Winds of Winter, right? I mean he's released excerpts from it already!"
Depression: "Who even cares about 800 pages of food descriptions and made-up genealogies anyways? Those books went downhill after the first couple."
Acceptance: "Well, I would've loved to have read the last few books, but if they never get written, I've still really enjoyed what I did get to read. And GRRM deserves every bit of his success, no matter what he does or doesn't write or do next."
I have to add, though, in GRRM's defense: I can only imagine it being a lot easier to find the motivation to write a fantasy story with an obvious global-warming allegory back in the 90s, when there was still time for us to do something about global warming, versus 20+ years later when we've still done basically fuckall about global warming and we have impossibly-on-the-nose actual Lannisters in the White House.
posted by mstokes650 at 1:18 PM on May 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
Denial: "Oh no he'll totally finish it! When he's ready. He's probably just waiting for the show to finish first, so he can learn from its mistakes."
Anger: "That man OWES us an ending. The fans made him rich! And fuck Neil Gaiman, what does he know?"
Bargaining: "Okay, he'll probably never finish the whole series, but we'll at least get Winds of Winter, right? I mean he's released excerpts from it already!"
Depression: "Who even cares about 800 pages of food descriptions and made-up genealogies anyways? Those books went downhill after the first couple."
Acceptance: "Well, I would've loved to have read the last few books, but if they never get written, I've still really enjoyed what I did get to read. And GRRM deserves every bit of his success, no matter what he does or doesn't write or do next."
I have to add, though, in GRRM's defense: I can only imagine it being a lot easier to find the motivation to write a fantasy story with an obvious global-warming allegory back in the 90s, when there was still time for us to do something about global warming, versus 20+ years later when we've still done basically fuckall about global warming and we have impossibly-on-the-nose actual Lannisters in the White House.
posted by mstokes650 at 1:18 PM on May 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
> actual Lannisters in the White House.
Nah, they pay their debts
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 1:24 PM on May 5, 2018 [43 favorites]
Nah, they pay their debts
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 1:24 PM on May 5, 2018 [43 favorites]
I think the reason is: The endings of 95% of horror, SF and fantasy stories suck in one way or another. The build up, the tension, the twists and turns and the unknown are great. No one will ever satisfied with the ending to this monstrosity and that's fine. Massive historical stories with dozens of characters spanning continents like this DON'T have endings,.. things just keep rambling on for worse or fir better. Mostly for worse.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 1:36 PM on May 5, 2018
posted by jeff-o-matic at 1:36 PM on May 5, 2018
Littefinger, surely?
posted by mllm at 1:47 PM on May 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by mllm at 1:47 PM on May 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
Excerpts are one reason why I think criticism of Martin's writing speed/publishing schedule are perfectly in bounds. He was releasing excerpts and doing readings in 2015 and 2016, to promote the book, despite not being on track to finish it in any reasonable time period. It's really unreasonable to complain about fan pressure to finish a book on one hand while promoting the book on the other.
In 2015 he said that he was going to put all these other projects aside, except Wild Cards, and work just on Winds of Winter. No one asked him to make that commitment. If he had said back then, "I'm going to fit in WoW around all my other interests, it's going to be a better book because of it," I think the reception would have been equally as positive.
posted by muddgirl at 2:01 PM on May 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
In 2015 he said that he was going to put all these other projects aside, except Wild Cards, and work just on Winds of Winter. No one asked him to make that commitment. If he had said back then, "I'm going to fit in WoW around all my other interests, it's going to be a better book because of it," I think the reception would have been equally as positive.
posted by muddgirl at 2:01 PM on May 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
Well I take that back, his publishers probably did ask him to commit to writing the book he was paid to write, but he didn't have to make that commitment in a public forum.
posted by muddgirl at 2:03 PM on May 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by muddgirl at 2:03 PM on May 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
For a concrete sense of how long Martin has been dragging this out: A Game of Thrones came out the year before the first Harry Potter book.
posted by jamjam at 2:07 PM on May 5, 2018 [16 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 2:07 PM on May 5, 2018 [16 favorites]
Also, Gaiman chose that phrasing because of the extraordinary abusiveness of some of GRRM's critics. It's uncharacteristically blunt for him, and IMO justified.
Oh, well as long as he really meant it, it’s fine, then.
posted by greermahoney at 3:00 PM on May 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
Oh, well as long as he really meant it, it’s fine, then.
posted by greermahoney at 3:00 PM on May 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
Now I know how fans of Kafka's Amerika series felt.
posted by drezdn at 3:04 PM on May 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by drezdn at 3:04 PM on May 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
I wouldn't be as annoyed about GRRM not releasing another book in the series if he wasn't putting out this book about the Targs. That "dynasty" is the least interesting family in the series to me, and the world building comes across as wheel spinning to me.
posted by drezdn at 3:06 PM on May 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by drezdn at 3:06 PM on May 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
It's true that some of GRRM's critics have heaped an undeserved amount of abuse on the man, but that doesn't mean he's off the hook for valid criticism of his broken promises.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:10 PM on May 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:10 PM on May 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Gaiman's contribution to this discussion was condescendingly reductive when he wrote it, 9 years ago. The near complete lack of movement by GRRM since (despite repeated public claims to the contrary) has failed to improve its quality.
posted by tocts at 3:17 PM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by tocts at 3:17 PM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
I've read all the books and watched all the shows and mostly enjoyed them (except that one half book). I've also cancelled HBO Now and no longer care and probably won't buy the next book(s).
It's like that friend who is always late and eventually you just move on and have fun with the people who actually show up regularly and and on time.
That guy owes me nothing and it's now reciprocal.
This is the correct reaction. It's over. Well, maybe not, maybe in a year or so he'll have another book, then another one after that to finish off the series....but really, does it matter at this point? For example, I have enjoyed the Jack Reacher book series, but with the last couple of books Lee Child really seems to be either bored, only doing it for a paycheck, or scraping the barrel for ideas--or all three. So if, in the future, there's an actual good Jack Reacher novel and/or a nice conclusion to the series, I'll treat that as icing on the cake. But the main course was finished a long time ago.
As with GOT. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but it's been years and years since I could read a new GOT novel. I've moved. I've gotten new jobs. My children have grown up. My life has gone on, and I imagine Martin's life has as well.
posted by zardoz at 3:51 PM on May 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's like that friend who is always late and eventually you just move on and have fun with the people who actually show up regularly and and on time.
That guy owes me nothing and it's now reciprocal.
This is the correct reaction. It's over. Well, maybe not, maybe in a year or so he'll have another book, then another one after that to finish off the series....but really, does it matter at this point? For example, I have enjoyed the Jack Reacher book series, but with the last couple of books Lee Child really seems to be either bored, only doing it for a paycheck, or scraping the barrel for ideas--or all three. So if, in the future, there's an actual good Jack Reacher novel and/or a nice conclusion to the series, I'll treat that as icing on the cake. But the main course was finished a long time ago.
As with GOT. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but it's been years and years since I could read a new GOT novel. I've moved. I've gotten new jobs. My children have grown up. My life has gone on, and I imagine Martin's life has as well.
posted by zardoz at 3:51 PM on May 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
Martin just needs to follow the Michael O'Donoghue guide to writing a proper ending.
THE WINDS OF WINTER
by George R. R. Martin
Suddenly, everyone was run over by a truck.
-the end-
posted by delfin at 4:08 PM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
THE WINDS OF WINTER
by George R. R. Martin
Suddenly, everyone was run over by a truck.
-the end-
posted by delfin at 4:08 PM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
There used to this type of subscription magazine, and each issue would include a piece of a model. So you could build the HMS Bounty over 24 issues, or a Panzer tank. They were always over-priced, and the first issue was essentially a loss leader. You'd get the sub-frame of a Panzer tank first, for like 3$, though after that you'd have to pay 15$ per issue.
You could be cynical about this as a money making exercise, or you could see the value in incrementally learning everything about the Bounty, because they always included the magazine that filled in all the history and details. And, of course, the masts and sails and rigging and spars and rudders.
Of course, after making most of this ship/tank, and investing all this time and money and expectation, you would flip your fucken shit if the last two issues were indefinitely postponed.
posted by adept256 at 4:28 PM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
You could be cynical about this as a money making exercise, or you could see the value in incrementally learning everything about the Bounty, because they always included the magazine that filled in all the history and details. And, of course, the masts and sails and rigging and spars and rudders.
Of course, after making most of this ship/tank, and investing all this time and money and expectation, you would flip your fucken shit if the last two issues were indefinitely postponed.
posted by adept256 at 4:28 PM on May 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
I'm so glad I don't care anymore
posted by supermedusa at 4:40 PM on May 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 4:40 PM on May 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
I think that the better LotR analogy would be Tom Bombadil, a character much beloved by many book fans but whose absence in the movies mattered not one whit. You can put a lot of good character description and development into a character or subplot that, from a structural viewpoint, was a horrible idea.
Poppycock. People will remember my Tales of Fatty Lumpkin fanfic and the resulting movies far longer than that ridiculous Gondorian propaganda flick.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 6:20 PM on May 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
Poppycock. People will remember my Tales of Fatty Lumpkin fanfic and the resulting movies far longer than that ridiculous Gondorian propaganda flick.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 6:20 PM on May 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
Still waiting for Stephen King to finish 'The Plant' a story he said he ran out ideas for but also neatly coincided with no one paying the $1 or so he wanted for each chapter he released.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:42 PM on May 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:42 PM on May 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I think it's the dishonesty that is the true core of the issue. GRRM still swears up and down that he will finish the series, it's going to happen, just wait it'll be fantastic, when it's plainly obvious he has zero motivation to actually do what he says he's going to do. He'll never actually admit it won't happen because you know what that will do to demand for the ASoIaF stories he's still interested in telling, but it's the only honest thing he can do.
THIS. It's the lying/twofacedness/denial/whatever that's annoying. The crying wolf. We know we can't believe him any more but he still goes on saying the same shit. Which really is... even worse from 2016+ on.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:12 PM on May 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
THIS. It's the lying/twofacedness/denial/whatever that's annoying. The crying wolf. We know we can't believe him any more but he still goes on saying the same shit. Which really is... even worse from 2016+ on.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:12 PM on May 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
GoT is a series where readers have been told, from day one, that there is a Complete Story in progress, and the author has lost interest before his fans did. He hasn't had financial troubles, he hasn't had injury or illness.
Say what you will about Jordan, the man jumped out of his fucking deathbed to tell his wife about $GIANT_SPOILER (speaking of stuff that hadn't been spoiled by the Internet, $spoiler was, in retrospect, absolutely plausible, but AFAIK, no one seriously considered it). Once it became clear that he was dying, he recorded hours of audiotape dictating the story. The series may have dragged, but it's clear he felt he had a moral obligation to his fans to finish the story however best he could.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 11:02 PM on May 5, 2018 [26 favorites]
Say what you will about Jordan, the man jumped out of his fucking deathbed to tell his wife about $GIANT_SPOILER (speaking of stuff that hadn't been spoiled by the Internet, $spoiler was, in retrospect, absolutely plausible, but AFAIK, no one seriously considered it). Once it became clear that he was dying, he recorded hours of audiotape dictating the story. The series may have dragged, but it's clear he felt he had a moral obligation to his fans to finish the story however best he could.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 11:02 PM on May 5, 2018 [26 favorites]
Me, I'm still waiting for The Universal Pantograph.
The last Chtorr novel
Last Dangerous Visions
posted by MartinWisse at 1:42 AM on May 6, 2018 [7 favorites]
The last Chtorr novel
Last Dangerous Visions
posted by MartinWisse at 1:42 AM on May 6, 2018 [7 favorites]
Hey, Scott Lynch might enjoy the distraction of writing a tidy finish to a sprawling epic series while we wait for him to write the next book in his own sprawling epic series.
(Love your stuff, Scott — take your time! We understand!)
posted by wenestvedt at 4:03 AM on May 6, 2018 [3 favorites]
(Love your stuff, Scott — take your time! We understand!)
posted by wenestvedt at 4:03 AM on May 6, 2018 [3 favorites]
I don't think it's greed or boredom. I think he's facing two main issues.
First, as his popularity's grown his editors have failed him. A strict editor who had some modicum of control over him would never allowed him to write himself in a corner like this nor the over-exposition that increasingly afflicts his books. Good editors aren't there to proofread. It is really easy to fall in love with one's own writing and lose the plot, and editors exist to tighten things up and ensure one's writing remains focused. Whomever was there in the early books has either lost their job or GRRM is now so popular they feel they no longer have the authority to control him. And we're seeing what happens.
The second issue is likely his main problem. I would bet anything that GRRM has a serious case of procrastination monkey. From the increasingly extended timeline between books as his popularity grew and the pressure increased, to distracting himself with side-stories, to the over-ambitious promises (how many times has he insisted it's time to buckle down and finish the book in three months?), he's got all the symptoms. And from his own description of his writing process he relies on churning out massive amounts of writing in short amounts of time when the feeling strikes him, rather than sitting down every day and forcing himself to write out something. Frankly, successful, prolific, deadline-attentive creator after creator has talked about the importance of maintaining that habit: Seinfeld and "don't break the chain", the discipline of Sanderson, Rawling, Twain and the accounts of their extremely rigid writing schedules. I'd bet you anything that if GRRM had the same habits the series would be done by now. Not to mention it's hard to get excited about your writing when it is almost certain that your fans have predicted the ending and all of your surprises are gone.
At least with respect to this,* I have a lot of sympathy for him. It is a truly horrible, crippling way to exist and extremely hard to change. You have to fix the underlying anxiety and perfectionism, and we all know how easy that is. It's going to require a total personality change plus the franchise somehow losing its popularity and fanbase. So I don't think he's ever going to finish, especially given his age and health. But I don't think it's because he's a greedy, unmotivated jerk. He probably desperately wants to finish. He just can't.
*I say with respect to this, and only this, because I've heard accounts GRRM views young women in a gross way that's reflected not only in the totally gross ages of his characters but in the treatment of some of his younger female fans. I would not be surprised at all if there's a #MeToo moment coming for him.
posted by Anonymous at 7:27 AM on May 6, 2018
First, as his popularity's grown his editors have failed him. A strict editor who had some modicum of control over him would never allowed him to write himself in a corner like this nor the over-exposition that increasingly afflicts his books. Good editors aren't there to proofread. It is really easy to fall in love with one's own writing and lose the plot, and editors exist to tighten things up and ensure one's writing remains focused. Whomever was there in the early books has either lost their job or GRRM is now so popular they feel they no longer have the authority to control him. And we're seeing what happens.
The second issue is likely his main problem. I would bet anything that GRRM has a serious case of procrastination monkey. From the increasingly extended timeline between books as his popularity grew and the pressure increased, to distracting himself with side-stories, to the over-ambitious promises (how many times has he insisted it's time to buckle down and finish the book in three months?), he's got all the symptoms. And from his own description of his writing process he relies on churning out massive amounts of writing in short amounts of time when the feeling strikes him, rather than sitting down every day and forcing himself to write out something. Frankly, successful, prolific, deadline-attentive creator after creator has talked about the importance of maintaining that habit: Seinfeld and "don't break the chain", the discipline of Sanderson, Rawling, Twain and the accounts of their extremely rigid writing schedules. I'd bet you anything that if GRRM had the same habits the series would be done by now. Not to mention it's hard to get excited about your writing when it is almost certain that your fans have predicted the ending and all of your surprises are gone.
At least with respect to this,* I have a lot of sympathy for him. It is a truly horrible, crippling way to exist and extremely hard to change. You have to fix the underlying anxiety and perfectionism, and we all know how easy that is. It's going to require a total personality change plus the franchise somehow losing its popularity and fanbase. So I don't think he's ever going to finish, especially given his age and health. But I don't think it's because he's a greedy, unmotivated jerk. He probably desperately wants to finish. He just can't.
*I say with respect to this, and only this, because I've heard accounts GRRM views young women in a gross way that's reflected not only in the totally gross ages of his characters but in the treatment of some of his younger female fans. I would not be surprised at all if there's a #MeToo moment coming for him.
posted by Anonymous at 7:27 AM on May 6, 2018
Addendum: I think he and his fans would ultimately be a hell of a lot happier if the rest of the job was given to a ghostwriter. He gives the outline and has control over the story, someone else takes over the work. GRRM gets the pressure off, a book is turned out, and the damn series is finally finished.
posted by Anonymous at 7:31 AM on May 6, 2018
posted by Anonymous at 7:31 AM on May 6, 2018
Look at the scenes between Arya and Sansa, they were close to fighting to the death...then one scene later best friends against Littlefinger. Why? What happened? Where was that development?
Generally, I agree with your point about the TV writing, but this is an example of the opposite. i think you missed the point where they were faking the fight
posted by eustatic at 10:33 AM on May 6, 2018 [5 favorites]
Generally, I agree with your point about the TV writing, but this is an example of the opposite. i think you missed the point where they were faking the fight
posted by eustatic at 10:33 AM on May 6, 2018 [5 favorites]
Yeah, the Stark sisters had both been around the block a few times by then. Littlefinger was a guy who tended to look for the most vulnerable people around, usually women, and then used them ruthlessly--note also his chain of brothels--but, even though he was a master manipulator, didn't really understand women, in particular Arya.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:51 AM on May 6, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:51 AM on May 6, 2018 [5 favorites]
By this point, after all this time and with his writing going south, I'm not sure I would bother with the rest even if it were ever released.
posted by ersatz at 2:47 PM on May 6, 2018
posted by ersatz at 2:47 PM on May 6, 2018
Signor Freda will be joining us as a guest judge. He'll award an extra immunity sigil to the scrivener whose chapter best compares the magical longevity of the Wall to the staying power of Estée Lauder's All Day Lipstick.
Remember to use the Wall of Inverted Tropes thoughtfully.
posted by The Tensor at 11:28 PM on May 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
Remember to use the Wall of Inverted Tropes thoughtfully.
posted by The Tensor at 11:28 PM on May 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
The only thing about ASoIaF that still holds my interest at this late date is whether GRRM is writing a story or a history: Will the pieces fall into place and reveal some sort of through-line, or is he "merely" recounting a bunch of stuff that happened in the Post Mad King era?
I'm not even rooting for it to go down one way or the other, but goddammit I want a complete work to analyze.
Count me firmly in the "GRRM made a promise" camp. Hire the finest ghostwriters and editors and wrap this shit up, please.
posted by whuppy at 12:51 PM on May 7, 2018
I'm not even rooting for it to go down one way or the other, but goddammit I want a complete work to analyze.
Count me firmly in the "GRRM made a promise" camp. Hire the finest ghostwriters and editors and wrap this shit up, please.
posted by whuppy at 12:51 PM on May 7, 2018
Martin just needs to follow the Michael O'Donoghue guide to writing a proper ending.
THE WINDS OF WINTER
by George R. R. Martin
Suddenly, everyone was run over by a truck.
-the end-
I've always hoped the ending will be the White Walkers and dragons destroy every last human being, and the world goes on to something rich and strange without humans. Martin knows his Lovecraft and weird fiction, and part of me hopes he'll somehow go down the cosmic horror route. Maybe leave one or two characters alive for a human viewpoint on the end of the world. Tyrion for choice.
Note that I also think Titus Alone is fucking fabulous, so calibrate how good my judgement is from there.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 1:34 PM on May 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
THE WINDS OF WINTER
by George R. R. Martin
Suddenly, everyone was run over by a truck.
-the end-
I've always hoped the ending will be the White Walkers and dragons destroy every last human being, and the world goes on to something rich and strange without humans. Martin knows his Lovecraft and weird fiction, and part of me hopes he'll somehow go down the cosmic horror route. Maybe leave one or two characters alive for a human viewpoint on the end of the world. Tyrion for choice.
Note that I also think Titus Alone is fucking fabulous, so calibrate how good my judgement is from there.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 1:34 PM on May 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'd always heard Peake had a stroke after Gormenghast was published and during the writing of Titus Alone, but the Wikipedia article says he developed Lewy body dementia, yet in any case, I thought Titus Alone read like an outline cum notes and fragments for a book yet to be written.
posted by jamjam at 2:05 PM on May 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by jamjam at 2:05 PM on May 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
As a definitive statement of his priorities, Martin is releasing a magisterial history of the Targaryen dynasty. The first volume weighs in at 736 pages.
posted by Iridic at 5:40 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Iridic at 5:40 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
« Older Amazing Jobs! Podcast | We are obliged not to tolerate their wanton and... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by delfin at 5:21 AM on May 5, 2018 [17 favorites]