Apologies for the slightly off-topic post…
It’s not looking good, folks…
George R R Martin confirms he hasn’t written anything for the 2 remaining A Song Of Ice And Fire books since 2022.
He wishes that they were finished.
The last published book in the series, A Dance With Dragons, was published in July 2011, now 13 years ago.
Obligatory song that’s now 12 years old… https://youtu.be/j7lp3RhzfgI
Brandon Sanderson finished wheel of time. Let’s just give it over to him.
I sometimes go months or years before picking a project back up, so I can relate.
Him and Patrick Rothfuss need a writing camp or something.
Honestly, what a piece of shit.
Relax, it’s just a book.
If I were grrm I would hire the last seasons writers to help me finish the books. Ultimate troll.
I honestly don’t know why this guy doesn’t just hire a couple ghostwriters to finish things, proofread them himself, publish them and be done with it
After what people he allowed to „finish things“ did to GoT I do not think that is very likely.
Pride mostly.
There might also be some contractual obligations for him to be the one to right it. Also, he probably doesn’t have a clue where to take them.
Or better yet… The pagecount on the next book is somewhere around 1,100 pages at last count which is more than enough to publish.
Find a natural breaking point around 700 or 800 pages, go to print and reset the clock.
Then you’re already up 300-400 pages on the next book.
I’m fairly certain that the last two books will be published close together. Grrm is well known for writing a chapter and then pushing it to the next book.
I’m fairly certain that the last two books will be published
Hahahahahaha…
*gasp*
Hahahahahahahahaha
I also don’t think he’s writing them, so you can consider that as well
Oh, you’re serious. Let me laugh even harder.
Hahahahahahahahaha
Or credited writers even…
Who wouldn’t want to work with him to finish ASOIAF for a co-author credit?
Or a mention in the foreword even…
He should just finish it off writing it like a historical retelling the way Fire and Blood was done. POV chapters are nice but when he isn’t going to release anything with that approach something is better than nothing so the last impression of the final arc isn’t HBO’s Game of Thrones.
I’m entirely unsurprised.
D and D got a lot of heat for the last season of Game of Thrones, but I’ve never thought they were entirely, or even chiefly, to blame. Most of the problem really is that GRRM obviously desperately needed an editor to rein him in as the series went along, but for whatever reason, that didn’t happen. So now he has this huge, sprawling story that’s going in eighteen different directions at once, and just as D and D couldn’t manage to tie it all together, neither can he.
D&D’s biggest problem is they did a good job adapting pre-existing material, but couldn’t adapt a PowerPoint deck.
IIRC from some article or interview way back then, Martin had provided D&D an outline of all the major plot points he intended through the end of the series. So while they might not have had the specifics, the major points would have been there.
If that was true, then it would make sense that they used those major points for the basis of the rest of the show. After the abysmal reception of those points by the fans, I would imagine Martin would have stopped to think about his plans, possibly losing interest entirely.
That assumes that he did in fact provide those major points to D&D in the first place to have adapted however.
There are three subreddits I miss after leaving reddit, and one of them is r/freefolk.
I always felt that one of the main problems with GoT/ASOIAF was that it was a nuanced, political fantasy with top class world-building, but the overarching plot was pushing everyone towards a massive final confrontation (or 2 really). There was not really a good way to resolve the confrontation without a massive battle (or 2). So the ending was always going to have to move away from what made the series interesting/successful (book and TV), i.e. plot, characters, intrigue, shades of grey.
There were other problems as well, but that was something baked into the whole series by GRRM, and I’m not sure he can really find a way to do it differently. He might come up with a different outcome of the final confrontations, but it still has to be done with epic battles.
The Hobbit ends in a massive battle that seemed made for TV, but Bilbo gets a bonk on the head. I’m sure people don’t need to hear about the ebb and flow of the battle. Have King Stannis host a feast afterwards and the few characters left alive can trade highlight stories.
Upvote for Stannis the Mannis
So the ending was always going to have to move away from what made the series interesting/successful
While you have a point, I don’t think the ending was necessarily bad because of that.
To me the resolutions they did use were just badly executed. I’d have been fine with the battle of the bastards resolving the Bolton plot, if the battle as shown didn’t make me scream at my screen every 2 minutes from all the logic holes. Same with the fall of Highgarden, Daenerys going insane, Bran becoming King etc. They could have reached mostly the same outcomes and it could have been fine. But the build up and the attention to detail just weren’t there at all. And it wasn’t even that they ran out of time, they deliberately shortened the last 2 seasons because they wanted it to be over.
Nah. The problem are not GRRMs plot points they more or less hit, it’s that they did it in the most moronic ways imaginable.
We know.
I’m actually surprised he was still working on them two years ago.
Just make sure that Martin takes decent notes so that Sanderson can be tapped to bring the story home. Sanderson did a marvelous job finishing Robert Jordan’s giant story.
Sanderson did a great job, but my only critique was that the Tower of Genji part seemed rushed. The build up to that was almost as important as the Last Battle.
Also, I’ve read the series nearly 3 times and I stand by this statement: Fuck Faile. Fuck Perrin. Useless cunts
No mention of the rush of the ending? Who WAS Elan and why the link to Rand? So many questions left
The ending was pretty fast but it hit a lot of the points it should have. I don’t remember Elan since it has been a while and I’m neck deep in Malazan.
The link with Rand: i am guessing you mean what happened to him at the end? That makes sense if you recall him crossing balefire streams with Mordin in Shadar Lorgoth
Yes elan is moridin. They have a sit and chat in one Rands later visions, and even resemble each other as I recall.
I liked Perrin a lot…until Faile showed up in the first place.
But I can’t argue your statement.
A whole book spent hunting for her? C’mon
I’m with you though he had so much potential in the beginning. His overall story is cool, but I just couldn’t get past RJ forcing me to read a whole book of nothing but Perrin tying knots in a strip of leather.
Sanderson did a great job, but my only critique was that the Tower of Genji part seemed rushed. The build up to that was almost as important as the Last Battle.
I don’t think the rushing was Sanderson’s fault, but Jordan’s for leaving so much unfinished. My understanding is that when Jordan died, Sanderson was asked to write the “final book”. When looking at the material that remained to be written Sanderson said it needed way more than one more book. He ended up writing three, but I wonder if the material may have called for five. Sanderson had his own stuff he wanted to write and didn’t want to live for more than three-book-years-worth in Jordan’s universe. I can’t blame Sanderson for that.
Oh, I’m not saying I’m displeased at all - I’m just saying, that in a perfect world, I would have liked to have had him spread out the writing a bit more. You’re absolutely right - he had his own shit to do. He did an amazing job, all things considered. He also did us WoT fans an HUGE HUGE solid, and finished the damn thing when there was next to no hope that it actually would be finished.
I personally wonder if Jordan wrote himself into a corner with the Tower of Genji. The magic system and tone didn’t really match the rest of the WoT universe. If you look too closely at it, it raises all sorts of nasty continuity questions for the universe as a whole. The Tower of Genji smells like a deus ex machina.
Joe Abercrombie would be my vote if someone was doing it.
Sandersons books all feel like superhero meets fantasy, and he’s too much of a choir boy to match Martin’s tone.
Sandersons … too much of a choir boy to match Martin’s tone
I’d agree, it’s not an ideal match. But another talented, perhaps up-and-coming writer (as Sanderson sort of was at the time) could do a good job.
One does not tap Sanderson anymore. Sanderson taps the zincmind that he spiked from Martin.
I hear he plans to bring in Patrick Rothfuss to pick up where he left off and also not finish the story.
Ugh. That one hurts. Doors of Stone… where you at?
I was perfectly fine with the amount of annoyance I felt before I read this comment but you just had to bring up another unfinished series didn’t you? Now I’m all flustered.
Brando Sando has answered the question a bunch of times, and said he’s not interested at all. Also, GRRM previously said he would never allow it to be finished by anyone else. Who knows? Maybe the publisher will force it.
Also, GRRM previously said he would never allow it to be finished by anyone else
If I remembered correctly, Jordan had also expressed similar thoughts, look how that turned out.
If he really wanted it to remain unfinished he could have pulled a Pratchett and have his hard drive steamrolled.
(Though, to be fair if you really want your data gone you should probably use thermite.)
Or just drill a few holes in it, then remove the disks from the drive and microwave them for 10 minutes
Or just drill a few holes in it
That isn’t always as effective as you’d think, especially with SSDs…
microwave them for 10 minutes
Yeah, that’d probably do it (though I’m not sure what it’d do to your microwave.
Thermite is guaranteed to destroy your data (and probably the floor, or the floor and the table if you’re dumb enough to do it on a table, and anything too close to your data… but that’s besides the point, the data will be unrecoverable, that’s the point).
Sanderson is genuinely a pillar of modern fiction
writes a lot, anyway
I love Sanderson, he is my favorite fantasy author, and you are correct about his marvelous job finishing WoT, but he is just not the right fit tonally for ASOIAF. He doesn’t even write swear words, and GRRM’s books are fairly liberal with the fucks and the cunts. I would however be in favor of Joe Abercrombie or someone with a bit of a darker bent to their writing taking over if needed.
Not to mention his Mormonism may be at odds with the sex scenes.
Just add more women - polygamy was all the rage in Mormonism back in the day.
Abercrombie would be a great fit. Another good one would be Ed McDonald
He doesn’t even write swear words
Kelek’s breath, man. He swears all the storming time.
Rust and ruin, I knew someone would bring up this crem.
I would fuck with an Abercrombie takeover so hard.
He’s my spirit animal
Logan Lucky came out in 2017, and this scene is still relevant.
Every year this drags on, that scene gets funnier to me.
Daniel Craig’s character looked interesting, but this has me wanting to watch the movie now.
Just let Brandon Sanderson finish the books, you old man!
🎵 We are never, ever getting A Song of Ice & Fire ♪
What a coincidence, I haven’t thought about reading a book from GRRM since May 2019
