Walter White Walker
Member
I want to see the receipts.
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Time: George R. R. Martin interview, I am going to finish these books!
- Thread starter LordOfLore
- Start date
I want to see the receipts.
TheChewyWaffles
Member
He's 68?? Time to find someone else to wrap this up.
TheChewyWaffles
Member
I laughed
pretty done
Member
I think if George came into this thread this would be his reaction to most of you:
We have the same reaction back to him so it doesn't really matter.
Dude is going to die before Spring comes out, and I'm not even sure if Winter will make it either. Being lazy, old and obese is not a good combo. Whatever, hopefully he gets some help (and an editor) so that we don't have three pages on Dany's diarrhea or one page to describe each plate of food.
I wouldn't read those books. I like Abercrombie, but his prose is very distinct from what GRRM does and the difference in narration would outweigh any answers I might get.
I genuinely think people get too caught up in chasing the conclusion to ASoIaF when they say things like this. You don't want any conclusion to the series, you want a good conclusion.
There are many situations in which it would be better for the last book to never be released than stuff like having writers who don't fit GRRM's narrative style finishing his work for him.
To be fair, this is his creation. He does not owe us shit. If he wants to spend the rest of his life on a beach rewriting and enjoying life then so be it. I wish he would go radio silence, pop up and say the book is ready, see you in a month.
Who would you recommend?
Honestly? No one in particular. GRRM's style is really distinctive and I haven't come across anyone exactly like him, and there are plenty of authors I think I'd go as far as to say are better than GRRM, but they're not like him.
I'm reading the World of Ice and Fire, and I don't know who wrote which part, but that feels like it's close to his voice, so maybe Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson, if I had a gun to my head. But at the same time, they're writing in the voice of one particular character, the one who is the 'historian' of the book, and writing a historical book is different from the prose novel that GRRM presents.
When you get down to it, I really don't think I want a non-GRRM mainline ASoIaF book.
you have to show some respect for the author and his work.
I don't think GRRM's writing and general storytelling has been as strong over the last two books. I have made my peace that he will never complete the series and I am willing to have someone else finish it. I have yet to read Sanderson's conclusion to Wheel of Time but his effort appears to have been well received.
I disagree. I can give you that some of his content may not have been the most interesting, but his writing in Dance is some of his best. Theon's chapters in particular were hauntingly beautiful. Wheel of time is a very different beast, and Sanderson in particular is an author who took a lot of inspiration from WoT before he was called to finish the works.
It's not that I think there isn't another author that could do a competent job of it. There are a lot of good authors in the world, finding one for this series will be..well, not easy, but it won't be for lack of suitable candidates. The issue I find is that people aren't even concerning themselves with candidates who would do that. They seem to just be grasping for anyone to slap their name on the cover next to GRRM's, type out a workhorse adaptation of his notes, and ship it so that the audience can just get their damn answers on what happens already. That's...the last thing I want and I don't think anyone would actually be happy if that turned out to be the way they got their conclusion.
I'm one of the last people to preach the sanctity of the original authors vision, so it's not that I'm inherently opposed to someone else doing it. But when people have abandoned all appreciation of the journey just so they can get to their destination, then I just find it hard to believe that's coming from a place of genuine love of the series. That's the impression I get, they don't want a good book, they just want a book.
TheDrizzlerJ11
Member
Me and a friend were drunkenly theorizing this scenario where George finished the books years ago and is going to release them in his will. He doesn't want to know people opinions on how he ends this. Idk why we got to that last point but it was the basis of everything....
Could you imagine tho. It would be the biggest thing ever. If he died and then 2-4 finished books no1 knew about were released.....I mean he wouldn't get to experience it, but the craze for his art would be through the roof.
Could you imagine tho. It would be the biggest thing ever. If he died and then 2-4 finished books no1 knew about were released.....I mean he wouldn't get to experience it, but the craze for his art would be through the roof.
I do hope he does, but I've long given up hope. Or I suppose more accurately, I've lost all fire I had for the series. I'll read whatever comes out, but I no longer care like I used to. I've moved on, which is sad for me. I started reading in 2001, so its been with me for a while. I read the first three books so much, I wore out my copies and had to buy new ones.
Now...meh. I did actually like ADWD and I've grown to like AFFC, though both certainly have problems, but like I said above, I've moved on. Sanderson's cosmere is my place now.
Also, just a reminder that he will only write on one specific computer (a WordStar 4.0, circa 1987) and he types with one finger. So imagine typing out names like Xaro Xhoan Daxos, Hizdahr zo Loraq, or Skahaz mo Kandaq multiple times with one finger.
(I can't entirely fault him for only using one computer, but its still amusing that he uses a pretty ancient machine for it)
Now...meh. I did actually like ADWD and I've grown to like AFFC, though both certainly have problems, but like I said above, I've moved on. Sanderson's cosmere is my place now.
Also, just a reminder that he will only write on one specific computer (a WordStar 4.0, circa 1987) and he types with one finger. So imagine typing out names like Xaro Xhoan Daxos, Hizdahr zo Loraq, or Skahaz mo Kandaq multiple times with one finger.
(I can't entirely fault him for only using one computer, but its still amusing that he uses a pretty ancient machine for it)
Nydius
Member
I made the mistake of reading this while eating dinner and damn near choked due to laughter.
There were 5 years between Swords and Crows. 5.5 years between Crows and Dragons. Books 4 and 5 were some of the worst writing he put out. Worse than any of the ASOIAF series that came before them. Swords and Crows were loaded with pointless minutia, needless worldbuilding, new character introductions which guaranteed writing future installments would be more cumbersome, and a ridiculous plot arc for several mainline characters, leading to some characters actually regressing or simply moving nowhere over the course of 1000+ pages.
If this is the best he can come up with when he spends 5+ years writing, maybe we'd all be better off if he started making "rushed BS". It would probably read better. Because Crows and Dragons were, by and large, utterly forgettable. They could have easily been trimmed in half, each, stuck together in one book, and been a better read.
miller.skippins
Banned
The right word to use is: Pragmatic
Dash_Riprock
Member
He's a devout Mormon, so takes issue with the sex and violence.
Purple Cheeto
Member
The Blue Dots are when he was writing Wild Cards and not editing other people's stories. The Red Dots are when he was still writing ASoIaF. Time is a flat circle.
Everything he's read or shown publicly for years has been stuff that was cut from ADwD, the only writing he's done are his tv show episodes and his blog posts about the NFL.
Plus he just signed on to be an EP on another HBO show based on someone else's book. Considering the whole reason he wrote ASoIaF in the first place was he was pissed at being kicked out of the world of television and now he's back in that world, what motivation does he have to finish a book series he loathes and lost interest in.
zswordsman
Member
Him and Togashi should get together and work on a project.
Miura will do the art
Love the books and series, but have come to accept they won't be finished. The show will have to fill the void.
Fancyarcher
Member
I'll believe it when I see it Mr. Martin.
The Blue Dots are when he was writing Wild Cards and not editing other people's stories. The Red Dots are when he was still writing ASoIaF. Time is a flat circle.
Everything he's read or shown publicly for years has been stuff that was cut from ADwD, the only writing he's done are his tv show episodes and his blog posts about the NFL.
Plus he just signed on to be an EP on another HBO show based on someone else's book. Considering the whole reason he wrote ASoIaF in the first place was he was pissed at being kicked out of the world of television and now he's back in that world, what motivation does he have to finish a book series he loathes and lost interest in.
Ignoring that most of this post is baseless assuption of his motivations and work schedule, by your own chart, both the last 2 books he released were in the same timeframe that the WC's books released. The only actual gap there is when the WC was put on haitus while he wrote the first 3 books of ASoIaF. But AFfC was released with what looks like to be less than a year of the 2005-6 WC book, and there is a WC book literally right on top of the ADwD book. So even by your own '''''''research''''''' that wouldn't actually prove what your suggesting even if the dots had lined up how you wanted them to, it suggests he's capable of writing ASoIaF while working on other stuff.
Silly putty is harder than this evidence.
RoninChaos
Member
What were some of the notes from the editor?
Thats a sucky proposition, but the most likely one.
Dash_Riprock
Member
your fanboy is showing
He doesn't want to do it anymore. Been obvious for almost a decade now.
...But they're unfinished too!
MrOogieBoogie
BioShock Infinite is like playing some homeless guy's vivid imagination
If you guys want more Martin/Westeros but haven't checked out the Tales of Dunk & Egg, fix that right now. They're fantastic books!
No, there are plenty of fandoms I am a part of that I find irritating. In this case, I hate entering any GRRM thread because no matter what the actual topic is, it's just fans whining about how they don't have the next book. Like this interview, he talks about his writing style, how he improvises his story as he goes along, and his influences regarding historical fiction and Tolkien. Granted, this is all old news that I learned elsewhere, but even if it was something new, the fandom is akin to a mob of zombies that that say "Boook" instead of "Braaains".
The main responses in this thread are variations of "Why don't I have book 5 yet?" (Because of the obvious reason), "I am never going to have book 5" (Okay? Even if true, which you don't know it is, it doesn't add anything to the discussion, it's just pure cynicism. How am I even supposed to respond to this?), and baseless assumption and speculation of GRRM's character and workschedule.
Any GRRM thread is nothing but a stream of bitterness about what the fandom doesn't have. What is a person supposed to do with that in terms of discussion?
As per example. It's fascinatingly odd how he keeps expanding the universe given how sick he is of writing this universe, dontcha think? He doesn't want to do it so much he wrote two unnecessary novellas, three short Dunk and Egg stories, and is working on that GRRMillion thing.
There's nothing to finish. There's no serial arc to the series, it's literally just Dunk and Egg fucking around Westeros so every story is isolated to itself. It's a narrative blank space where GRRM isn't really restricted by anything, so all you really need to know is "Dunk and Egg went on adventures and by the end, did some cool stuff, and were great friends". But each story is it's own thing and concludes it's own plot threads. GRRM could never write another D&E story, and it would be no more or less finished than if he wrote 10 more.
Sounds like what happens by year 2 of most wait times for fantasy titles tbh. Like I posted earlier some of us have been waiting for decades now for new releases on some titles
One day Cook will release another BC
The only time I actually felt the frustration most fans feels is when all I read was ASoIaF. Once I started reading other stuff, the frustration went away.
I can't speak for others, but given my experience, I think what fans are experiencing is just a form of constipation because their engagment is being left in the ditch. Once I got engaged with other books, the frustration went away. So the solution to this is literally just to go read more books imo. As long as I have SOMETHING to read, I'm perfectly fine and I honestly don't mind that it's taken 6 years and I have genuinely no problem waiting more. If there is an upper limit to this patience, I haven't reached it yet.
Speaking as a writer, I hope he decides not to finish the books at this point. Because y'all aren't worth the effort it'd take. Just a bunch of angry man-children who think you're owed something and that writing is somehow this easy thing to do.
Aye, ASOIAF isn't like the end all be all, I also posted earlier that GRRM delaying releases should have little bearing on anyone's love for fantasy titles. If you love one series, it's inevitable that you'll find a dozen more favorites in a second. That said, authors going ghost for what feels like half your life is like not weird at all to me. It sucks, but shit happens.
Dash_Riprock
Member
If he takes the vindictive route like you suggest, he's only hurting himself. Fans will get their ending on the TV show, with or without him. GRRM giving up because someone was mean to to him on the internet would just be cutting off his nose to spite his face.
I mean, I was laughing. It you weren't thats on you.
This only works on the assumption that getting the TV shows ending is of equal worth to getting GRRM's ending. For a lot of fans, myself included, it's really, really not. This isn't really even a criticism of the show bad, but it's not as good as the books for me. The shows is doing things differently, on many levels, and I don't really don't have any interest in getting the ASoIaF story from them.
Like, yeah, it would be spiteful and hateful as fuck, and on some level I can understand it because some fans are really bad about how they act, but most fans are still reasonable and just love his series and that would hurt them a lot more than it'd ever hurt the bad fans, so it'd be bad form to do it.
Just look at the first page. Incredible discussion eh?
JustSomeone
Member
He doesn't look like the kind of guy who would be particularly(read:at all) concerned about people's opinions
Calling a 68 year old "lazy" is quite something. Most of you will already be in retirement by that age but fuck him for being slow at writing the conclusion to a pretty complicated story. Yes, the state of the books is frustrating. Yes, it's easy to get the impression that he's more busy doing other stuff. But, you know, if he can't or just doesn't want to sit at a desk 12 hours a day anymore, if he needs more time off to be able to write, that's okay and shouldn't be used as an excuse to throw insults at him.
Aurean_Mentat
Member
I mean, I think there is a reasonable middle ground here.
I mean, neither of them owe anyone a 'next book' or the like. Both Rothfuss and GRRM are successful enough to where they can certainly do what they like. But for GRRM to go on an interview like this is pretty close to 'don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining' level. Rothfuss is at a similar point for me.
I think that most reasonable people have concluded that neither series is going to be finished. At least with Game of Thrones, the show will provide an ending.
I mean, neither of them owe anyone a 'next book' or the like. Both Rothfuss and GRRM are successful enough to where they can certainly do what they like. But for GRRM to go on an interview like this is pretty close to 'don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining' level. Rothfuss is at a similar point for me.
I think that most reasonable people have concluded that neither series is going to be finished. At least with Game of Thrones, the show will provide an ending.
I really don't think that's reasonable at all. Why wouldn't Rothfuss' series be completed? The argument with GRRM is that he's going to die because he's old and fat. Rothfuss looks like an out of shape bum, but he's in his mid forties, he's not gonna be having a heart attack any time soon.
Dash_Riprock
Member
But that's the thing: You are NOT getting GRRM's ending. No one is. At best, we'll get one based on his notes written by someone else. Basically a written form of the TV show in terms of canon. Maybe it'll be better? Who knows. But that is only if he'll allow it. If he refuses to budge on having anyone but him writing the books, then we're all SOL.
You do not know that that we're not going to get it. I'm sorry, but you don't. Look, I don't care how cynical you want to be, that doesn't make it a fact. I'm not even saying the ending will be good, but there's every chance of GRRM just going "Fuck it, I'll just publish whatever shit I churn out now" or whatever. GRRM's not dead yet and he's working at it. And you're prediction could be right, if GRRM dies or something, but you're stating it as a fact, and it's genuine bullshit and it's as frustrating as if I in turn were to say with 100% certainty that we're getting TWoW in 2018 based on nothing.
And even if you end up being right, I don't see how that changes anything or elevates the discussion. Lets say you end up being right: Okay, so what? My argument, that I am not that interested in the TV shows, still holds up for the same reasons. It would not make a difference to me if it ends up being the only ending we get, because it's not an ending worth having. "So what does "But you're not getting GRRM's ending" have to do with that point when the argument your addressing is already addressing how that's not a counter argument?
Askherserenity
Member
When you write a great book, this happens.
When you write a mediocre book, this happens
When you write no book, this happens
Can you edit this post and add GoT Euron on there?
Also speaking as a writer, I hope he does finish it because leaving a story started yet unfinished is one of the greatest sins a storyteller can commit. We're owed nothing from George, but that doesn't mean we have to be content with the current circumstances and keep our mouths shut.
Neverforget
Member
I don't even care anymore George, and to be frank I have been brainwashed enough by the TV show that I forgot about what I read in the books already.