New A Song of Ice and Fire Update: still not done

[npiccini]

I can't say I disagree with the last post. Believe me, I want nothing more than to crack open Dance and read it cover to cover. However, Im supportive of a guy's right to enjoy his life and have some fun, and if conventions are his thing, then travel the world and hit them all! Thats what I would do!

Im also fairly confident that with the coming of the HBO series, GRRM will be a little more pressured and a little more focused going forward with Dance and the rest of the series.

 

[RaceBannon42]

You mean he's not a monkey chained to his desk forced to perform for our enjoyment?

ADWD will be done when its done, I'll read it, and I'll enjoy it. I like the fact that George is accessable. Its great to sit down with the guy , have a drink with him, and talk about the upcoming NFL draft. Is he 100% focused on finishing ADWD? No. He wants to finish it certainly, but he hasnt been able to get the creative process working as he'd like. I'd rather wait for the best book he can give us rather than settle for something he rushed to meet the demands of fnas who felt entitled to it now.

 

[Aaron L]

I enjoyed AFFC, but the problem is that my fave characters (Arya excepted) did not appear in AFFC.

In that I was not alone; most GRRM fans are fans of Jon, Dany, Tyrion and even Bran. So it made a big difference in the novel.

As for his focus...

GRRM spends a lot of time at cons and doing other things. I would get a little snippy about it - except if you read his biographical notes on his site (he put up some new ones 2 months ago) you begin to understand pretty quickly that GRRM's life has ALWAYS revolved around attending SF cons.

In that regard, GRRM is the real deal; he is a genuine *fanboi*. His whole adult life he's been going to them. Moreover, it would seem every love interest in his life - he met at a SF con.

He's been going to them for over 35 years and it is something he and Paris love doing together. A guy who goes to SF cons is very much WHO he is. So...I guess we can't begrudge a man that.

And it's worth remembering that GRRM goes out of his way to be accessible to fans. In fact, I can't recall ANY major author (let alone a genre #1 best-selling author) who is as personally accessible as GRRM is. I think that needs to be taken into account too. Some of these guys you never see. Whereas GRRM organizes a pizza crawl online and tells you where he will be so you can come out with him for the night.

Still - even with his con attendances in past years, he found a way to write.

My guess is that when you really NEED the money those novels generate to pay the rent, it tends to focus your efforts more.

I had thought we would get ADWD for a November 2007 release. While that is still possible - he'll have to get his ass in gear PDQ for that to happen.

Wow... is GRRM seriously like this? I've heard that SoIaF was good for a while now, but I've been holding off on starting another big novel series because I just haven't had the motivation to start reading them yet... but if this is really what the guy's like, this just may give me a reason to finally pick these books up,



He sounds like a really decent guy, and I like to reward that kind of behavior in people. I have a $25 gift card for Waldenbooks left over from Christmas, and now mybe I'll use it to start getting this series.

Now the only problem is actually getting to a Waldenbooks... or any bookstore, for that matter. The %@#! idiot town I live in is illiterate, and has no bookstores because of lack of interest. It's a 30 minutes drive to the closest bookstore.

 

[IcedEarth81]

I've got a serious question to ask: Does going to these conventions and watching football really hold back GRRM this much? I mean, we all have hobbies, we all have things going on the side, but how many of us completely slack in our main job and use those things to excuse it?

I love Martin, I love his writing, I like the fact that he is accessible and all of that. But, I'm not going to simply excuse him for slacking off on his novels to do all those other things. It is highly dissappointing to start reading books and then have the author draw out the series and the pace at which the books are released. We've seen this before. Not only that, but the quality of his latest was down a little compared to before that. I didn't mind the split so much as long as the other half was out soon. It keeps getting pushed further and further back - kind of like AFFC was. ADWD should have been out last year or early this year. He spent 5 years writing what? 700 pages? If he had so much of ADWD written along with AFFC, where is it? Why isn't it out? Why can other writers in the genre spit out great books at a good pace and he can't? In 10 years are we going to be waiting on Book 7?

 

[Aus_Snow]

I just hope it comes out soon(-ish). Complaining about the guy's work habits isn't likely to change them.

But then, I have a great deal of patience when it comes to artists of merit.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Wow... is GRRM seriously like this? I've heard that SoIaF was good for a while now, but I've been holding off on starting another big novel series because I just haven't had the motivation to start reading them yet... but if this is really what the guy's like, this just may give me a reason to finally pick these books up,

Yeah he's the real deal. He's a SF/Fantasy geek. He used to pay the bills organizing chess tournaments and was (and remains) a RPG player (GURPS and CoC as I recall) and a HUGE comic book fan for the past 45 years.

GRRM is a genuine Greybeard fanboi. And as he loves to go to cons and meet other writers and talk shop, he makes himself accessible to fans now that his moment in the sun has finally come. He really does. Goes out of his way to do it.

As nice as it is, you don't need to feel that professional behaviour like this needs to be rewarded in order to buy aSoIaF. It also happens to be - easily - the best fantasy series I have ever read. Seeing as there are several hundred thousand fans who share this view, the series is definitely worth your while.

 

[Celtavian]

I seem to be not the only one worried about GRRM these days. I loved the first 3 Ice and Fire books, but A Feast for Crows was a marked decline in quality, the time spent between books is growing, and the narrative thrust is starting to get a bit fuzzy and watered down.

I hope GRRM proves me wrong, since there's such incredible promise in this series. But he needs to regain a bit of focus, IMO.

I have to agree. He has way too much on his plate. It will most likely hurt the quality of the rest of the series. I know that's the nature of the business nowadays, but I wish an author with a good idea like Martin's Song of Ice and Fire would fulfill the promise of the idea before embarking on so many other ventures.

 

[IcedEarth81]

I have to agree. He has way too much on his plate. It will most likely hurt the quality of the rest of the series. I know that's the nature of the business nowadays, but I wish an author with a good idea like Martin's Song of Ice and Fire would fulfill the promise of the idea before embarking on so many other ventures.

I agree with you. George gave fantasy a serious shot in the arm when AGOT was published. The next two books were each better than the previous book. I still hold up ASOS as the best modern novel I've read. His series is widely considered the best modern fantasy at this moment. It has the potential to be best big fantasy series ever (treating LOTR as a single book or a trilogy rather than a big series) when done. To me that should be his main focus, getting this thing done. He just seems to have too much going on and isn't focused enough on getting his series done. Steven Erikson published his first Malazan novel in 1999 and will publish his 7th this spring, with all of them being of high quality. Martin published ASOS in 2000 and has published one ASOIAF book since, and that was really half a book. We're not asking for him to match Erikson's pace as every writer is different, but Martin's pace is just horrible.

There should be concerns here. I have them and I am a huge Martin fan. I love the man's work, but come on and get this done. This is one of the reasons I am pulling for the HBO series to happen, I'm hoping it focuses Martin on finishing his series. At this rate we might be done in another decade.

 

[RaceBannon42]

Wow... is GRRM seriously like this? I've heard that SoIaF was good for a while now, but I've been holding off on starting another big novel series because I just haven't had the motivation to start reading them yet... but if this is really what the guy's like, this just may give me a reason to finally pick these books up,

He sounds like a really decent guy, and I like to reward that kind of behavior in people. I have a $25 gift card for Waldenbooks left over from Christmas, and now mybe I'll use it to start getting this series.

George is a great guy. I've been to 3 cons where he has been at and the Martin fan club the Bwb usually throws a pretty good party
here is a photo of George with some of the Bwb post hugo awards at LA con last year.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bwbevent/229775730/

 

[Endur]

A Feast for Crows had a lack of attractive protagonists in it. It was sort of like an epiloge to A Storm of Swords ('and the world became worse'). Which makes sense because GRRM said that A Feast for Crows is filling space between his original intended novels.

The novel is well worth reading, but it lacks the emotional highs of A Game of Thrones or A Clash of Kings.

For stories more in tune with the first two novels, I highly recommend The Hedge Knight and The Sworn Sword.