DaveyJoe

I was hoping at least TWOW would come out before the show spoils it, but it is starting to look bad.

hanshotfirst1138

Martin must be an obsessive re-writer.

MrX

Not really, he does 10,000 projects at once and refuses to write when he's on the road traveling and doing promotion. He's supposedly put other writing projects on hold, including not writing for the HBO series, until Winds is finished but I wouldn't expect to see it until the end of 2015 at the earliest.

spainlinx0

I didn't see this posted here, but it looks like the ending to Game of Thrones has already been guessed by fans. Of course this doesn't tell us which ending is correct, but I thought it was interesting that he acknowledged it, and he isn't going to change it unlike a certain TV show that was guessed in the first episode and wrote itself into circles to avoid that fact.

Also it's not surprising considering how many fan theories are out there.

http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/game...ss-1201281422/

EEz28

What show was that? Lost?

Josh-da-man

Viewers, after watching the pilot: "They are all dead and in purgatory!"

Lindelof and Cuse: "Oh shit."

hanshotfirst1138

TimeSkip

As I understand it Martin only has a couple engagements left and afterwards it will be all about writing. We'll see.

crazyronin

Who wrote this shit? Harry? C'est la merde!

Osiris3657

Anyone get that "World of Ice & Fire" book that came out yesterday?

Josh-da-man

Not until football season is over.

TimeSkip

I have it from the library, looks good so far. Perhaps not the "comprehensive" history that I was expecting but does a good job of gathering the information in one place with some fantastic art.

Heh, the man can watch his New York Jets and Giants, that's only one day out of seven. He can write during the rest of the week.

starman9000

The kindle version of the World of Ice and Fire dropped to $6.25. I was planning on getting the print copy, but at that price I might change my mind.

argh923

No, it isn't how it ended at all. People who say that don't even understand the ending. /rant

creekdipper

Shouldn't one actually have a new book to promote (other than the anthology series he edits) before "doing promotion"?

At this point, ASOIAF pretty much promotes itself. The best thing GRRM could do to promote his writing (including other works) is to finish the next installment & get it on the bestseller lists & on shelves.

Not to mention giving HBO the material it needs, especially since they have done more to elevate him to celebrity author status than any self-promotion.

(I've read Martin's work ever since Fevre Dream was first published, and I would be very understanding if each book in the Song cycle were masterpieces...but, let's face it, the last two were somewhat disappointing considering the time it took for them to come out. Martin chose to extend the series beyond the original planned trilogy; maybe he thought the material would flow as easily as it did for the first three books (which he had probably been imagining for years before actually putting pen to paper) and then the pump slowed down. Regardless, he signed on for this & presumably made commitments. I doubt anyone begrudges him his major convention appearances & some of the book tour adulation (and free food & drink), but this is like an athlete who wants to go around doing personal appearances when he still has seasons left to play. Reasonable fans wish him the best in enjoying the fruits of his labors, but unless he's experienced major writer's block, is stressed out & needs a sabbatical, or just hates the act of writing currently, surely he can pace himself and produce some material each week.

I confess to being similarly frustrated with the slow output from songwriter/musician Gillian Welch, who has admitted that it was due to writer's block. Then again, it's not as though the gap between albums keeps one hanging from the previous work.

Osiris3657

GRRM posted a new excerpt from Winds of Winter, a Sansa chapter.

Read it here

Ginwen

Read that. I still just really don't care for Sansa. She's gotten a little better on the show, I guess, but I found that chapter typically annoying Sansa idiocy.

milo bloom

Finally finished Dance. Looking forward to reading all the online essays explaining all the little bits I missed. Should fill in the time until the next book.

mndtrp

I also finally read all of the books, aside from the novellas. I haven't watched any of the tv show at all. Good reads, a little long in the tooth, but I look forward to whatever comes next. Assuming I live to see it.

MrX

I actually liked the Sansa chapters in Feast, but Robin Arryn is so fucking annoying I had a hard time getting through that chapter.

brainee

Here's a question that I got into it with a couple of people today ... would you consider Martin's ASOIAF series "Tolkeinesqe"? I went to a presentation today (on environmentalism in fantasy in honor of Earth Day) by an English lit faculty that claimed this.

While Martin is on record as being a huge fan of Tolkein (especially his world building), I never saw much direct influence in ASOIAF. In fact, it kind of strikes me as the anti-Tolkein fantasy: very little magic, few non-human characters, "shades of grey" instead of good versus evil. Historical events in medieval Europe seemed the main influence in ASOIAF to me. If I had to pick a work of fantasy that it drew from, I see more King Arthur than Middle Earth.

johnnysd

It is hugely influenced by Tolkien. At the end of the day, the story will boil down to a fight of human kind versus the Others which is extremely close to humans versus orcs. Even more so when you consider that the TV show has confirmed that the others have a King (Sauron) and their own city (Mordor). Even more so, the white walkers were kept in check in the past by immortal beings, Children of the Forest, similar to the first war against Sauron was led by the elves. Throw in dragons and their relationship to magic and the similarities are extremely strong. GRRM does his own thing, but it is definitely Tolkien-esque high fantasy just as WOT and some many other epic fantasy novels are.

Dr. DVD

These books are definitely fantasy, but the fantasy is more a back drop than the forefront, which is more like Tolkien. I would argue it's easier to get someone who likes Tolkien into ASOIAF than it would be get someone whose only exposure to fantasy is ASOIAF into Tolkien.

Josh-da-man

ASOIAF:LOTR::Watchmen:Superheroes

hanshotfirst1138

Deconstruction?