"George R. R. Martin Doesn't Need to Finish Writing ..." Topic

…the Game of Thrones Books.

"In the beginning, George R. R. Martin created A Game of Thrones—words printed on paper and bound into books sold in shops around the world, to be read by a moderate but mighty number of fantasy fans. That was 1996. Fourteen years and four books later, HBO said, "Let there be a TV series!" And nothing was ever the same.

Since Game of Thrones began, Martin has published just one new book: A Dance with Dragons, the fifth in the Song of Ice and Fire series. (OK, he technically released A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, but that was a prequel and—actually, let's just not speak of it.) Martin thinks he could finish the next one, The Winds of Winter, this year. Maybe. Who knows? Last year, during Season 6 of the TV series, the show fully bypassed the published blueprint of Westeros, the world of Martin's fantasy epic. Fans freaked out—how could he let this happen? George, stop going out and having fun, these fans demanded, get in your house and finish the series. The internet's favorite joke since around 2012 has been to yell at Martin whenever he's found to be doing something other than furiously typing. The animating theory of the joke is that it's his duty—his imperative—to finish the story he began.

Guess what? It's not. Twitter, you, me, everyone, needs to get over it. The Song of Ice and Fire is not the Westerosi enchiridion any more. Martin's story, the world he built, lives on TV. And now that HBO is cooking up spinoff shows based on the original, it's official: The TV universe has eclipsed the books and become the Game of Thrones canon.

And that is fine. It really is. Not in a "the world is burning down around me and I pretend this is fine" kind of way. It's OK because the world of Westeros is not a concrete thing— it's still being built. Hell, it's being realized beyond Martin's imagination, faster than he's able to write sentences. You know who that's good for? You, the fan of that world. More for you!…."
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

He is still writing his fan fiction?

At this point he's come full circle and will be writing the novelizations of the tv show.

If he wrote one page per day he would have finished the sixth book two years ago.

Honestly I don't think Martin knows how to finish the series and if he did he would probably need four or five large books to handle all the unnecessary characters he would be briefly adding to the story before their inevitable grizzly deaths.

If I understand the premisse by Emily Dreyfuss correctly, Martin does not need to follow up on his books because there is a movie or a TV-show about it ? Is that not the same as some sculpter/manufacturer starts a range and does not finish it because someone else starts a comic about them ? How can this be other than utterly nonsense ! Offering a product to the public that means to have multiple items needs to be finished or the one offering it has to be called deficient. The result should be that he/she will not be trusted anymore and his/her products not be bought anymore. I for one will not buy any book by Martin before he has finished his job and thus his obligation.

> Is that not the same as some sculpter/manufacturer starts a range and does not finish it because someone else starts a comic about them ?

It is more like having someone come up with a line of paper miniatures and then having another company license them for 3d metal figures and THEN getting the metal ones out to market before the paper miniatures are finished being drawn.

Finish it in novels or not, I am fine either way.

Emily's contention that he does not need to finish the books BECAUSE the TV series does it tells me she does not know the difference.

The books and the show may have started in the same universe, but have since diverged and are two different storylines. Not the same.

Agree….

Amicalement
Armand

The show is canon. If George had put any self discipline into it, he could have finished Book 6 a while back, and it would be relevant. Now, any "deadlines" are a joke.
Will Book 6 even be finished before the start of the Chelsea Clinton Administration?

Looks like we will not get Winds until 2018 – but it will be the story of the Song of Ice and Fire. Its Martin story and world but he allows us to (and HBO) to play in it.

He should have gotten the books out sooner but sometimes patience is rewarded.

Meanwhile we can have fun with the HBO version. I suspect after complition of the books we will get the feature film(s) version – maybe by then in 4D.

For now the end is unwritten allowing us to speculate and in my case run multiple campaigns to see how (militarily) it might turn out. At least the wait has given me the chance to run some great miniature battles.

TomT

> Its Martin story and world but he allows us to (and HBO) to play in it.

you gotta be careful when you let someone play in your sandbox, they might make a better sand castle.

I don't see the problem, if the novelist you hire to adapt the TV series doesn't want to do his job, just fire him, there are plenty of starving authors who are willing to crank out whole volumes for a fraction of what this hack must be asking.

It's a shame, because after they ran out of book plots to use the show has become unbearably bad. Ramsay became the Joker, all the kids died, a female Terminator was introduced, and every story line that didn't have a telegraphed ending was wrapped up with "EVERYONE DIED!"

I sincerely enjoy the books' stories and did like the show's, however it really does seem clear that George is never gonna finish the series. And that sucks.