Octopus Overlords

Just in case you thought ASOIAF was already pretty dark, Martin is here to remind you that things can always get worse:

But there are a lot of dark chapters right now in the book that I’m writing. It is called The Winds of Winter, and I’ve been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fills the world, so this is not gonna be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places…In any story, the classic structure is, ‘Things get worse before they get better,’ so things are getting worse for a lot of people.

“Not done yet, but I’ve made progress,” Martin wrote. “But not as much as I hoped a year ago when I thought to be done by now. I think it will be out this year. (But hey, I thought the same thing last year.)”

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.”

TiLT wrote:

Zaxxon wrote:It's not close.

That's not at all what he's saying. He's saying it's really close, but just not close enough that it'll be out before the next season of Game of Thrones. He thought he would be done with the book by October last year, then thought that at least getting it done by the end of 2015 was guaranteed. He failed to take into account that his inspiration reacts negatively to deadlines.

He's not saying "it's not close." He's saying it's months away. Not years. It's so close that just a few months ago (less than half a year, in fact), he felt confident that he'd be done right this moment. That's close. That's really F-ing close, even if it's not as close as we'd hoped.

Jaymann wrote:It will be interesting to see which comes out first, The Winds of Winter or The Doors of Stone (book 3 of The Kingkiller Chronicle). Kind of like Prey vs. Duke Nukem Forever.

DD* wrote:Interesting (but not hopeful) article on the next(?) book...

And, yes, I know you all want to know about THE WINDS OF WINTER too. I've seen some truly weird reports about WOW on the internet of late, by 'journalists' who make their stories up out of whole cloth. I don't know which story is more absurd, the one that says the book is finished and I've been sitting on it for some nefarious reason, or the one that says I have no pages. Both 'reports' are equally false and equally moronic. I am still working on it, I am still months away (how many? good question), I still have good days and bad days, and that's all I care to say. Whether WINDS or the first volume of FIRE AND BLOOD will be the first to hit the bookstores is hard to say at this juncture, but I do think you will have a Westeros book from me in 2018... and who knows, maybe two. A boy can dream...

stessier wrote:It's sad. I liked the first three and then stopped until he completed the series. I have no interest in watching GoT on HBO - I want the books! There's no way he finishes the story in his lifetime.

Zarathud wrote:I'm sure it is close in that GRRM has written a lot, but he is editing and rewriting.

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:And, honestly, the last few seasons of the show have been better than the last few books anyway.

McNutt wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:And, honestly, the last few seasons of the show have been better than the last few books anyway.

Much, much better. Books 4 and 5 were a chore to finish.

Carpet_pissr wrote:I disagree. Enjoyed them both immensely. I know I'm the minority voice on that from other GRRM readers though.

Carpet_pissr wrote:I disagree. Enjoyed them both immensely. I know I'm the minority voice on that from other GRRM readers though.

stessier wrote:I think I would judge the books differently based on where the story ends up. When reading Wheel of Time, I had real trouble with 8-10 as they came out, but in reading through the whole series over the course of 3 months, they fit in perfectly and I really enjoyed them. I could see the same thing happening here. And so I wait...with very little hope.

stessier wrote:It's sad. I liked the first three and then stopped until he completed the series. I have no interest in watching GoT on HBO - I want the books! There's no way he finishes the story in his lifetime.

McNutt wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:And, honestly, the last few seasons of the show have been better than the last few books anyway.

Much, much better. Books 4 and 5 were a chore to finish.

British actor Roy Dotrice has died at the age of 94.

Dotrice was known to Game of Thrones fans for his brief role as Wisdom Hallyne the pyromancer in season 2. But more impressively, he also read the audiobooks for George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, and holds the Guinness World Record for the most characters voiced by a single actor in an audiobook — 223 in the saga’s first novel, A Game of Thrones, the audiobook for which is 33 hours long.

The actor served in the Royal Air Force during WWII, was imprisoned in a German POW camp, and then went on to have a long career in radio, theater, television, and film — including playing Leopold Mozart in the film Amadeus. He also won a Tony in 2000 for a revival of A Moon for the Misbegotten.

This latest round of depressing information began when a fan asked what writing Martin had planned for 2018. He responded that he was close to completing the first volume of his spin-off Targaryen family history series, Fire and Blood. Another fan asked how the timeline for that series would factor into the release of Winds of Winter.

"F&B will be in two volumes,” he wrote, further explaining that, “Vol 1 [will come before Winds of Winter], vol 2 after."

In other words, Martin is currently focused on finishing Volume 1 of Fire and Blood in 2018, so he can then go back to Winds of Winter, then continue on to Volume 2 after that's done. (Probably in sometime in the year 2049.)

Smoove_B wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2018 12:02 pm Not happening in 2018, according to the man himself.

This latest round of depressing information began when a fan asked what writing Martin had planned for 2018. He responded that he was close to completing the first volume of his spin-off Targaryen family history series, Fire and Blood. Another fan asked how the timeline for that series would factor into the release of Winds of Winter.

"F&B will be in two volumes,” he wrote, further explaining that, “Vol 1 [will come before Winds of Winter], vol 2 after."

In other words, Martin is currently focused on finishing Volume 1 of Fire and Blood in 2018, so he can then go back to Winds of Winter, then continue on to Volume 2 after that's done. (Probably in sometime in the year 2049.)

Zaxxon wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2018 1:57 pm I think we need to start a pool: what comes first--GRRM finishing book 7 or Musk founding a Mars colony.

Holman wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2018 12:09 pm It's like when Tolkien wrote Frodo and Sam up to the gates of Mordor and then paused to spend a decade on his multi-volume collection of Tom Bombadil rhymes and recipes.

El Guapo wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2018 2:05 pmAlso, what are the odds of the planned book 7 ever happening? 1%?

Zaxxon wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2018 2:16 pm
2025! 30 years to write 7 books.

Archinerd wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2018 2:24 pm

Zaxxon wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2018 2:16 pm
2025! 30 years to write 7 books.

Still more books than I've written.
I'd prefer he just admit he's not going to do them though and move on. Get someone else to finish them and act as a consultant while he's still around.