When asked about the legitimate concern that he may never finish the series, the eloquent Martin had this to say:
"F*ck you."
He then flipped off everyone who dares question his actions.
Stay classy, George R. R.!
To be fair, his comments were in response to fans who worry he'll drop dead before he gets around to writing the final book in the series. I will admit that these "death watch" fans may be taking things too far and could have worded their concerns more tactfully. On the other hand, they have a point. The one-two combo of his age plus his mass is rather alarming.
Some may say that George R.R. doesn't owe the fans anything. That might well be true if he was writing standalone stories, instructional manuals or shampoo warning labels. But he's writing an epic multi-book series. He entered into a covenant with his readers when he began the story. The minute he published the first book, he tacitly promised readers there would be an ending. Didn't his parents ever teach him to not start something he can't finish?
In a way he's like a contractor who's remodeling our homes, but is taking eighteen to twenty years to do so. You did a great job on the kitchen, George R.R. Now when the hell are you going to finish the bathroom?
Fans have invested a huge amount of their time as well as their hard-earned money in this series. Can you blame them for feeling anxious when he doesn't seem particularly concerned as to whether or not it'll ever be finished? Especially when he's sitting in goddamned Switzerland giving interviews, for Joffrey's sake, instead of writing.
Even if you don't believe Martin owes anything to his fans, there's the matter of a little cable network called HBO, who might argue that he owes them. Big time. He's got a legally binding contract with them and they've already invested millions of dollars in him and his little story, and millions more are dependent on him someday completing the damned thing. I'm sure right about now the head of HBO is impatiently tapping his foot and staring at his watch, while George R.R. gads about the globe handing out interviews like a grandpa hands out quarters.
Martin continued to lash out at the very fans who've made him very rich, saying, "Some of you are angry that I watch football during the fall. Some of you hate my other projects. Some of you don't want me attending conventions, teaching workshops, touring and doing promos, or visiting places like Spain and Portugal or Finland. More wasting time, when I should be home working."
"You also get upset when I take walking tours of the great bread factories of East Schenectady, teach egg candling, lamp lighting and boot blacking at the local community college, fulfill my life-long dream to be a soda jerk, practice my ice sculpting, seek employment as a pin setter, learn morse code, mine gold in World Of Warcraft, sell rags from a horse-drawn cart, star as Curly in a Broadway revival of Oklahoma!, try out for the Olympic synchronized swim team, box a kangaroo in Sydney, complete my Precious Moments collection, learn the names of everyone in Boonville, Indiana, singlehandedly finish the Crazy Horse memorial, solve Fermat's Last Theorem, superimpose myself over Dr. McCoy in every episode of Star Trek, take up competitive dog grooming, start a guerrilla garden inside the Pentagon, fashion a prom dress out of duct tape, become a catfish noodler, mail my toenail collection to the White House and learn to sing The Pirates Of Penzance backwards."
Martin went on vehemently listing his various extracurricular activities he's entitled to pursue for another forty five minutes before nodding off in his chair and snoring loudly.
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