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Welcome to Things George R. R. Martin Is Doing Instead Of Finishing The "Game Of Thrones" Books, a feature in which I spotlight all the many, many, many ways that author George R.R.R.R. Martin is wasting precious time gadding about in public instead of bellying up to the typewriter and finishing his goddamned novels.
So what's George doing to waste time this week? Why, he wrote a book! Ordinarily that would be cause for much rejoicing in the world of fantasy literature. Unfortunately the book he wrote is not the one fans were expecting. Instead of finally completing The Winds Of Winter (Book Six of his seven book series), he wrote The World Of Ice & Fire, a goddamned history of Westeros.*
According to the press release, the book is "a
comprehensive history of the Seven Kingdoms, providing vividly
constructed accounts of the epic battles, bitter rivalries, and daring
rebellions that lead to the events of A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s Game of Thrones."
Are you freaking kidding me? He took the time to write a fake history of his fake world? He knows damn good and well that everyone and their dog is anxiously awaiting the next book, and he wastes his time writing a goddamned prequel? Is he trying to make his fans have a collective stroke?
On the other hand, a history of Westeros might be pretty cool. Just not now, while we're in the home stretch of the series. Maybe wait until the final book is published before concentrating on prequels, histories and supplemental materials, m'kay?
As for when The Winds Of Winter might possibly ever be finished, the outlook's not so good. There's no firm release date in sight, and Martin himself recently said he's making "negative progress on the book." Negative progress? What the flip does that mean? What the hell's he doing, erasing pages he's already written? Jesus Christ!
Martin commented on the situation, saying, "I have days where I make lots of progress. I have days when I make next to no progress, I have days where I think I'm going backwards because I don't like what I wrote yesterday. I have days in which I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at the floor. Some days I dress up my cats and have them act out scenes from previous books. One day I ate a whole jar of chocolate frosting and woke up in my backyard, clad only in my underwear and holding a cardboard sword. Some days I try to write, but I start watching the block of Perfect Stranger reruns that's on every afternoon and before I know it, it's time for bed. Occasionally I'll fill my swimming pool with hundred dollar bills afforded to me by my legions of loyal fans and try to swim around in it like Scrooge McDuck. Some days I realize there's something important I'm supposed to be doing, but I can't remember what. And some days I just say "Screw all y'all, I already know how the damned story ends" and I sit and read the newspaper in my robe and Greek fisherman's hat all day.
* Yes, I see that he didn't write the book all by himself. But his name is twelve times as big as the other two authors on the cover, so he had to have put some effort into its creation. Effort that took him away from the main series.
Hey, how about that latest episode of Game Of Thrones? You know, The Lion And The Rose. The Purple Wedding and all that. You just never know what's gonna happen on this show! Shocking, shocking stuff. Shocking stuff.
You know the most shocking about this particular episode? No, it wasn't who was killed off this week. It's that It was written by none other than George R. R. Martin, author of the novels on which the show is based.
What. The. Hell? Seriously, George R. R.? You're telling me you have absolutely nothing better to do right now that to sit around writing scripts for your TV series? Wouldn't your time be better spent, oh, I don't know, FINISHING THE LAST TWO GODDAMNED NOVELS?
It's patently obvious at this point that the Game Of Thrones TV series is going to catch up to the novels, and very soon. Martin has written five books (out of a proposed seven) so far. Season Four just started, and it supposedly adapts the last half of Book Three, along with elements of Books Four and Five. It's safe to say that by the end of Season Five they'll have caught up with the books.
But Martin keeps on smiling and making that "calm down" gesture with both hands, adamantly denying that this will happen. He assures nervous fans that he'll have Book Six done well before the series comes close to catching up. Nice try, George R. R., but I ain't buying it.
Martin's convinced there's no hurry because he's laboring under the delusion that show runners are David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are filming every single word he's written. They are not. As the series progresses they're picking up the pace, dropping subplots and combining characters as they streamline the story.
Even a quick glance at the timeline reveals a grim pattern. He published Book One in 1996, Book Two in 1998 and Book Three in 2000. So far, so good; just two years between each one. But then Book Four didn't come out until 2005. And Book Five, the most recent one, came out in 2011. That's five and six years each, respectively. At his current rate I wouldn't look for Book Six to be on the shelves any time before 2018!
These are massive books too, generally clocking in at around a thousand pages or more. If he's got two more books to go, that's 2,200 pages. He definitely not a speedy author, so even if he manages to write a page a day it'd take him six years to finish them.
It's not helping matters that instead of actually sitting down and writing, he's popping up everywhere these days, doing interviews, appearing at conventions and schmoozing on every talk show that'll have him. He's become a bonafide celebrity.
Heck, he's so recognizable that he's become a semi-regular character on Saturday Night Live! They can actually spoof him on SNL and people know who the hell they're talking about! How many other authors can the general public recognize on sight? Probably Shakespeare, and... well, that's about it. Shakespeare and George R. R. Martin.
Listen George, for the sake of your fans and the HBO shareholders, you need to stop gadding about Hollywood, post haste. Grab your suspenders, your Greek fisherman cap and the rest of your GRRM costume, belly up to the goddamned typewriter and start writing for frak's sake! Here, I'll make it easy for you: "Danerys Stormborn, last of the Targaryans, rode her red dragon over King's Landing, burning everything in her path. She killed all the Lannisters and the White Walkers and took her rightful place on the Iron Throne. The End."
