This is all George R R Martin's fault · 3:35am Apr 18th, 2020
Back in 2019, Air New Zealand offered to fly George R R Martin out to New Zealand so he would finally finish writing his book:
George R. R. Martin kindly declined the offer, but noted in his blog post about it:
And as it happens, I already have plans to return. In the summer of 2020, Wellington is hosting the World Science Fiction Convention, the oldest and most important con in the SF/ fantasy calendar, and they’ve asked me to serve as Toastmaster for the Hugo Awards. Writers, fans, and artists from all over the world will be headed down to check out all of your wonders. I hope lots of you Kiwis will join us.
Of course, I was especially moved by your offer to bring me to New Zealand “on us.” How wonderfully generous. As it happens, I do have enough money to make it to New Zealand on my own… but there are many American writers, fans, and artists who do not. If you’d care to fly, say, twenty or thirty or fifty of them to Wellington in place of me, I have no doubt they would instantly accept, and fall in love with Middle Earth.. er, New Zealand… just as I have. And you have such big planes, I’m sure you could squeeze them in.
As for finishing my book… I fear that New Zealand would distract me entirely too much. Best leave me here in Westeros for the nonce. But I tell you this — if I don’t have THE WINDS OF WINTER in hand when I arrive in New Zealand for worldcon, you have here my formal written permission to imprison me in a small cabin on White Island, overlooking that lake of sulfuric acid, until I’m done. Just so long as the acrid fumes do not screw up my old DOS word processor, I’ll be fine.
On December 9th, 2019, White Island violently erupted, killing 20 people.
By March of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic caused New Zealand to quarantine all people going to the island for 14 days, effectively shutting down international travel to New Zealand.
And then Worldcon got cancelled.
Maybe he just picked up the Monkey's Paw and asked for more time to work on his novel.
Or maybe it is a Jumanji type thing, and when he finishes the book, all this craziness will end and everything will be reset to normal.
So I think I speak for us all when I say, "Please, Mr. Martin, hurry up and finish your book."
Though on second thought, if the book is cursed, maybe that's just going to result in a meteor crashing into his house.
I don't think that the series will ever be finished. To me, it really seemed like he had no idea where he was going with the story in books four and five. So while he's dealing with not knowing where to take the story, the HBO series comes out and becomes huge. Now there's additional pressure for his books to be amazing. Of course, the last season (which I haven't seen yet) fell on its face, but before that is was a cultural force. I'll bet Mr. Martin is very worried about not being able to live up to that. Maybe he'll finish it, but he's had a very, very long time to wrap this up and don't seem all that eager to do so.
I've hear a number of monkey's paw wishes that could've lead to this: "I wish proper handwashing technique became a meme in 2020," "I wish people more time for their kids," "This soup is so good, I wish everyone knew about it." But this does seem like the sort of thing Martin would do.
Well, except the social distancing. There'd probably be a lot more fire involved in the virus response.
5244926
I personally think that he knows where he is going, but he is getting to bogged down in the "realities" of his fantasy world, and subverting expectations for the sake of subverting expectations. The first three books in the series are tightly written, but everything starts to unravel around A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. Here we have to explore the aftermath of a civil war and all the political machinations, but exploring this means you don't end up telling the rest of the story. Taking a sledge hammer to the rising actions is better in theory and than in practice.
5244980
5244926
I'd say the reality is somewhere between the two of you. I think he knew where he was going, but then he started subverting expectations for the sake of it. Ned was the obvious protagonist, and it was interesting when that got shanked. Then he did it again. And again. And added more characters. And more. And more.
I don't think he knows where he's going anymore. And he's too big to have an editor that can tell him to get his shit together anymore. Which should never happen to any author.
5244997
5244980
That's exactly what I mean. I think that he had a clear vision for the first three books, but it's really obvious that books four and five needed heavy editing. Martin was allowed the dubious luxury of rambling on, and he rambled himself into a corner by creating too many twists and additional characters. I feel like so much of books four and five are just unnecessary. They don't add anything useful. I've thought for a while that Martin knows this, but I just can't figure out how to get out of the hole that he's dug himself into.
FUN FACT: I read A Dance with Dragons while recovering from surgery with painkillers that weren't working at all. It really sold the experience of getting through that novel.
5245024
I still haven't finished A Dance With Dragons, and I don't think I will. And I might not buy the next books if they're ever finished.
5245220
I generally re-read books several times. I've never picked up A Feast for Crows or A Dance with Dragons again after the first read through. There is good stuff in each book, but there's way, way, WAY too much unnecessary filler and too many plot threads that you know aren't leading anywhere.
5244972
There's always the folks who really wanted to play Animal Crossing...
5245277
I read Feast for Crows a couple times. But that was when I thought it was going somewhere. Dance with Dragons killed it.
When that or HL3 comes out, is when i'll really put the pressure on SSE to finish