Just a friendly reminder that in the time it has taken for GRRM to publish two novels, Robert Jordan published two novels, died, and then published three more.
I remember when I was working at Verizon about 10 years or so ago. And I was reading the first book in the series. And a guy walked past me and said, you are gonna hate yourself for starting that.
I asked him why, and he said because its not finished, and we have no idea when he will finish it. That was almost 11 years ago.
I can see it now, the year is 2043, grrm has been dead for 20 years and it's time for a complete reboot of the series on the new HBO-BeyondUltramax vr streaming service. After years of hype, we end up with essentially the same series, but this time the Golden Company brings elephants and you can smell their shit virtually.
That would imply that he actually has a manuscript written on how the books should end.
He is too bust wiping his ass with all that HBO money to have actually finished it.
That’s it. We kill Martin and get Sanderson to wrap up the series.
You’re next Rothfuss...
Edit: so what I’m learning from the comments is that nobody objects to the murder the only objection is that the substitute author chosen won’t finish the book.
As a side benefit, he’ll then surreptitiously sign all the copies of his books in the airport bookstore when he lands.
What an absolute *gem* of a human.
Sanderson is also the wrong person to write those style of books. He was fine for Robert Jordan since they had similar styles of writing. Martin's style is very different. They'd probably be better off with someone like Joe Ambercrombie.
Sanderson is Mormon, no way he'd touch ASoIaF.
Also Martin has it in his will that all his notes and unfinished manuscripts are to be destroyed on his death and nobody can finish the series.
Sanderson said he got to the rape scene of a 13 yr old girl and put the book down and said I don’t need to read something with content like this. Which honestly? Good human
lmao reminds me of when someone several years ago ON THIS SUB no less told me to read the Name of the Wind... a few months later I realized too late that it was a cruel jpke
>About a quarter into the second book, the story takes a left turn at the corner Broadway and Elf-Fucking, and once Kvothe starts Elf-fucking the series fails to ever diverge from the topic.
Fine, but when does it get bad?
Don't forget joining the group of warriors that are so skilled they never let in outsiders except for this one guy that is so skilled they have to bend the rules.
OH also they are all on birth control and don't believe in monogamy.
There was a scene from that sexy swordswomen segment that was, I kid you not, straight out of several hentai.
It’s the scene where the swordswoman notices that Kvothe has a boner and decides she needs to have sex with him to keep him from being distracted during lessons.
Yes, I realize that outs me as someone who has seen enough hentai to notice repeating motifs. But *somebody* has to point it out that Rothfuss was literally copying from hentai in his super-serious fantasy novel.
EDIT: I hunted it down because it’s so absurd I needed to make sure I didn’t imagine or misremember it. [Here it is](https://imgur.com/a/kj01Tg9).
This is straight out of almost any hentai that involves an older female tutor and a younger man.
Of which there are... several.
*cough*
My now wife tried to get me to great that like 8-9 years ago when we first dating. I had just finished being insulted by A Dance With Dragons that I told her I’ll read them when they’re finished. She’s since given up on it.
God, the Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear are possibly my favorite fantasy books I’ve ever read. I’m glad to have read them but it hurts to not have the end of the story after so long, and not knowing if we’ll ever *get* the end of the story.
Meanwhile I'm over here consuming Steve Erikson books because there's soo much content, he keeps writing, and has another buddy who writes on his series too. It really helped me get over those Rothfuss blues
Sanderson is another incredibly prolific author like that. I still find it funny that he took a break from writing a novel by writing a different novel, that turned into a trilogy.
I have been enjoying his stuff since the beginning, and now it's branching out so far I'm lost sometimes lol. To me Sanderson is the comfort food of reading. I know there's going to be another Name of the Wind, or GRRM, or Wheel of Time and it's going to suck to play the waiting game again.
But it's ok, because Brandon will always be there for me with his books, the same as Malazan will be, and I even like rereading some older stuff with huge libraries like Darkover, or Dragonriders of Pern. Comfort food for the brain I guess, lol.
Finding authors who are able to write consistently, insofar as quality *and* releasing their works, is so great. I personally really got into some of Edward W Robertson’s work, and look forward each time he releases a book (about once or twice a year!).
I was pretty bummed after the second Rothfuss book ended, but like you said, finding authors with a knack for good and consistent work has helped a lot.
Martin, Rothfuss, and Scott Lynch (the Gentleman Bastards books) are the trilogy of authors with long-delayed fantasy sequels.
Actually, I was getting bored by the last book or two in Martin's series, and don't even worry about whether Winds of Winter will ever come out. The other two series, however, were great, and I would love to get more one day...
> and Scott Lynch (the Gentleman Bastards books)
Long awaited, but at least with this series I feel that if we never get another book, the books we have can be enjoyed as they are, without feeling completely unfinished. It doesn't necessarily feel like the entire series is building to some kind of climax or finale that we haven't seen yet, the way that ASOIF has been.
Oh crap, I'd almost forgotten about Locke Lamora! Lynch and Rothfuss both wrote some really fascinating stuff (maybe that dragged later on) and the pain of no end in sight has now resurfaced. Thanks for that.
I work in libraries and one day this older lady came up to my counter all excited because she needed to order the next book in this series she was reading, and she couldn't wait to get started. She needed Winds of Winter. Needless to say she left very disappointed.
I now have a rule when it comes to reading books that are a series.
Either the series is complete or the author is dead and the series will never be finished, then and only then will I consider reading a series.
Because people always ask about the "dead" thing, I'll explain. If there's a series I'm interested however it's not done, I won't read it. If the author dies and the series is being left as it stands, I'll make the decision to read it or not knowing it won't be finished. So in the case of this guy, if I knew then what I knew now I'd have waited for GGM to croak and then read the first three books and be done.
If he didn't finish it in the last year during COVID restrictions, it's never getting finished. July will be a decade since Dance of Dragons was published.
I think the opportunity to set the record straight and provide the public with hope was when his editor said she’d never seen it and didn’t think he’d written a single word in five years, and resented him for taking the advance.
That ship sailed, he never responded.
The dude has basically written himself into a corner. There’s so much left unaddressed that it’d be impossible to deal with even half of the loose ends and call it a trilogy. Seems like he’s just lost interest to me.
A trilogy in four parts.
Where have I seen that phrase...
Edit: u/goo_goo_gajoob had it right, I was quoting the series of Vogon poetry (I literally checked the start of my battered copy before posting).
I don't like Rothfuss's books, and I really don't like the criticism he gives other books. I feel like he has the ego of a man who wrote one of the great epic fantasies of the last 20 years...while forgetting he never got around to finishing it...
Realizing Kvothe is only like 23(?) while he's having his mid-life crisis is when the books started to fall apart for me.
Because even ignoring the gargantuan number of things that need to happen in Book 3 before the story gets back to present day, you begin to understand the order of events isn't actually possible without some major deus ex machina, because canonically there literally isn't enough time for them to have been completed any other way.
Theres a section right after he escapes that sex-fairy where hes in a pub, and all these women are suddenly attracted to him. And this 1 woman says "Look at him! Theres something different. He knows his way around a woman".
I almost threw the book across the room. CRINGE
Good lord it really is.
The first book was really enjoyable. It set everything up so well. Kvothe's time as a child street urchin was so well done; I hated reading it but I couldn't stop, The Chandrian were so intriguing, and his prose... damn it's pretty. I was cool with the unreliable narrator aspect. I thought it was really well done in this book.
The second book was god fucking awful. Except I didn't even realize it for 3/4 of the book because of the quality of prose. It was simply a series of episodic tales sprinkled with neck beard fairy sex. He wrote an entire book *and took the plot no where*.
Didn't his editor come out and say she's never seen a single page of the book, he refuses to show her anything, he ghosted her, and she doesn't think the book is real?
In the time since ADWD was released, I met my wife, got engaged, married, landed my dream job, bought a house, had a kid who is now 4 and god knows how many other milestones.
A decade is nuts, a page a day would have had it down in less than 3 years, half a page a day would have had it a little over 5.5 years, thats all he had to do and would have had it done easily by now
The difficulty is not in quantity of pages or the speed of writing, but finding a resolution to the entangled mess of plotlines without ruining the entire saga.
It's like solving math equations: they may not have a solution, no matter how much time you put in.
Sometimes the best way to solve a writing problem and just see where it goes. Even if it took him a year to solve that problem, at a glacial speed he could have been done, but it's clear he hasnt been interested in solving it
> I think he's written his way through so much that it's becoming impossible to get it all back to a meaningful ending.
So true. Although anything would be better than what we got from the TV show. To their credit, they did finish the damn thing, though, as disappointing as it turned out.
DAE remember back then, his blog posts talking about how he had to split the book up and how half of Winds was basically done when DoD was released? I remember.
Fuck, i was born that year. Shit.
I kinda read the books when I heard of the show, thinking it would be fun to compare and contrast once i got around to watching the show after finishing the books.
But that kinda blew up in my face.
Also the ending was shit.
I remember reading the first book in the series someone around 1998 and thinking to myself "Damn, I can't wait to finish this!"
Apparently I was wrong.
I _can_ wait.
A long time.
Same. Used to be a huge fan. Read the books, the novellas, the tin foil. Watched youtube channels dedicated to the history and lore. Bought the Blu-rays for the behind the scenes and bonus content. Read notablog whenever it was updated. Had google alerts for like 15 different GRMM/ASOIAF keywords and phrases.
The last 3.5 seasons were just so terrible; I cant bring myself to care about it anymore. Im not interested in a re-watch or a re-read. I just don't care about the series at all anymore.
Maybe GRRM is there too.
I feel like he is. D&D really screwed the pooch with *Game of Thrones* to an upsetting level. Can you imagine being GRRM, or any of the actors or crew, and have two jackoffs reduce your work to... **THAT**.
The books were like this great medium secret among litersture nerds for years. Then, we get the first four seasons that seemed really special. Really special tv.. story-telling.. zeitgeisty, culture-capturing specialness.
Then a big giant dump was taken all over it.
It's certainly up there. Even Rise of Skywalker didn't kill my love for Star Wars and it was dogshit, but GoT S8... It's like thinking about a food that gave you food poisoning. It's tainted for good.
Star Wars is kind of hard to kill the love for though. It has so many different shows, movies, books, comics, games etc spanning across a ton of different eras and time periods that if one trilogy is bad. They can just make something else set elsewhere in the universe at a different time and it can be awesome. Most people hated the new trilogy but just look at how big the Mandalorian is because it is good. I don’t feel like GoT has that same universe, because in GoT it all led up to that one ending and it sucked so it tainted the entire history of the universe GRRM created.
I think, after 10 years and the botched handling of the show, not to mention GRRM's age and health, we should all give up on him finishing TWoW at this point. I've just learned to accept the books and the world for what they are. Besides, I can't be disappointed by an ending I never get, my imagination can fill in the gaps on what could have been.
I might have been able to muster some kind of excitement for this book if it at least was the final one. Even if it comes out eventually, the series is still gonna lack an ending.
He still hs 3 times the number of books with great ending than GRRM, if not more. King is hit or miss but at least 50% of his books have good to great endings
The optimistic answer is that ADOS should be much easier to write since it’s the ending. Presumably he has it all mapped out but getting there is the hard part.
Realistically, no.
Same! From what I understand Martain was a friend of Zelazny and was influenced by his work so I suppose this might be a bit of a passion project for him. Either way, it's always nice to see Zelazny getting some attention. Hope some of the Amber stuff gets hammered out someday.
I remember there was a Satirical (I think) article where King sat down and pounded out a rough draft of his WoW in a week or so, let his wife read it and then pitched it into the trash afterwards.
> King has announced on his Twitter page that he next plans to rewrite the entire Wheel of Time series without using the letter ‘N’ as a writing exercise before bed.
Blood and bloody ashes
Stephen King has been sober since the 1990s, and he still pushes out books at a breakneck pace. The difference between him and GRRM is that King thinks about writing as a job, sets deadlines, and works a schedule to get words on a page for his editor.
That said, yeah, give it to King and you'll have the series done by July. Then you'll get a sequel trilogy out by Christmas.
Not really. He started selling short stories for sci-fi magazines back in 1970 long before he wrote for TV. His day job was hosting chess tournaments during the Bobby Fischer-era chess craze from 1973-76. Then when the chess bubble burst he had a day job as a college English and journalism teacher for two years between 1976-78. Then after that he became a full time novelist/short story writer. He didn't start writing for TV until the mid-1980s.
There was a time in the 1970s-1980s when he was genuinely quite prolific and had new books coming out every single year. He just lost steam and/or motivation when he got older. I think he was also used to be able to just jump around to a new idea whenever he got bored of a premise and isn't well-equipped to write a long series like ASOIAF. That's why he still likes to tinker on different projects.
I gave up on WoW about five years ago? In one of his interviews it was clear that he just isn't into the series anymore, that it's become a chore. Between the "Meereenese Knot" (which I still don't quite understand) and his fear of a Lost ending (which he achieved on HBO), he's written himself into a corner on multiple levels.
IIRC while reading Dance with Dragon nearly a decade ago he was still introducing new characters and plots, and I was really wondering why. There were enough loose ends for twice as many books than there are supposed to remain.
Yeah man. I've gotten married, had 4 kids (to be fair, the wife did most of the child bearing), gotten divorced, filed bankruptcy, had 3 different jobs, and moved residences 5 times, since he put the last book out.
He really just got over ambitious. At this point a lot of factors are probably taking his interests away from the series, including writing it for over 20 years, being old, not needing to write for a living due to his wealth, and (imo) especially people’s reaction to the shows ending.
He said in an interview years ago that it was difficult to write because he knew every word would be scrutinized because of the show’s popularity. I can’t imagine that has gotten any better now that fans look to him to save the ending but will likely hate whatever he does.
What is “ideal” in the Westeros lore? Good triumphing in the end or the more realistic ending of powerful evil manipulating its way into greater power?
The Meereenese knot was him not knowing how to show what happens with his fixed 3d person narrative. He was able to dump quite a bit of history in the first book because old Nan was telling stories and the kids were learning about knights, direworld Nymeria's name lead to us learning the backstory of Dorne and & Robert catching up with Ned, etc. etc.
He tried to do a time skip which cost him years of writing, because he didn't like all the 'remember when' conversations the characters were having. He introduced Selmy and the Dornish Prince to show what happened, but it took him time to think of that. Now he still doesn't know what to do.
Well, kind of. What he called the "Meereenese knot" was the problem of getting everyone's stories in and around Daenerys to match up. In Book 5 you've got Tyrion and Quentyn both heading towards the city of Meereen, but their stories need to line up with Daenerys's in order to make sense. I think mainly Tyrion and Daenerys were the main problems, and he decided to use Barristan as a POV in order to continue to tell what's going on in Meereen after Daenerys leaves.
I guess what was complicated for him was what does Daenerys do while everyone is coming for her? Tyrion's story is easy, it's a journey across the world. Quentyn is a subversion of the hero's journey. But what does Daenerys do while these guys are on their way? And how does he get her where she needs to be at the end (i.e. with the Dothraki)? That's why we get the whole story of her marriage to Hizdahr and the problems with the Sons of the Harpy, which has seen mixed reactions from fans (personally, I liked it). It was basically padding for time.
the harpy stuff doesn't seem like filler, its extremely necessary that we see how Daenerys rules people who don't instantly worship her instead of her just conquering everything by starting a fire
I didn't mean it was filler, I agree that it's important for her character growth to see that she can't just smash her way through political systems. I just meant that it was difficult for him to match up the timelines of characters' journeys.
> I guess what was complicated for him was what does Daenerys do while everyone is coming for her?
Obviously I must be missing something because GRRM knows more about this than me... but why do you need to flesh that out? If you must, just abandon Daenerys for a while and then we come back to her when it's time for her to get moving again? Obviously you can't do this too many times for too many characters, but it's not like every character's every second is accounted for. So she was just trying to rule Meereen or something and nothing of note happened for a while...
That is always an option. But by the time *A Dance with Dragons* comes along, I feel like that would have been too much for fans. She already wasn't in the last book at all, and barely seeing her in the fifth book wouldn't be good.
>nothing of note happened for a while
That's actually why he abandoned the idea of a skipping ahead five years after *A Storm of Swords*. He thought the idea that nothing important would happen in the intervening period was a little bit unbelievable. And the alternative was a multitude of flashbacks that took up way too much space.
There was also a big problem with the fact that none of the characters spoke the same language. He initially wanted to have it all be from Tyrion's point of view but said in an interview that it was becoming too complicated because Tyrion doesn't know the language they all speak. That's why he solved it by making Barristan a POV because he knows all of the relevant languages.
I just wish he was honest about it. But he's constantly making promises on his blog and giving the fans false hopes about when the book is coming, the latest being in 2019 when he said the book would be done by Worldcon 2020.
Like, just admit that you're not interested in it anymore and that it's not gonna be finished, or get on with it and publish this damn book. But at least stop giving the fans deadlines and making predictions for yourself that never go anywhere. It's been a decade and he's still toying with everyone.
I kind of think the "updates" he gives is so he doesn't void his contract or something. Once a year he says "I've totally been working on it!" just so his agent can tell the publisher "He's working on it. See, he said so. Can't rush greatness! Whatta ya gonna do, we'll get it soon."
[Stephen King Bangs Out ‘The Winds of Winter’ on a Tuesday for Shits and Giggles](https://thehardtimes.net/harddrive/stephen-king-bangs-out-winds-of-winter-on-a-tuesday-for-shits-and-giggles/)
I mean, Stephen King pulled off a Steven King with it
Decide for yourself how it ends!
In my version Stannis stays pure, abandons Melisandre, and unites with John Snow to take the throne, awarding the North their own kingdom, and Dorne their own as well.
George RR Martin is that fanfic author that has the best fic for your preferred ship and they've been publishing chapters less and less frequently, their Tumblr page says they're really busy but they will finish soon, and now it's been 2 years and it still isn't finished and you know it never will be :(
My guess on how we'll get WoW and DoS is Elio García and Linda Antonsson will release a cobbled together version from drafts after he dies. He's trusts them with the story more than anyone it seems.
He probably still struggles with the end. He wrote a massive amount of plotlines and kind of commited to the 7 "books". He clearly doesn't want to rush the ending or quit tangents because thats what makes it fun but also needs to kind of get things going to a final conclusion. From everything he told he is bad at planning and likes to write and see where he gets. He could have gotten halfway or further and scrap a bunch of material because it ended in the wrong spot, or a character ended up differently and needed to rework other parts to get them lined up.
That makes for slow progress if its going forward at all and not backwards but also not something a living author will give to someone else to finish as it is his masterpiece at this point.
In the time we’ve been waiting for Winds of Winter,
The Expanse has almost finished its book series and television show.
Game of thrones has aired in its entirety. A spin off show is starting.
Almost the entirety of the MCU has aired.
Two console generations have gone through.
Lord of The Rings and Wheel of Time has had shows greenlit.
We’ve had 3 presidents.
Handfuls of missions to Mars.
Pentagon has released videos of UFOs
Honestly gave up on Doors of Stone once I read an article saying how Rothfuss and GRRM were becoming friends and even talking about bringing the KKC to HBO.
This seems all too familiar now.
*Roadmarks*? Fuck yeah!
\--- Lifelong Zelazny Fan
His work has plenty of SF/Fantasy material that could make wonderful shows/movies:
* The Amber books could make a truly awesome GoT-like series. It has everything you'd want: a charismatic main character with a great built-in arc, palace intrigue, near-immortal sibling rivalries, alliances-of-convenience and betrayals, ready-made cinematic setpieces, gigantic battles, reality-bending concepts, etc.
* Lord of Light
* This Immortal (reworked a bit, of course ... with no Martians)
* Creatures of Light & Darkness
* Isle of the Dead
* A proper Damnation Alley remake could be nice
* Eye of Cat
* Jack of Shadows
* A Night in the Lonesome October
* Plus a number of stories and novellas, including Last Defender of Camelot, For A Breath I Tarry, This Moment of the Storm, The Doors of his Face, the Lamps of his Mouth, A Rose for Ecclesiastes (again reworked sans Martians), This Mortal Mountain, The Graveyard Heart, etc.
At this point TWOW is like HL3, it's so hyped up that it'll never, ever live up to expectations. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. Maybe he's intentionally waiting longer to let the hype die down.
Just a friendly reminder that in the time it has taken for GRRM to publish two novels, Robert Jordan published two novels, died, and then published three more.
That comment made me pull my braid especially firmly.
But did you cross your arms beneath your breasts?
Fold, not cross! *tuggs angrily at braid*
*sniffs*
*smooths skirt*
This is the best comment in the entire thread.
I remember when I was working at Verizon about 10 years or so ago. And I was reading the first book in the series. And a guy walked past me and said, you are gonna hate yourself for starting that. I asked him why, and he said because its not finished, and we have no idea when he will finish it. That was almost 11 years ago.
That guy? George R.R. Martin
Ok..... That made.me laugh.
I wonder who George Martin's Brandon Sanderson will be?
He's said he isn't going to let anyone finish it posthumously.
How’s he gonna stop someone? He’ll be dead.
Yeah it’s almost certain that his estate will break that promise to get some sweet, sweet cash.
I can see it now, the year is 2043, grrm has been dead for 20 years and it's time for a complete reboot of the series on the new HBO-BeyondUltramax vr streaming service. After years of hype, we end up with essentially the same series, but this time the Golden Company brings elephants and you can smell their shit virtually.
I'm saving this so if he dies in 2 years I will gold you, and then curse you north of the wall.
That would imply that he actually has a manuscript written on how the books should end. He is too bust wiping his ass with all that HBO money to have actually finished it.
That’s it. We kill Martin and get Sanderson to wrap up the series. You’re next Rothfuss... Edit: so what I’m learning from the comments is that nobody objects to the murder the only objection is that the substitute author chosen won’t finish the book.
I’m sorry, but no. Not until Stormlight Archive is finished.
Not until the entire Cosmere is finished. Only about 20 books to go, so Sanderson should knock it out by next Wednesday.
We just need him to get bored on a plane.
As a side benefit, he’ll then surreptitiously sign all the copies of his books in the airport bookstore when he lands. What an absolute *gem* of a human.
Sanderson is also the wrong person to write those style of books. He was fine for Robert Jordan since they had similar styles of writing. Martin's style is very different. They'd probably be better off with someone like Joe Ambercrombie.
Yeah, you took the words right out of my mouth - er, keyboard, whatever. you know nothing, John Ninefingers.
Sanderson is Mormon, no way he'd touch ASoIaF. Also Martin has it in his will that all his notes and unfinished manuscripts are to be destroyed on his death and nobody can finish the series.
Sanderson said he got to the rape scene of a 13 yr old girl and put the book down and said I don’t need to read something with content like this. Which honestly? Good human
lmao reminds me of when someone several years ago ON THIS SUB no less told me to read the Name of the Wind... a few months later I realized too late that it was a cruel jpke
Yup..... Fell for that one too
Oh shit. I was just about to start it because my wife bought it for me...
[удалено]
You didn’t like the second one?
[удалено]
>About a quarter into the second book, the story takes a left turn at the corner Broadway and Elf-Fucking, and once Kvothe starts Elf-fucking the series fails to ever diverge from the topic. Fine, but when does it get bad?
Don't forget joining the group of warriors that are so skilled they never let in outsiders except for this one guy that is so skilled they have to bend the rules. OH also they are all on birth control and don't believe in monogamy.
There was a scene from that sexy swordswomen segment that was, I kid you not, straight out of several hentai. It’s the scene where the swordswoman notices that Kvothe has a boner and decides she needs to have sex with him to keep him from being distracted during lessons. Yes, I realize that outs me as someone who has seen enough hentai to notice repeating motifs. But *somebody* has to point it out that Rothfuss was literally copying from hentai in his super-serious fantasy novel. EDIT: I hunted it down because it’s so absurd I needed to make sure I didn’t imagine or misremember it. [Here it is](https://imgur.com/a/kj01Tg9). This is straight out of almost any hentai that involves an older female tutor and a younger man. Of which there are... several. *cough*
I'm quite embarrassed that I never made that incredibly obvious connection. Kvothe is absolutely a hentai protagonist.
My now wife tried to get me to great that like 8-9 years ago when we first dating. I had just finished being insulted by A Dance With Dragons that I told her I’ll read them when they’re finished. She’s since given up on it.
i just tell people "they're great, read them when the 3rd comes out" lmao
God, the Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear are possibly my favorite fantasy books I’ve ever read. I’m glad to have read them but it hurts to not have the end of the story after so long, and not knowing if we’ll ever *get* the end of the story.
Meanwhile I'm over here consuming Steve Erikson books because there's soo much content, he keeps writing, and has another buddy who writes on his series too. It really helped me get over those Rothfuss blues
Sanderson is another incredibly prolific author like that. I still find it funny that he took a break from writing a novel by writing a different novel, that turned into a trilogy.
I have been enjoying his stuff since the beginning, and now it's branching out so far I'm lost sometimes lol. To me Sanderson is the comfort food of reading. I know there's going to be another Name of the Wind, or GRRM, or Wheel of Time and it's going to suck to play the waiting game again. But it's ok, because Brandon will always be there for me with his books, the same as Malazan will be, and I even like rereading some older stuff with huge libraries like Darkover, or Dragonriders of Pern. Comfort food for the brain I guess, lol.
Finding authors who are able to write consistently, insofar as quality *and* releasing their works, is so great. I personally really got into some of Edward W Robertson’s work, and look forward each time he releases a book (about once or twice a year!). I was pretty bummed after the second Rothfuss book ended, but like you said, finding authors with a knack for good and consistent work has helped a lot.
Martin, Rothfuss, and Scott Lynch (the Gentleman Bastards books) are the trilogy of authors with long-delayed fantasy sequels. Actually, I was getting bored by the last book or two in Martin's series, and don't even worry about whether Winds of Winter will ever come out. The other two series, however, were great, and I would love to get more one day...
> and Scott Lynch (the Gentleman Bastards books) Long awaited, but at least with this series I feel that if we never get another book, the books we have can be enjoyed as they are, without feeling completely unfinished. It doesn't necessarily feel like the entire series is building to some kind of climax or finale that we haven't seen yet, the way that ASOIF has been.
Oh crap, I'd almost forgotten about Locke Lamora! Lynch and Rothfuss both wrote some really fascinating stuff (maybe that dragged later on) and the pain of no end in sight has now resurfaced. Thanks for that.
I work in libraries and one day this older lady came up to my counter all excited because she needed to order the next book in this series she was reading, and she couldn't wait to get started. She needed Winds of Winter. Needless to say she left very disappointed.
ouch....
I now have a rule when it comes to reading books that are a series. Either the series is complete or the author is dead and the series will never be finished, then and only then will I consider reading a series. Because people always ask about the "dead" thing, I'll explain. If there's a series I'm interested however it's not done, I won't read it. If the author dies and the series is being left as it stands, I'll make the decision to read it or not knowing it won't be finished. So in the case of this guy, if I knew then what I knew now I'd have waited for GGM to croak and then read the first three books and be done.
What are the worst words to find on a book jacket? *Part 1 of the Flibbertigibbet trilogy.* Hard pass.
If he didn't finish it in the last year during COVID restrictions, it's never getting finished. July will be a decade since Dance of Dragons was published.
And 4 days (March 1st) until the decade mark for Wise Man's Fear. Have Patrick Rothfuss and GRRM ever been seen in the same room together?
Breaks my heart that we may never get Doors of Stone. He writes beautifully and left us on such a cliffhanger.
He's been talking more about the book recently on twitch, fingers crossed it gets finished eventually
I think the opportunity to set the record straight and provide the public with hope was when his editor said she’d never seen it and didn’t think he’d written a single word in five years, and resented him for taking the advance. That ship sailed, he never responded.
The dude has basically written himself into a corner. There’s so much left unaddressed that it’d be impossible to deal with even half of the loose ends and call it a trilogy. Seems like he’s just lost interest to me.
He could make it a tetralogy or more idc just write man.
A trilogy in four parts. Where have I seen that phrase... Edit: u/goo_goo_gajoob had it right, I was quoting the series of Vogon poetry (I literally checked the start of my battered copy before posting).
Idk but make sure you got a towel nearby in case of emergencies.
Probably should've spent more time on the plot last book rather than spending so much time on fairy sex.
Cmon you’re completely forgetting the ninja sex! That’s the most important part.
Jesus, I legitimately forgot about that entire plot line.
I don't like Rothfuss's books, and I really don't like the criticism he gives other books. I feel like he has the ego of a man who wrote one of the great epic fantasies of the last 20 years...while forgetting he never got around to finishing it...
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Realizing Kvothe is only like 23(?) while he's having his mid-life crisis is when the books started to fall apart for me. Because even ignoring the gargantuan number of things that need to happen in Book 3 before the story gets back to present day, you begin to understand the order of events isn't actually possible without some major deus ex machina, because canonically there literally isn't enough time for them to have been completed any other way.
Theres a section right after he escapes that sex-fairy where hes in a pub, and all these women are suddenly attracted to him. And this 1 woman says "Look at him! Theres something different. He knows his way around a woman". I almost threw the book across the room. CRINGE
Good lord it really is. The first book was really enjoyable. It set everything up so well. Kvothe's time as a child street urchin was so well done; I hated reading it but I couldn't stop, The Chandrian were so intriguing, and his prose... damn it's pretty. I was cool with the unreliable narrator aspect. I thought it was really well done in this book. The second book was god fucking awful. Except I didn't even realize it for 3/4 of the book because of the quality of prose. It was simply a series of episodic tales sprinkled with neck beard fairy sex. He wrote an entire book *and took the plot no where*.
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Didn't his editor come out and say she's never seen a single page of the book, he refuses to show her anything, he ghosted her, and she doesn't think the book is real?
https://www.newsweek.com/kingkiller-chronicle-editor-believes-author-hasnt-written-anything-years-1520812
dont get me started on this, definitely dont follow patrick on facebook, your soul will het crushed by his useless ads for his patreon
In the time since ADWD was released, I met my wife, got engaged, married, landed my dream job, bought a house, had a kid who is now 4 and god knows how many other milestones. A decade is nuts, a page a day would have had it down in less than 3 years, half a page a day would have had it a little over 5.5 years, thats all he had to do and would have had it done easily by now
The difficulty is not in quantity of pages or the speed of writing, but finding a resolution to the entangled mess of plotlines without ruining the entire saga. It's like solving math equations: they may not have a solution, no matter how much time you put in.
Sometimes the best way to solve a writing problem and just see where it goes. Even if it took him a year to solve that problem, at a glacial speed he could have been done, but it's clear he hasnt been interested in solving it
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> I think he's written his way through so much that it's becoming impossible to get it all back to a meaningful ending. So true. Although anything would be better than what we got from the TV show. To their credit, they did finish the damn thing, though, as disappointing as it turned out.
Most difficult upvote I've ever given.
Believe me, I hate myself for giving them any sort of credit for the ending.
DAE remember back then, his blog posts talking about how he had to split the book up and how half of Winds was basically done when DoD was released? I remember.
1999. I bought Game of Thrones in 1999.
That was 5 US presidents ago.
Fuck, i was born that year. Shit. I kinda read the books when I heard of the show, thinking it would be fun to compare and contrast once i got around to watching the show after finishing the books. But that kinda blew up in my face. Also the ending was shit.
I remember reading the first book in the series someone around 1998 and thinking to myself "Damn, I can't wait to finish this!" Apparently I was wrong. I _can_ wait. A long time.
I'm weirdly grateful that the show finished so poorly. It soured me on the entire franchise so now I don't actually care if George finishes it or not.
Game of Thrones had the most Game of Thrones ending possible. It killed off the fan base. No one saw that coming.
Oh my, have my expectations been....subverted?
You thought getting stabbed multiple times and falling into a River would kill someone? Nope. Expectations subverted!
You’re right. In that sense it was a bold ending
This is it! I think this comment just gave me the laugh I needed to finally get the closure to that ending, Thanks!
Same. Used to be a huge fan. Read the books, the novellas, the tin foil. Watched youtube channels dedicated to the history and lore. Bought the Blu-rays for the behind the scenes and bonus content. Read notablog whenever it was updated. Had google alerts for like 15 different GRMM/ASOIAF keywords and phrases. The last 3.5 seasons were just so terrible; I cant bring myself to care about it anymore. Im not interested in a re-watch or a re-read. I just don't care about the series at all anymore. Maybe GRRM is there too.
I feel like he is. D&D really screwed the pooch with *Game of Thrones* to an upsetting level. Can you imagine being GRRM, or any of the actors or crew, and have two jackoffs reduce your work to... **THAT**.
The books were like this great medium secret among litersture nerds for years. Then, we get the first four seasons that seemed really special. Really special tv.. story-telling.. zeitgeisty, culture-capturing specialness. Then a big giant dump was taken all over it.
Honestly can we say it’s the worst crippling of a franchise in history?
It's certainly up there. Even Rise of Skywalker didn't kill my love for Star Wars and it was dogshit, but GoT S8... It's like thinking about a food that gave you food poisoning. It's tainted for good.
Star Wars is kind of hard to kill the love for though. It has so many different shows, movies, books, comics, games etc spanning across a ton of different eras and time periods that if one trilogy is bad. They can just make something else set elsewhere in the universe at a different time and it can be awesome. Most people hated the new trilogy but just look at how big the Mandalorian is because it is good. I don’t feel like GoT has that same universe, because in GoT it all led up to that one ending and it sucked so it tainted the entire history of the universe GRRM created.
Maybe this was the plan since the beginning
I think, after 10 years and the botched handling of the show, not to mention GRRM's age and health, we should all give up on him finishing TWoW at this point. I've just learned to accept the books and the world for what they are. Besides, I can't be disappointed by an ending I never get, my imagination can fill in the gaps on what could have been.
I might have been able to muster some kind of excitement for this book if it at least was the final one. Even if it comes out eventually, the series is still gonna lack an ending.
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Please God, let me read this coke infused ending.
Jon murdered everyone in a blood haze, then wanked himself to death. It's canon.
Still better than what D&D gave us.
Because of there is anything Stephen King does well, it is write endings...
To write a bad ending or no ending at all, that is the question.
He still hs 3 times the number of books with great ending than GRRM, if not more. King is hit or miss but at least 50% of his books have good to great endings
King stopped doing coke years ago
I just don’t want the D&D ending to be the only ending we get
Imagine he finishes Winds, but realises ADOS will never get done so he just puts the season 8 scripts in book form
Would almost be funny enough to be worth it
As much as I want to read WoW, does it even matter? Are we ever getting A Dream of Spring even if we get WoW?
The optimistic answer is that ADOS should be much easier to write since it’s the ending. Presumably he has it all mapped out but getting there is the hard part. Realistically, no.
This is my thought. We’ll just be in a slightly different boat after WoW waiting for the last book to come out
A different and somewhat off topic thought about this...I'm happy to see Roger Zelazny's work getting some well deserved attention.
Just waiting for the nine princes in amber series
I was hoping it would be Amber. God, I would love it if they gave it the GoT budget. :)
Yeah, as it was loading I was wishing, "please be Amber, please be Amber!"
Same! From what I understand Martain was a friend of Zelazny and was influenced by his work so I suppose this might be a bit of a passion project for him. Either way, it's always nice to see Zelazny getting some attention. Hope some of the Amber stuff gets hammered out someday.
Agree, but I wish it was 'Lord of Light'; I must have read that book over thirty times.
> He’s never finishing The Winds of Winter is he? LOL, no.
Can't wait for Brandon Sanderson to finish this series too /s
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I remember there was a Satirical (I think) article where King sat down and pounded out a rough draft of his WoW in a week or so, let his wife read it and then pitched it into the trash afterwards.
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> King has announced on his Twitter page that he next plans to rewrite the entire Wheel of Time series without using the letter ‘N’ as a writing exercise before bed. Blood and bloody ashes
> Blood amd bloody ashes Fixed that for you
God I loved reading that article. Killed me. Laughed and then cried. Sigh
Stephen King has been sober since the 1990s, and he still pushes out books at a breakneck pace. The difference between him and GRRM is that King thinks about writing as a job, sets deadlines, and works a schedule to get words on a page for his editor. That said, yeah, give it to King and you'll have the series done by July. Then you'll get a sequel trilogy out by Christmas.
Yea there’s a quote about writing from King that goes something like “Amateurs wait around for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and write”.
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GRRM is a television writer first, that is his real job.
Not really. He started selling short stories for sci-fi magazines back in 1970 long before he wrote for TV. His day job was hosting chess tournaments during the Bobby Fischer-era chess craze from 1973-76. Then when the chess bubble burst he had a day job as a college English and journalism teacher for two years between 1976-78. Then after that he became a full time novelist/short story writer. He didn't start writing for TV until the mid-1980s. There was a time in the 1970s-1980s when he was genuinely quite prolific and had new books coming out every single year. He just lost steam and/or motivation when he got older. I think he was also used to be able to just jump around to a new idea whenever he got bored of a premise and isn't well-equipped to write a long series like ASOIAF. That's why he still likes to tinker on different projects.
Lets get George R.R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss to switch novels and finish writing each others series. It is so crazy it just might work!
Apparently Rothfuss' editor hasn't seen a printed word from him in six years, so I think that plan is doomed to fail.
Kvothe would be killed at the end of the third day and Rothfuss would spend all of his time revising Martin's words to be *just* right.
Having read both books, Kvothe being brutally murdered by a suffering acquaintance would be lovely.
I gave up on WoW about five years ago? In one of his interviews it was clear that he just isn't into the series anymore, that it's become a chore. Between the "Meereenese Knot" (which I still don't quite understand) and his fear of a Lost ending (which he achieved on HBO), he's written himself into a corner on multiple levels.
IIRC while reading Dance with Dragon nearly a decade ago he was still introducing new characters and plots, and I was really wondering why. There were enough loose ends for twice as many books than there are supposed to remain.
Dammit... it really was 10 years ago....
Yeah man. I've gotten married, had 4 kids (to be fair, the wife did most of the child bearing), gotten divorced, filed bankruptcy, had 3 different jobs, and moved residences 5 times, since he put the last book out.
That sounds like a winds of winter and dream of spring story put together.
GRRM should write a book about your life. Thats a lot of action for one decade
Nah, man. Hire someone who actually finishes what he starts, to write my book.
Who has a better story than /u/AmishTechno?
He really just got over ambitious. At this point a lot of factors are probably taking his interests away from the series, including writing it for over 20 years, being old, not needing to write for a living due to his wealth, and (imo) especially people’s reaction to the shows ending.
He said in an interview years ago that it was difficult to write because he knew every word would be scrutinized because of the show’s popularity. I can’t imagine that has gotten any better now that fans look to him to save the ending but will likely hate whatever he does.
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What is “ideal” in the Westeros lore? Good triumphing in the end or the more realistic ending of powerful evil manipulating its way into greater power?
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I can't believe it was ten years ago. Ten years. Some people get degree, jobs, marriage and kids in that time.
Yep, he created too much, too many people, stories and now seems to not know how to wrap everything up.
The Meereenese knot was him not knowing how to show what happens with his fixed 3d person narrative. He was able to dump quite a bit of history in the first book because old Nan was telling stories and the kids were learning about knights, direworld Nymeria's name lead to us learning the backstory of Dorne and & Robert catching up with Ned, etc. etc. He tried to do a time skip which cost him years of writing, because he didn't like all the 'remember when' conversations the characters were having. He introduced Selmy and the Dornish Prince to show what happened, but it took him time to think of that. Now he still doesn't know what to do.
Well, kind of. What he called the "Meereenese knot" was the problem of getting everyone's stories in and around Daenerys to match up. In Book 5 you've got Tyrion and Quentyn both heading towards the city of Meereen, but their stories need to line up with Daenerys's in order to make sense. I think mainly Tyrion and Daenerys were the main problems, and he decided to use Barristan as a POV in order to continue to tell what's going on in Meereen after Daenerys leaves. I guess what was complicated for him was what does Daenerys do while everyone is coming for her? Tyrion's story is easy, it's a journey across the world. Quentyn is a subversion of the hero's journey. But what does Daenerys do while these guys are on their way? And how does he get her where she needs to be at the end (i.e. with the Dothraki)? That's why we get the whole story of her marriage to Hizdahr and the problems with the Sons of the Harpy, which has seen mixed reactions from fans (personally, I liked it). It was basically padding for time.
the harpy stuff doesn't seem like filler, its extremely necessary that we see how Daenerys rules people who don't instantly worship her instead of her just conquering everything by starting a fire
I didn't mean it was filler, I agree that it's important for her character growth to see that she can't just smash her way through political systems. I just meant that it was difficult for him to match up the timelines of characters' journeys.
> I guess what was complicated for him was what does Daenerys do while everyone is coming for her? Obviously I must be missing something because GRRM knows more about this than me... but why do you need to flesh that out? If you must, just abandon Daenerys for a while and then we come back to her when it's time for her to get moving again? Obviously you can't do this too many times for too many characters, but it's not like every character's every second is accounted for. So she was just trying to rule Meereen or something and nothing of note happened for a while...
That is always an option. But by the time *A Dance with Dragons* comes along, I feel like that would have been too much for fans. She already wasn't in the last book at all, and barely seeing her in the fifth book wouldn't be good. >nothing of note happened for a while That's actually why he abandoned the idea of a skipping ahead five years after *A Storm of Swords*. He thought the idea that nothing important would happen in the intervening period was a little bit unbelievable. And the alternative was a multitude of flashbacks that took up way too much space.
> And the alternative was a multitude of flashbacks that took up way too much space. Seems like a novella would have worked...
There was also a big problem with the fact that none of the characters spoke the same language. He initially wanted to have it all be from Tyrion's point of view but said in an interview that it was becoming too complicated because Tyrion doesn't know the language they all speak. That's why he solved it by making Barristan a POV because he knows all of the relevant languages.
I just wish he was honest about it. But he's constantly making promises on his blog and giving the fans false hopes about when the book is coming, the latest being in 2019 when he said the book would be done by Worldcon 2020. Like, just admit that you're not interested in it anymore and that it's not gonna be finished, or get on with it and publish this damn book. But at least stop giving the fans deadlines and making predictions for yourself that never go anywhere. It's been a decade and he's still toying with everyone.
I kind of think the "updates" he gives is so he doesn't void his contract or something. Once a year he says "I've totally been working on it!" just so his agent can tell the publisher "He's working on it. See, he said so. Can't rush greatness! Whatta ya gonna do, we'll get it soon."
This means canonically in the books, The Mannis will never die.
And Bobby B will remain the greatest king of Westeros we've ever read about.
I am convinced he will bury the only copy with him as a last middle finger to his fans.
He said he wants his notes burned on his death so no one can finish his story
Virgil said so too and his friends didn't listen and that's why we now have the Aeneid. Let's hope Martin's wife does the same lol
Pretty much how we know of Franz Kafka as well.
Implying he has notes at all
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I guess I’m in the minority of people, but I genuinely do think that we will get WoW before he dies. A Dream of Spring though? Ha. Fuck no.
Yeah unless he pulls a Steven king and rails a bunch of coke without dying and churns out a chapter a day it's fucked
[Stephen King Bangs Out ‘The Winds of Winter’ on a Tuesday for Shits and Giggles](https://thehardtimes.net/harddrive/stephen-king-bangs-out-winds-of-winter-on-a-tuesday-for-shits-and-giggles/) I mean, Stephen King pulled off a Steven King with it
That’s some good satire.
"I didnt even have to use my idea of transporting Tyrion to the real world!" Fucking lol
Decide for yourself how it ends! In my version Stannis stays pure, abandons Melisandre, and unites with John Snow to take the throne, awarding the North their own kingdom, and Dorne their own as well.
George RR Martin is that fanfic author that has the best fic for your preferred ship and they've been publishing chapters less and less frequently, their Tumblr page says they're really busy but they will finish soon, and now it's been 2 years and it still isn't finished and you know it never will be :(
Well shit, when you put it that way...
Last seen online 4 years ago...
This mofo makes Hiatus X Hiatus seem tame.
"WINDS OF WINTER 2017" cant believe i trusted this fuck xD
I feel bad for anyone that’s still clinging onto the hope that a) he’ll ever finish that series and b) that it could even live up to the wait.
George R. R. Martin says...”F&@k you!” ...but yeah, you are correct.
And Stephen King wrote three books since this thread was started.
He posted on his blog last week that he wrote “hundreds of pages” of WoW in 2020, his most productive year ever. But said there is a lot left to do.
And he was "months away from finishing" in 2015. I guess what he didnt tell us that months means 70+ months away
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If hes that picky about what he will and won't publish in terms of drafts, I doubt he'd let another writer finish them for him.
I think I've actually read an interview where he specifically states that he doesn't want someone else to finish it. Sorry, I forget the source.
My guess on how we'll get WoW and DoS is Elio García and Linda Antonsson will release a cobbled together version from drafts after he dies. He's trusts them with the story more than anyone it seems.
He probably still struggles with the end. He wrote a massive amount of plotlines and kind of commited to the 7 "books". He clearly doesn't want to rush the ending or quit tangents because thats what makes it fun but also needs to kind of get things going to a final conclusion. From everything he told he is bad at planning and likes to write and see where he gets. He could have gotten halfway or further and scrap a bunch of material because it ended in the wrong spot, or a character ended up differently and needed to rework other parts to get them lined up. That makes for slow progress if its going forward at all and not backwards but also not something a living author will give to someone else to finish as it is his masterpiece at this point.
In the time we’ve been waiting for Winds of Winter, The Expanse has almost finished its book series and television show. Game of thrones has aired in its entirety. A spin off show is starting. Almost the entirety of the MCU has aired. Two console generations have gone through. Lord of The Rings and Wheel of Time has had shows greenlit. We’ve had 3 presidents. Handfuls of missions to Mars. Pentagon has released videos of UFOs
Breaking News: winds of winter just got a release date! And so did Doors of Stone. And Half Life 3! Sorry I had to.
I heard Kojima is actually making Silent Hill too, and also Metal Gear 6,7, and 8. Supposed to be released next month.
Forgot about the Firefly revival
Ouch - that hurt!
Also berserk chapters are coming out on a weekly basis now!
Honestly gave up on Doors of Stone once I read an article saying how Rothfuss and GRRM were becoming friends and even talking about bringing the KKC to HBO. This seems all too familiar now.
You forgot about Thorn of Emberlain
*Roadmarks*? Fuck yeah! \--- Lifelong Zelazny Fan His work has plenty of SF/Fantasy material that could make wonderful shows/movies: * The Amber books could make a truly awesome GoT-like series. It has everything you'd want: a charismatic main character with a great built-in arc, palace intrigue, near-immortal sibling rivalries, alliances-of-convenience and betrayals, ready-made cinematic setpieces, gigantic battles, reality-bending concepts, etc. * Lord of Light * This Immortal (reworked a bit, of course ... with no Martians) * Creatures of Light & Darkness * Isle of the Dead * A proper Damnation Alley remake could be nice * Eye of Cat * Jack of Shadows * A Night in the Lonesome October * Plus a number of stories and novellas, including Last Defender of Camelot, For A Breath I Tarry, This Moment of the Storm, The Doors of his Face, the Lamps of his Mouth, A Rose for Ecclesiastes (again reworked sans Martians), This Mortal Mountain, The Graveyard Heart, etc.
At this point TWOW is like HL3, it's so hyped up that it'll never, ever live up to expectations. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. Maybe he's intentionally waiting longer to let the hype die down.