A Dance with Dragons
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Why so long between books...
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I don't believe that is the reason, but your theory cannot really be falsified, right? Perhaps only if he completes the series without a years-long break between book 6 and 7...
Hmm, I really don't think the money factor is as significant as you say, and I doubt the popularity of the series would subside that quickly once the story is over. If that was the case, people wouldn't be reading and talking about old Fantasy classics anymore. And believe me, A Song of Ice and Fire is already a classic.I also know for a fact that lots of readers actually avoid on-going book series because they hate to wait for new releases. So, concluding the series would probably attract new readers. Plus, there could undoubtedly be more sequels and prequels and standalone novels after A Song of Ice and Fire, therefore ending the main series would not mean ending George R. R. Martin's fictional world.
I think novels as rich and as deep as these require a lot of time. Simple as that.
But that's just my opinion.
Johnny wrote: "Hmm, I really don't think the money factor is as significant as you say, and I doubt the popularity of the series would subside that quickly once the story is over. If that was the case, people wouldn't be reading and talking about old Fantasy classics anymore. And believe me, A Song of Ice and Fire is already a classic.I also know for a fact that lots of readers actually avoid on-going book series because they hate to wait for new releases. So, concluding the series would probably attract new readers. Plus, there could undoubtedly be more sequels and prequels and standalone novels after A Song of Ice and Fire, therefore ending the main series would not mean ending George R. R. Martin's fictional world.
I think novels as rich and as deep as these require a lot of time. Simple as that.
But that's just my opinion."
Lol, I am one of those readers, and I'd never heard of the series before the TV show came along, but after watching most of season 1, I decided to buy the books, and mowed through 5 of them in 3 months. Then finished seasons 1 & 2. I don't know how you guys waited so long in between books, I'm already going mad :)
I'm sure there will be sequels and other stories in his world (like Feist seems to perpetually do with Midkemia), but that may be hit & miss, fan wise (like Feist).
And I know the popularity won't wane as significantly, because, it's a damned fine read, but as I've trolled through these forums, I seem to find a lot of speculation about what's happening next, rather than anything else.
But my point should have been that no one is talking about "A Game of Thrones" itself, more "A Dance with Dragons" with the odd "A Feast for Crows" reference. That's what started me thinking about the time in between, and why I came up with my conspiracy theory :D
See...
A Game of Thrones - 1996 (no one had heard of it yet, only the hard core or 'real' fans, so no real ruckus about it yet)
A Clash of Kings - 1999 (3 years, about standard)
A Storm of Swords - 2000 (wtf?!? only 1 year? This is what makes me crazy!!)
A Feast for Crows - 2005 (pushing the time frame, but Ok)
A Dance with Dragons - 2011 (6 years, pushed it too far)
The Winds of Winter - 2018?? (not a real date guys, relax...)
And why 5 years between Feast and Dragon? He allegedly split them up when they were going to be too long for one book, so I would assume most of it had been written when publishing Feast. 5. Long. Years. (And I've only been waiting for 2 months now, lol, youngsters these days.)
Anyway, I'm starting to rant now, and I need to go back to work, so I'll catch this up a bit later.
Thanks for the input, and more is welcome.
I too read the books only after watching the show. I loved Season 1.Most fans aren't talking about A Dance with Dragons per se, but they are talking about the story up to that point.
Of course all the speculations and theories will eventually die down once every fan has read all the books, that's only normal. I doubt this will affect its popularity. Not unless the ending is completely disappointing.
I don't know why it took longer for some of the books to be released - it could be for any number of reasons - but I really don't think it's because he's happy with the money the show is earning him so he has grown lazy.
Marina wrote: "I remember one clearly - Jon thinks he saw Bran's wolf, but how could he know his name was Summer?"I don't think that's a mistake necessarily. We know that when Bran woke up, he said to Robb "His name is Summer" and then Robb sent Jon a letter informing him that Bran woke up. Surely it's not far fetched to assume that Robb included said detail. And Luwin did the actual writing anyway, so I'm sure he would've liked to include such a detail.
That said, we can always resort to the fantastical elements. Jon and Bran are wargs, as we know. And, I think Jon and Bran are more unique than the other Starks because their dreams are more potent, and possibly can even interface with each other. So perhaps Dreamer Jon could learn Summer's name even if Regular Jon did not know it.
Marina wrote: "Oh, well. My mistake, then :DJust reinforces my thinking that he wants to take his time to write a flawless book."
You could still be right and he just made an honest blunder; I was just playing devil's advocate :)
I agree that GRRM wants to write a flawless book. I trust him.
Did you see the sample chapters?
Mark wrote: "It occurs to me that there may be a very valid reason for why the time in between books (not citing scheduling issues, of course) is starting to take years.If the series were concluded, then the ..."
Book 5 came out in 2012, I believe. Book 6 is scheduled for 2014 release. Even though I hate the wait, it's really not that bad.
i don't book 6 is scheduled for anything. i think people were hoping for 2014 because with book 5 out in 2011 that would give him 3 years to complete the next book. however, that was an optimistic estimate. he's so heavily involved with book tours, writing other work, editing, writing for the show, interviews, and now apparently he's been offered a contract with HBO to create and develop more shows and content for that network—so the man is busy, and those books are dense and complex so it's not as easy to just bang them out anymore.
also the first book came out in 1996, yet he had started writing it in the early 90s, 91 or 92 i believe so even the first one took a bit of time to complete.
i'd guess that 2015 is a much more sensible estimate for winds of winter, but even that may be too optimistic.
Dang it! You may be right. Thanks for squashing my hopes and dreams. J/K
Well, the five years between SoS and FfC may have been intentional, he had originally planned to write that book as if five years had passed so all the characters would be aged.But then for one reason or another it didn't happen that way.
I don't know why it took 6 years between DwD and FfC. I would assume after he wrote the exceptionally long book and had to split it up, he then had to do a lot of editing do age everyone back down and also line up all the time lines. Not to mention come up with more content for Dance so it could be a whole books worth of info.
I would just assume George is busy is why it takes so long. He has other series that he writes, book tours, conventions, editing, thats all very time consuming. Not to mention he has collaborated on other books like the maps and the cookbook. And I mean, the man deserves a little free time as well.
It's even possible it isn't all him and partially his publisher.
Amber wrote: "I would just assume George is busy is why it takes so long. He has other series that he writes, book tours, conventions, editing, that's all very time consuming. Not to mention he has collaborated on other books like the maps and the cookbook. And I mean, the man deserves a little free time as well. It's even possible it isn't all him and partially his publisher."
Well, he should stop writing that OTHER series, cancel his tours, maps and conventions (even though he IS coming to Australia later in the year!!) and bin the cookbook.
And damn his publisher to hell!! :)
I dunno, Wild Card fans might sick Faceless Men on you for saying that LOL. I haven't read his Hedge Knight stuff that ties into ASOIAF but I heard they were pretty damn good.The cookbook and Map book are already done.
As much as I would love him to stop everything and just work on ASOIAF he'd probably loose interest and just kill everyone in some Winter Zombie Themed Apocalypse. LOL
In one of his recent interviews he said that the Winds of Winter book will be somewhere around 1500 pages. That. is. a. lot. 1500 pages of the many characters he has. as well as it being a continuation of the other 5 books. those things take time to do. writing is a very long process even for normal sized books. they have to write it. go through steps with the publication company. edits and proofreads and so on. as well as the fact that he is a very good author and wants to take his time with this story in order to finish it properly. yes it is annoying sometimes to wait for a book. but i am sure it is probably much more annoying for the author to have to spend all that time in getting his ideas out and spending all this effort, and then see fans complain about it not being out fast enough. This is an EPIC story he is telling. its going to take some time.
Whilst I'm complaining about the time it takes to wait for the next book, it isn't aimed at Mr Martin in a malicious way.It is a tongue in cheek, conspiracy theory, bored at work, start a thread theme when boiled down to its essence.
If Mr Martin is annoyed by my thread, then he should stop reading it and get back to work!!
I hope my comment did not come off in a mean way. I was not trying to criticize this thread. I was only trying to show how much it takes to write a book for those who didnt really think about it. a view from the other side so to speak. as well as answer your question :p I to am anxious for his next books to come out.
Lol. Felicia. I certainly wasn't offended, indeed, you'll need to try harder than that ;PI'm just facilitating discussion about a topic many people like, and it's intriguing to see how people react to something close to their heart.
As I previously stated, as long as your nice about, I can tolerate anything. Except real time religion and politics. Urrgh.
I'm 62 and I just hope I live long enough to read the end of this story.
I think it's cause GRRM writes his drafts in Klingon long-hand. Then these are messengered to the valley where now middle-aged gnarly valley girls dictate and encrypt the translations into arabic. Those are bounced off a satellite to a secure location in the United Arab Emirates, where the arabic versions are carved into ancient celtic runes. These are scanned and securely uplinked to a stealthy NSA server that is in outer orbit over Europa, Jupiter's moon, downloaded onto a mac cube by the ghost of Daniel Webster and transcribed into olde elvish. GRRM makes his final edits still in elvish via a Commodore Amiga and then the curator of musee du louvre does the final modern American english translation and prints out the manuscript on a decrepit dot matrix printer. Allow 4-6 weeks for shipping and easy peasy lemon squeezy!
With as many characters and twists and plots that are in the books, I am suprised it doesn't take longer! Even though I am impatiently awaiting the release of book 6, I wouldn't want him to rush it too much and leave out all the good stuff! but a little faster would be nice! ;)
I'm with Nancy -- I just hope that I (and GRRM) live long enough to finish the story! I got "turned on" to the series around 2008 by a young friend and compulsively read them one after the other. Then I had to wait for Dragon. It seems the saga keeps expanding. I can only wish GRRM had started earlier!
For me, he can take the time he needs, as long as he LIVES to finish the story. Not knowing how it ends would haunt me for the rest of my days lol
Amen to that Adelly :)
The author has a life?
Ted, I love you, let's get married ;)He's written extensively about the "reasons" he's always slipping the deadlines. I got bored reading the excuses. (TWO card games, a board game, tv show, map book (he didn't work on that much), etc.)
Now, I'll wait till the series is finished, before I read any more. (I was one of the original geekettes for the first book. Btw, at the beginning of the second book, I told a friend "Trilogy, smilogy, this series will be 7-9 books when it's finished or I'm not female!") AND I'll have seen the tv series done too.
My theory: the tv series will MAKE him finish the series in a more timely manner... Those Stark kids are GROWING UP! See Sansa, see her grow taller than the adult men in one series-year... It'll be interesting to see if he gets a ghost writer to help ;)
George R R Martin is not your bitch
Whose bitch is he then?Okay Meran let's do. Of course you'll have to meet my other six wives first. But seven is a number I feel good about. ;)
Ted wrote: "Whose bitch is he then?Parris McBride's! :)
As much as I am looking forward to the next installments, GRRM owes us not a thing. On some forums, people think that GRRM writes for their pleasure and not his own. He has a life aside from ASoIaF series and he can take as long as he wants in order to complete it. Some of the more nasty people, complaining about the time it takes between books, would sooie like piglets if he put out a rushed poorly written book.
George, watch as many football games as you like, tour as much as you like, write as many other books as you like, work on as many TV shows as you like, publish as many cookbooks as you like... because it's YOUR life and tomorrow isn't promised. If you never get around to finishing them, I will be disappointed, but life will continue and we will forever speculate on how it should have ended.
PS Hurry up! :)
K. wrote: "Mark wrote: "It occurs to me that there may be a very valid reason for why the time in between books (not citing scheduling issues, of course) is starting to take years.If the series were conclud..."
Book 5 came out in July 2011.
You can be my .book Husband :) That spot desperately needs to be filled ;) Friend me at least, lol.There have been MANY blog posts and articles, many threads on forums... Some by readers and authors in defense of GRRM's writing habits, and some against (yes, other authors against him ;) ).
It just seems to me that, like Microsoft, some authors think WE owe them everything, they want us to send them our money, spend OUR time fussing over them, rubbing their feet, bringing them drinks, singing hosannas in praise. I've been reading a long time: some authors remain approachable, nice. Some do not. GRRM is one of those. A friend stood patiently in line for hours. Yes, the author is tired. So are we, when we do what we must to sell our works... My friend was NOT impressed by the author's attitude.
On top of that, I've read books, lovely ones, written before ASOIAF, yet, when I finally read them, I'm recognizing scene after scene, character after character from ASOIAF in these earlier books. I have to admit, I've become rather unimpressed and a bit disappointed.
As a result, I'm not in the Worship This Author fan group. I do believe he may be putting his pants on like the rest of us... JMHO
I think Ted is the only one who has it correct! Love that post! :) You guys/gals are alot more understanding than I am with this series I started reading it around 2002 and I am honestly tired of waiting, put me down as one of the ones that will be probably wait until series completion before I finish...honestly I have forgotten alot about the series due to the large gaps between releases.
I am by no means upset with GRRM, frankly its not that serious, but based upon the last two books (which were ok but not nearly as good as the first three) coupled with the large delays my hopes have been tempered.
Thanks Obie, I did exhaustive research before posting. ;)
Ted wrote: "Thanks Obie, I did exhaustive research before posting. ;)"It was awesome my inner nerd/lameness just couldn't get enough of that comment.
I found it unlikely that the ghost of senator Webster would use a Mac Cube.The rest made sense though.
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If the series were concluded, then the discussion would be over. Everything would be known and there would be no more interest in it. No more debates about who Jon's mother was (is), no more wondering who would sit the iron throne, who is Azor, blah, blah, blah, etc., etc.
I imagine George Martin isn't short of a quid, so he won't be needing the income that his books generate (I'm sure the TV show has that covered), so he can take his sweet arsed time with it, and keep the interest alive. I suspect that this is just as important to some writers as plot development.
Just my 2 cents worth!!
To those that know more about this than me, feel free to quash my silly ideas, but be nice about it, huh?