Why would he do this to us?

Needle

Arya's Whisper
Joined
Apr 4, 2011
Messages
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Hi all, been awhile! I was looking around tonight for a new read when I saw a horrible? wonderful? thing! GRRM has a new GOT book coming out in November! Oh my gosh, finally and hallelujah!! Oh wait a minute what's this? Fire and Blood, Targ history starting 300 years ago! Okay now, winter has been coming for what? 22 years now! Fate of our beloved world hanging in the balance and you want to go back 300 years!


Now I confess, I'm a die hard fan and will have to read, and hopefully completely enjoy all over 700 pages (of book one of two) but I am officially declaring GRRM (to put it nicely) a BUTTHEAD!!!! Not nice George, not nice at all!
 
It's a theme this year I think. Kristen Britain has done the same thing - new book this year, but it's a collection of histories/shorts based in her world. Not like we've been waiting since the 90s or anything, only 6 books in....

I gave up on GGRM ages ago. Rather wait till everything is finished and go from there!
 
Like I said, I can see myself really loving a little Targ history (got a little taste from The Princess and the Queen in Dangerous Women (some pretty good stories in there by the way) even if it read a little dry, but come on! 700 pages in 1/2 of the story lot of writing time there! While we continue to wait, very frustrating. While I knew all along he continued to work on other things, such as Wild Cards, but that is understandable, a whole different place and frame of mind for the author. To go to the same world and not work on an unfinished story feels very different to me.

Many authors have taken years, decades even to finish their opus, Stephen King comes to mind with his Dark Tower series (another personal favorite of mine) but when you look at his writing, almost every story he wrote between the first book and finishing the story decades later, references or ties into Roland's story, proof (to me anyway) that he never really left that world, but he didn't leave Roland hanging in the wind to tell us about his distant ancestors!

I have heard people say that with the HBO show out there that he may feel the story has been told already. I hope this is not true because is that really his story? Or just a compacted version of it? Thoughts?
 
I have heard people say that with the HBO show out there that he may feel the story has been told already. I hope this is not true because is that really his story? Or just a compacted version of it? Thoughts?

It's good enough for me. If he wanted to tell it himself, he could have done.

Maybe I'll reconsider when he's finally done with his version, but for now I'll take what's given. Not that its attracted a lot of plaudits since they've wandered off the path he established... maybe he's waiting to see what they get panned for in the final series so he can not do those things? :p
 
Sometimes projects like this allow a writer to publish something new and work on a different project; ergo give themselves a bit of breathing space; but without having to start a whole new series up. Ergo its not just a writing exercise but gets published and helps put food on the table.

It might be all he needs is some time away from the setting he's writing in to get his thoughts and plot in order. Or just something to write that hasn't got the same huge pressures on him to achieve with - heck it might be that he's self concious that he "can't" write to the fans desired quality so he wants to put something out that isn't tied to the rest but which can help him restore his own faith in himself to write.
 
Oh, Needle child...

The ADWD summer was a brief one and we have now entered the longest winter in living memory. You enjoyed the dancing and the tournaments... yet, enduring through the winter will result in real satisfaction. Here are two sections from AGOT that foreshadowed our own winter...

Nan speaks literally of winter...

“Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods”

Eddard interprets winter figuratively.

She perched anxiously on the edge of her bed, "You are too young to be burdened with all my cares," he told her, "but you are also a Stark of Winterfell. You know our words."
"Winter is coming," Arya whispered.
"The hard cruel times," her father said. "We tasted them on the Trident, child, and when Bran fell. You were born in the long summer, sweet one, you've never known anything else, but now the winter is truly coming. Remember the sigil of our House, Arya."
"The direwolf," she said, thinking of Nymeria. She hugged her knees agaist her chest, suddenly afraid.
"Let me tell you something about wolves, child. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives. Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect each other, keep each other warm, share our strengths. So if you must hate, Arya, hate those who truly do us harm. Septa Mordane is a good woman, and Sansa... Sansa is your sister. You may be different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through your hearts. You need her, as she needs you... and I need both of you, gods help me."

Many of us remember when this forum was the most active author forum on the Chrons. Probably ten years ago, I compared the number of active threads in the last few months and found that the GRRM forum was more active than the next three (maybe four, I'd need to find the post) combined! Many popular, humorous, insightful, and ubiquitous posters have disappeared. They left the pack.

This is still the time to enjoy this very forum. Go to the Tolkien forum... it's only populated by Denethors reminiscing over past glories. (I'm guilty.) Go to the Robert E. Howard or the Edgar Rice Burroughs forums... oh, wait, there aren't any... because there are not any new Conan and John Carter stories. Think of the global phenomenon that was Harry Potter.... the Rowling forum does not have any new threads this year, but it had two last year.

There may not be much meat on the bone now, so crack the bones and suck the marrow. Or go read Joe Abercrombie, N. K. Jemisin, Robin Hobb, China Mieville, et al., but keep an ear out for the howls of the pack... you'll know when a fresh kill has been made.
 
Boaz! I love how you always seem to make me cringe and feel better at the same time! I will never leave this pack but I have been forced to hunt further afield. I do however continue to do a reread about once a year to remind myself that winter is truly coming one day! And that the dream of spring remains!
 
Cringe and feel better? That's a great backhanded compliment... usually I just get the backhand.

Thanks for not throwing it in my face that I've been hunting far afield for the last two years...

I did find Joe Abercrombie...

I ate him up.
 
I have heard it said that GRRM is onto the final stages of his editing process for Winds. Could it be that the first melt drops of a thaw are spotting into the snow beneath the Weirwoods? Or is this just another false spring? We must have faith!
 
Like I said, I can see myself really loving a little Targ history (got a little taste from The Princess and the Queen in Dangerous Women (some pretty good stories in there by the way) even if it read a little dry, but come on! 700 pages in 1/2 of the story lot of writing time there! While we continue to wait, very frustrating. While I knew all along he continued to work on other things, such as Wild Cards, but that is understandable, a whole different place and frame of mind for the author. To go to the same world and not work on an unfinished story feels very different to me.

It's the same project as The Princess and the Queen, The Rogue Prince and Sons of the Dragon: those stories are all excerpts from this new book, which was written six years ago.

What happened was thusly: way back in 2011-12, when George had just finished ADWD, his publishers asked him to focus on finishing off The World of Ice and Fire, which Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson had been working on since 2007 but they'd gone as far as they could without George's input. He said sure, and agreed to provide 3,000 words worth of backstory, sidebars and commentary for the book (as well as his background notes and maps). This went a bit haywire and he ended up writing 300,000 words in about three months (!).

This was way too much material for the world book, so Garcia and Antonsson basically wrote a summary of this material as the text we saw in The World of Ice and Fire when it came out in 2014. GRRM's publishers suggested they could use the unedited, detailed text as the basis for "The GRRMarillion", a narrative history of the ASoIaF backstory. Since it wasn't finished (the mega-detailed history ended around Aegon III, followed by a much looser outline of the rest of the Targaryen history), GRRM agreed but wanted to put it on the backburner until TWoW was done. He did use the material to form The Princess and the Queen, The Rogue Prince and Sons of the Dragon, though.

Last year, with TWoW wait dragging on, GRRM and his publishers revisited the idea after his publishers realised that at almost 300,000 words and only going halfway through the Targ reign, the full text would be too big to publish in one volume anyway, so they'd have to split it in half...meaning that Volume I was already finished. Literally it was the material George finished back in 2012. George went back, applied a bit of spit and polish, rewrote the ending so it would work better, and that's what's coming out this November.

tl;dr: George wrote Fire and Blood six years ago. If he hadn't written it, we'd have TWoW about 3 months faster than if he hadn't.
 
tl;dr: George wrote Fire and Blood six years ago. If he hadn't written it, we'd have TWoW about 3 months faster than if he hadn't.
Three months faster then some imaginary date that has yet to be determined.
 
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