Only Two More Books, Really?

[jet199]

I think there will need to be extra books. We've had something like 3 or 4 set up chapters, already, for the battle of Meereen and that is just the begining of the battle. The middle and the end must be at least another 4 and this stuff was supposed to have been in ADWD so the story which is meant to start in TWOW starts after these, possibly 8, chapters.

I just hope that the extra books will fall between TWOW and ADOS because I have read fantasy series where the last book is just tying up loose ends with nothing much happening and it is painful. It should be satisfying but because the reveals are generally foreshadowed events which you have worked out, there are maybe a couple of twists if you are lucky and there is no more charcter growth it just seems like a box ticking exercise.

It would be better to tie them up as the action moves along. Unfortunately, I don't think any of the threads in the OP are likely to be tied up completely in the next book.

Dany, who must make her way to Westeros, with her army and all her followers, and then somehow wrap things up with Tyrion, Vic, Ser Jorah, etc., including, apparently, Khal Pon

I think they are actually going to have to go and get Dany from the Dothraki sea, which will take some time, but after that Vic should be able to shove them all on boats and bring them to Westeros. I think this will take most of the next book to happen but Dany could be in Westeros by her last chapter in TWOW. However the bring Dany back plan is one of those on-screen plans which never work out so it is more likely that the iron fleet will sink and that the army has to move on foot stopping at each Essosi city on the way for a POV chapter. Hopefully all these people's fates will stay linked to Dany, even Tyrion. The only person I want leaving team Dany is Jorah if he ends up in the NW, which can be done with a couple of sentences.

The Iron invasion of the south.

Sam and Maester whosit at the Citadel

I think these two will merge but Euron will probably stay alive until Dany has reached Westeros. Sam could die (logically he shouldn't stand much chance against ironborn raiders) but he will probably be our eyes in the reach and maybe even go to Highgarden.

The Northern machinations with Stannis, Bolton, etc.

The battle for Winterfell will finish but northern scheming will continue. I don't trust Roose to die before the end, if at all, and Stannis isn't going anywhere until Dany arrives (the undying visions are almost a prophesy-shield which protects people until Dany meets them). Both of these need a decent ending.

Jon and Mel at the Wall

Jon is probably going to survive to the end but Mel may well be on her way out. Hopefully her lies (leeches and manipulating Jon) will be exposed in the next book and hopefully she will be gone but could hang around causing trouble. I think Jon's story will merge with the Northern machinations, as Stannis tries to bring the north together, or Bran's magic related story so this should tie things up a little. However the the Jon's parentage plot is going to rear it's ugly head in ADOS which then needs to be wrapped up within one book.

Brandon et all in the cave

I think Bran may leave the cave but even if he joins the northern POVs he will have his own magic related story until the end.

The conflict at King's Landing with Cersei, the High Sparrow, Margaery and the Tyrells

This could actually be wrapped up in the next book if they all get killed by un-Gregor but that probably wont happen. Cersei is going to go crazy and she may die by the end of TWOW she could also survive and need to be sorted out in ADOS. The Tyrells will probably survive but they don't have a particularly strong story so shouldn't take to long to sort out - just send them back home. The high sparrow will probably be killed but even then the new faith movement will a big problem for anyone who wants to rule Westeros effectively and needs to be sorted.

Arya

Arya will end up back in Winterfell with needle so she will probably meet up with other POVs and help sort things out (with her new abilities) rather than add extra story strands.

Sansa and Littlefinger in the Vale

I actually think LF may die in the next book and Sansa may get caught up in the dance of dragons 2.0 which would mean her story gets linked to who governs the south which will tie things up a bit. Apparently her chapter in ADWD was move to TWOW because it was the start of a new story so her plot in the next book should hopefully be quite different to just hiding and looking after Sweetrobin. If LF lives into ADOS then hopefully someone can just put a knife through him so we don't have to have further Harry the Heir type exposition.

Jaime, Brienne and Lady Stoneheart

This should be partly solved early in the next book - or he could let them all survive and have to sort it out later. I hope that at least LS will be dead in the next book but she has no POVs specifically to watch her anyway so it won't make much difference. Hopefully if Jaime and Brienne both survive they will stay together this time so their stories don't have to be finished individually.

Aegon and the Golden Company

This may possibly merge with the Dorne story (another story) and the whole lot of them will get killed by Dany but ... Dany has to get to Westeros first.

Hopefully all the major characters surviving in ADOS will be involved in the same war, if not in the same battle, so it will be easy to end a lot of the stories in the same event. Then maybe a couple of "lets sort this mess out" chapters at the end and a prologue (although it would be better if most problems could be sorted out before the action stops, with marriages and treaties like at the beginning of RR, so that the pace isn't lost and the true ending seems unimportant compared to the build up).

[Ser Creighton]

We also still have to go places:

Valyria

Casterly Rock

Asshai

The far North

You will not be getting Asshai, Martin confirmed this.

Valyria?? Martins comments indicate we will probably see this via flashback or weir vision net. We will be getting more on the lands of always winter. The Rock? Who cares nothing has happened there. Put a character there and you see the Rock not that hard to do, it's location has not been a major plot point.

[Roxy Carmichael]

Given the lack of plot progression over the past 2000 pages, I'd say two books is not enough. If he hits his old stride, then maybe it will be.

[RoamingRonin]

The last two books contained massive amounts of filler. Compare Brienne's chapters in AFFC to Catelyns in AGOT. Catelyn went from Winterfell, to Kingslanding, halfway back to Winterfell, to the Eyrie and then to the Riverlands... Brienne went practically nowhere.

It might take more than two books if GRRM continues to write these slow, plodding, ponderous tomes but if he goes back to his AGOT/SOS days then it can be done in two.

[Littlefinger's dagger]

This will never happen. This series is GM's biggest literary work of his life. He has already made it clear that he doesn't like fan fiction, and the HBO showrunners aren't novelists for that matter. Whatever they write would lack all of the GM style. Though I could see him giving permission for say, a show about RR to be made or something TV related.

Comparing fan fiction and licensed use is pretty apples and oranges. Fan fiction is done without his consent or involvement, and gains him nothing as a professional. Licensed use requires his approval and pays him for work he only had to review rather than generate. That he objects to one does not automatically mean he will object to the other, as we're currently seeing on the TV show. They make significant changes and GRRM keeps smiling, both because he's getting paid and he's involved in the approvals process. Fanfic denies him both money and the respect that he gets under a licensing arrangement.

I agree GRRM is attached to this work, but it's also growing unmanageable for him, and I think once he's told the story he set out to tell he could be persuaded and paid to consult/edit the work of one or two authors who wanted to write in his universe. He doesn't seem like the sort of egotist who considers all other writers hacks and distains the idea that he has peers. There's got to be someone he respects and who has been a protege of sorts, like Spider Robinson was to Heinlein. If not the HBO showrunners (who he already respects enough to let them take liberties), maybe Neil Gaiman? I can think of a number of writers I'd shudder at having that permission, and a few I'd find really provocative.

I'm still not ruling the idea out.

[Hippocras]

A lot of the reason things may have seemed slow is the amount of context and build-up that was given. This context will turn out to be key to understanding the future events.

The faceless men, red priests, bloodraven, Doran, Varys and littlefinger are all going to surprise you in the breadth of their plots which will tie together many of the events that have already happened and will happen in the next books. They are going to be filled with moments where you think, wow, how did I not see that so and so was in league with so and so?

It will be like one of those images made up of other images: you were so busy looking at the smaller images up close that you did not see the bigger picture they created and in a moment it will all be clear.

[Mithras]

I think TWoW will be a bloodbath, many characters and POVs will die. This will hasten things greatly. I don't think many of the unresolved plots need so many chapters to be concluded in this case.

[Animist]

If he wrote with some discipline he could actually do it. Instead his usual style is going into a million unimportant tangents, etc, that often lead to yet more characters. But if he writes as he usually does.. it wont be just 2 more books even at 1500 pages per book.

[Ingelheim]

I think TWoW will be a bloodbath, many characters and POVs will die. This will hasten things greatly. I don't think many of the unresolved plots need so many chapters to be concluded in this case.

This. I'd say, at least, 5 POVs dying. Selmy, Cersei, one Ironborn, Brienne or Jaime, and Jon Conn.

[Aegon the Great]

GRRM has really created way too many plots in the last two books. He needs to resolve things - and fast.

[Aegon the Great]

GRRM has really created way too many plots in the last two books. He needs to resolve things - and fast.

[Hippocras]

Death is not the only way for story lines to resolve you know. Martin doesn't even like killing his characters so I don't understand the assumption they will all die.

[Leonardo]

He said 1500+ pages for both books. They will be huge.

[Werthead]

Eight is possible, but I don't think it'll happen like is being thought here. I think GRRM will get into writing ADoS, pass the magic 1600 MS page mark (at which point the book can't be published in one volume) and keep going until he finishes. At that point they will find a break point and release it in two volumes, possibly ADoS Part 1 and 2, or maybe resurrect that A Time for Wolves title he shelved years ago.

This is problematic, but not as difficult as treating the final two books as two completely separate volumes, devoting 3-5 years to each one etc. The problem isn't the size of the books or how many there are, but how quickly GRRM can crank them out, especially if staying ahead of the TV show is a priority (either for him or the readers).

He said 1500+ pages for both books. They will be huge.

Manuscript pages. That's the same length as A Storm of Swords and A Dance with Dragons. That's about the biggest size they can fit between two covers.

[RoamingRonin]

Death is not the only way for story lines to resolve you know. Martin doesn't even like killing his characters so I don't understand the assumption they will all die.

Because they can't all live. Most are doomed to die because of their circumstances (Ramsay, Roose and all of their allies, the Freys), others are prophesied to die (Cersei and her welps) and all these upcoming wars means somebody gotta die.

[protar]

It all hinges on the Battle of Fire in TWOW imo. If Dany is on her way to Westeros before a third of the way into the next book, then I think he'll manage 7 books. Much more than that and it'll be pushing into 8. When Dany arrives on the shores of Westeros (and when the Others break through the Wall) all hell is going to break loose. All the intricate long game plots of the characters will be smashed to smithereens and Martin can (hopefully) craft a fast, satisfying conclusion out of the pieces.

[Fool of a Book]

I think he'll finish this series up in two, due to the show, then either produce his GRRMarillion for the loose ends, or he could go on forever like Terry Brooks with prequels and sequels... almost four decades of published novels in the world of the Shannara series. Granted Terry writes shorter novels faster, but he is four years older. Gives me some hope, I suppose.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

The Rock? Who cares nothing has happened there. Put a character there and you see the Rock not that hard to do, it's location has not been a major plot point.

No but Tyrion's taking CR by invasion through the sewers has been foreshadowed by Dany's adventures in Essos. I for one would love to see that happen. It would be quite an entrance for the Dragon Queen's forces to come to Westeros that way. The Kingdom runs on the gold of Casterly Rock, take that and you're ten steps ahead of whoever holds the Iron Throne, especially considering the default on the Iron Bank loans.

[joluoto2]

I think there will be end up being three more books, not two.

[MegaAIP]

The problem may be dance, it just didn't move the story along like it could have and many of the big battles were pushed back to winds.

ONe big factor in 2 books may be the others, who knows how many POV's they might wipe out.