GRRM confirms: TWOW not done yet

[sifth]

On the plus side at least this will give us a sense of surprise while watching the show next year. Trust me I rather read the book too, but it looks extremely likely the show is going to tell us the answers to a lot of the cliffhangers from A Dance with Dragons, such as Jon Snow's faith and the out come of Stannis and Bolton's showdown at Winterfell.

[Cas Stark]

On the plus side at least this will give us a sense of surprise while watching the show next year. Trust me I rather read the book too, but it looks extremely likely the show is going to tell us the answers to a lot of the cliffhangers from A Dance with Dragons, such as Jon Snow's faith and the out come of Stannis and Bolton's showdown at Winterfell.

And, I know they don't like this topic, but the show will start to give you more and more clues as to what is coming by who is cast and who isn't and what is emphasized and what isn't. For example, not that it was in much doubt, but the BF being in the show seems a strong indication he's going to do something important down the road. It will be easier to discern which subplots really do go nowhere and which ones rethread back to the main story. Same with Gendry, while I hated the weirdo changes they made, it seems a sign that he may eventually connect with Red Dress and Stannis farther down the road.

[Giorgio Corrado]

I can't wait to read what I think will be the battle scene of the whole book the battle in the north between Stannis vs Bolton and who will get control of Winterfell.

[Mrmanakan]

I've got to say and don't take offense to this but some of your are the biggest whiners in the world. I understand that wait I didn't start reading in 96 but had to wait for dragons and that was bad enough. But still, you swear in season 5 they're going to be delving deep into winds of winter, child please. Maybe bran and maybe arya and Sansa. But Jon, stann and tyrion/Vic/Selmy won't be hitting winds of winter til I'd say early to mid season 6 there's plenty of alternate plots to explore and quent and his whole deal as well they'll get atleast 1 full season out of ffc/adwd. Wow in my estimation won't be spoiled by the show except in minor plots that I don't hear most of you crying about. Seriously crying over the hypothetical (which it undoubtedly is)

I've said this before on average since Between AGoT and ADwD a book has been released once every 3.7 years adwd and ffc were freaks because of all the rewriting and other struggles he faced. Winds of winter will be released in my opinion first quarter or early second quarter next year. And if not winds of winter for the most part won't be screened for 2 years.

Also the whole character aging too fast on tv I don't believe is that big of a deal, margaery is 32 for Christ sakes (in RL) if anything I think it adds to some of the characters except bran and arya...but for arya they can use some tape to hide her womanly parts and bran...well jojens played by a 23 year old and bran's voice alrdy changed so it shouldn't be too bad.

Frankly if the shows pass GRRM I think it would be a monkey off his shoulders. Some writers write better with pressure on them, some don't I think george is a genius either way but IMO he's the latter. If the show passes him he won't have to rush if the show passes him maybe we get 3 more books and I think the more ice and fire the better I would be bummed out to see the ending on TV and yes I will watch.

My comparison for this would be read the house of the undying in the books, now watch the house of the undying on TV tell me now if you'd seen that first on TV would that have ruined that whole scene for you? I think if the show passed the books it will end up something like that.

The shows a lot different than the books now. It deviates more and more every season they try to stay as close to the books as possible but in reality it's on it's own path and whose to say the ending will really spoil that much, whose to say finding out who Jon snows mom is is even mentioned on TV

And spoilers, if your dedicated enough you can stay away it's easy, when people start talking about game of thrones put two fingers in your ears and start screaming "LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH" sure people might think your crazy but then again thinking grrm owes you anything is pretty crazy in itself.

[sifth]

And spoilers, if your dedicated enough you can stay away it's easy, when people start talking about game of thrones put two fingers in your ears and start screaming "LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH" sure people might think your crazy but then again thinking grrm owes you anything is pretty crazy in itself.

Yea, way to sound very immature my friend. Very few of us are saying he owes us anything. Most of us are just annoyed about the choices GRRM made and that the tv show will in all likelihood complete his story first as a result of them. Bran's arc next season will be almost entirely stuff from Wind's of Winter, unless they find a way to stretch out his 3 Dance with Dragon's chapters for 2 seasons; which wouldn't exactly be a good thing either. Like it or not season 5 and almost certainly season 6 will have material from The Winds of Winter in it,

Is it the end of the world no, but it's not something many of us are happy with either.

[johndance]

1. I've said this before on average since Between AGoT and ADwD a book has been released once every 3.7 years adwd and ffc were freaks because of all the rewriting and other struggles he faced. Winds of winter will be released in my opinion first quarter or early second quarter next year. And if not winds of winter for the most part won't be screened for 2 years.

2. Also the whole character aging too fast on tv I don't believe is that big of a deal, margaery is 32 for Christ sakes (in RL) if anything I think it adds to some of the characters except bran and arya...but for arya they can use some tape to hide her womanly parts and bran...well jojens played by a 23 year old and bran's voice alrdy changed so it shouldn't be too bad.

3. Frankly if the shows pass GRRM I think it would be a monkey off his shoulders. Some writers write better with pressure on them, some don't I think george is a genius either way but IMO he's the latter. If the show passes him he won't have to rush if the show passes him maybe we get 3 more books and I think the more ice and fire the better I would be bummed out to see the ending on TV and yes I will watch.

4. The shows a lot different than the books now. It deviates more and more every season they try to stay as close to the books as possible but in reality it's on it's own path and whose to say the ending will really spoil that much, whose to say finding out who Jon snows mom is is even mentioned on TV

Of course it's hypothetical. The entire purpose of this thread and others like it is to hypothesize about these topics.

1. Disagree, we are already seeing DwD material in season 4. Better than 50/50 we see WoW material in season 5.

2. Agree for the most part, but this really has only been brought up when people react when GRRM throws out a suggestion they could take a year off the show, or do a prequel season if they need to in order for the show to not pass the books. D&D have said no chance of either of those happening so this is irreverent.

3. Could not disagree more. GRRM on many occasions has said he would be strongly against the show plot line passing the books and he really wouldn't like it. See above, he even suggested they take a break between seasons and make prequels instead. If anything, GRRM would probably create even more pressure on himself to try to write faster to either catch up or over take the show.

4. I certainly don't think the show is a lot different at all. I think they've done a pretty good job staying faithful to the book plots. Of course, there are some minor changes that have occurred for one reason or another that is mainly due to making a better transition to TV. I'm sure we could make a list here, but I certainly wouldn't say they are a lot different than the books.

There are countless other threads that have been locked highlighting how the odds are in favor that the show spoils some important plot points of WoW. I recommend you look back at some of them to see why this is such a hot topic and why people are worried.

[Elessar]

So wait... Storm of Swords is going to take two seasons but people here think they'll get through Feast and Dance in ONE SEASON?!

[Werthead]

I don't see how that is a valid comparison either. The Silmarillion is completely detached from the lord of the rings series. The hobbit was an independant tale from it as well. you could read the hobbit without reading the trilogy or the silmarillion. The trilogy without reading the other two, and the silmarillion as a standalone as well. It's better if you do and adds a feel to the overall world, but it's certainly not required reading (I personally couldn't slog through the Silmillarion, I never was as passionate about middle earth as some people.) You weren't waiting 22 years to learn the eventual fate of Frodo having last seen him slip on a rock in the heart of Mt. Doom.

No, but if you were an invested, hardcore Middle-earth fan (enough to post on message boards, if they'd existed at the time ;) ) you'd certainly be irritated at the length of time you'd have to wait. And people were, at length. Tolkien got rude letters and even people showing up at his house about it.

Speak for yourself, but I love A Feast for Crows and for a very simple reason too; It tells a more complete story, at least for most of the characters. Sam finally makes it to old town and gets to meet "Pate",

Subjective opinion is fine, but it is a fact that ADWD was far better-reviewed in the press than AFFC was, and holds marginally better ratings on aggregate sites. It is the better-reviewed novel, in the main, even if some people preferred AFFC (and even though some people rank ADWD as their favourite book in the series).

However, I do find the suggestion that AFFC is a more complete novel to be somewhat baffling. Brienne, Cersei, Sam and Arya's stories end on massive cliffhangers. Sansa's is just left hanging. That's pretty comparable to ADWD. What AFFC does do better than ADWD is manage to be thematically a tighter novel about aftermaths and consequences.

So whats his current page count?

The last comment from GRRM was that he had a quarter of the book - maybe 375 manuscript pages (c. 250 hardcover pages) or about 17 chapters based on the size of ASoS and ADWD - done in April 2013. We have not had any further updates for a year since then.

The most encouraging bit of info is that GRRM is not doing a huge amount of rewriting on TWoW, so for the most part when he's writing the book, he's writing new material rather than revising old stuff. That I consider to be promising that we'll get the book faster than AFFC/ADWD.

I've found online that ADWD was about 420 000 words long. Another author who writes similar-length novels, Diana Gabaldon, has two novels, "The Fiery Cross" and "A Breath of Snow and Ashes" which she confirms on her website were 508 000 and 500 000 words respectively. it seems to me, then, that it is physically possible to bind books much longer than Storm and Dance. These two Gabaldon books are about 20% longer than Dance and Storm, and given that extra space, George could have added in many of the chapters he has released as samples (which seem to give some characters more closure), and added in the battles of Fire and Ice.

Why then, at the cost of losing the two battles from the end of Dance (which it seems most people think would have improved the book tremendously, and also might have moved the plot a little further along, and giving that page space to WINDS), did the publisher insist on maintaining that the novel be a certain length - especially given that Dance was probably one of the most anticipated novels of the past decade (and thus I can't imagine they feared that if the book was too long, people wouldn't buy it)?

Different publishers and different economies of scale. Gabaldon's books were from a publisher able to physically publish bigger books (the modern computerised presses used by some publishers are physically incapable of publishing over a certain size; Tor's can handle about 410,000 words maximum, for example, and I don't think Bantam's can do much more) and at a different time in the book publishing market. Also, books of that size tend to disintegrate rather easily. Most notably, book publishers won't order too many copies of books that take up the space of 3/4 normal-sized paperbacks on the shelves.

In ADWD's case they could have overcome them, but they used precedent from earlier in the series, when ASoIaF sold far fewer copies, to try to convince people it made sense. Voyager splitting ASoS back when ASoIaF was selling about a tenth of the copies it does now is fair enough. Splitting ADWD was completely unnecessary and was certainly taking the mickey a little bit as a price-gouging move.

if GRRM had at last count over a thousand pages

He didn't (at least back then). Some idiot mis-intepreted what he'd said about the books eventually being over a thousand pages long in manuscript.

So wait... Storm of Swords is going to take two seasons but people here think they'll get through Feast and Dance in ONE SEASON?!

If the show is going to be seven (or at a very outside and highly improbable chance, eight) seasons, they cannot under any circumstances afford to spend more than 1.5 seasons on AFFC/ADWD (the .5 being this season, of course). If they do that, they run out of time to tell the ending. In a seven-season scenario, TWoW and ADoS will have to be one season each, which is pushing it. For an eight-season scenario, it will be 1.5 each, which is reasonable (and actually closer to ASoS, which when you remove the show-only filler and AFFC/ADWD material from Season 4, is closer to 1.5 seasons as well).

[Hagen of Tronje]

As German I am perfectly aware of the fact that the german language is long-winded ;) Just wanted to mention it that all these books got splitted in Germany and this seems normal :)

Plus, the splitted versions are still more expensive than the non-splitted English volumes (15€). Ok, the paper quality is better and I like the covers featuring the different coat of arms (and the family words) http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130627161823/eisundfeuer/de/images/d/d6/DE_Cover_alle_B%C3%A4nde.jpeg, but still, that's a money grab.

[Red Wedding Cake]

So wait... Storm of Swords is going to take two seasons but people here think they'll get through Feast and Dance in ONE SEASON?!

Storm of Swords has three times the action Feast and Dance has combined. They were extremely slow books.

[Chebyshov]

Not to mention the people intentionally spoiling like it's a contest. Like spoilers from The half blood prince. You could barely go anywhere without someone spoiling it just to do it. In that case at least the book was out and I had already read it, I won't have that luxury this time.

Someone even spoiled HBP at the midnight book release...sad indeed

[sifth]

So wait... Storm of Swords is going to take two seasons but people here think they'll get through Feast and Dance in ONE SEASON?!

We're going to see parts of ADWD and AFFC's this year, even though most of the season will be the second half of A Storm of Swords. Bran's story for example will be his ADWD chapters this year and it's shown in one of the trailers that Arya will be making it to Bravos at some point. Some of Theon's ADWD chapters will be shown this up coming season as well.

[Mrmanakan]

If the show is going to be seven (or at a very outside and highly improbable chance, eight) seasons, they cannot under any circumstances afford to spend more than 1.5 seasons on AFFC/ADWD (the .5 being this season, of course). If they do that, they run out of time to tell the ending. In a seven-season scenario, TWoW and ADoS will have to be one season each, which is pushing it. For an eight-season scenario, it will be 1.5 each, which is reasonable (and actually closer to ASoS, which when you remove the show-only filler and AFFC/ADWD material from Season 4, is closer to 1.5 seasons as well).

8 seasons isn't highly improbable. They've said they'd like to do 7 seasons. Ran himself on this topic had a quote with a producer saying he'd like it to be 8 seasons. Really it's all up in the air the contracts are going season by season after this season I think we'll have a better idea of how many seasons are left with how far they get into the next book personally after this season I think we have roughly 4 seasons plus 6 episodes. Cramming it all into 7 seasons means making 4 books in 3 seasons if they wanted 7 they wouldn't of split SOS

[mb2518]

Well, at least TWOW is being written. It's very possible a lot of AFFC/ADWD will be condensed or glossed over.

[aeu]

Do you think that there will need to be 3 more books instead of 2? That's the only way I can get to more than 10 years for the books to be finished.

Yes. Though there is a chance that the if / when the TV show goes into unpublished territory in seasons 6 and 7, if may actually help GRRM stick to the plot and wrap it up in 7 books. Other than that, given where we are in the story, it seems to me that 8 books will be needed.

We will have a much better idea when we see the next book in a couple of years. :p

Yeah! Who does he think he is, making hundreds of thousands and millions of people enjoy this crazy fantasy world of his?

What an asshole.

Yeah. Blaming GRRM for the choices he makes is crazy in general but particularly so with respect to greenlighting the series "prematurely." Leave aside the financial incentive (which, frankly, cannot be left aside), expecting him to pass on such a great opportunity to see his creation come to life and reach millions of people is just...well, crazy.

Not to mention that, on the balance, it was definitely the right call that resulted in a huge success. The fact that it is likely to have some unintended side-effects does not make it the wrong decision.

There's no hyperbole involved. Ultimately the issue some complain about all boils down to the fact that what he created is something they enjoy and now they're worried that they can't enjoy it exactly how they want to enjoy it. There's nothing real there, nothing that says they have to gobble up spoilers or keep watching. Or, for that matter, that they need to find spoilers a detriment to their enjoyment of the journey.

Well, it's more like how they expected to enjoy it (there is a difference!) but even if we go with what you say, is that not justified? To me it's only normal to be frustrated over this. Blaming GRRM is going overboard, sure but saying that "there is nothing real there" going overboard too. What they are doing is telling GRRM what he should do / should have done and what you are doing is telling them how they should be feeling. I will respectfully disagree with both.

4. The show differs a lot look at the fate of mago, pyat pree, xaro zhoan Daxos (or w/e), the house of the undying scene, rob's wife and her being pregnant and dying, bran having the visions at winterfel not jojen, the second sons with daario titans bastard alrdy dead etc. some didn't change it a lot others did. All I'm saying is the shows on it's own path am I saying it's like the walking dead? No not at all they're trying to stay as true as they can but it's a different animal than the books

I don't think you are helping your argument with these examples. Or do you seriously think most people are worried about getting spoiled about things like fate of mago or whether brian or jojen had a dream?

[Lord Joker Of FunLand]

Storm of Swords has three times the action Feast and Dance has combined. They were extremely slow books.

Slow doesn't mean no material, as far as i know, season 1 didn't have that much action, yet is considered very good.

[Guest BigwigStandsHisGround]

... it is a fact that ADWD was far better-reviewed in the press than AFFC was ...

ADWD was reviewed in the press: Fact

ADWD was better-reviewed in the press: Debatable (though I tend to agree)

ADWD was far better reviewed: Opinion

[Whitering]

Slow doesn't mean no material, as far as i know, season 1 didn't have that much action, yet is considered very good.

Yep, you aren't wrong, but there was still some pretty good action, smaller scale, in that book and even some battles. Of course, I don't think we had a Ned's head chopped off moment in Feast or Dance. I mean, Arya's first kill for hire was good for me but for many it seemed to fall flat, maybe after the damage done to their psyche by Quentyn's journey.

[Faint]

Even for those disappointed that it seems likely that we will be seeing the ending to the series before reading about it, it would do good to acknowledge that we are several years away from that eventuality. Based on the information we have, the expectation is that the television show will not feature major Winds of Winter spoilers until April of 2016. Provided that Martin can release the next book before that time, which does not seem at all unreasonable (especially given the encouraging news that he has not gone into massive fits of rewriting his material as he has in the recent past), that would at least postpone the moment of no-return until April of 2017. For those prone to despair, I say wait until then before going into histrionics about the matter.

[Mrmanakan]

Even for those disappointed that it seems likely that we will be seeing the ending to the series before reading about it, it would do good to acknowledge that we are several years away from that eventuality. Based on the information we have, the expectation is that the television show will not feature major Winds of Winter spoilers until April of 2016. Provided that Martin can release the next book before that time, which does not seem at all unreasonable (especially given the encouraging news that he has not gone into massive fits of rewriting his material as he has in the recent past), that would at least postpone the moment of no-return until April of 2017. For those prone to despair, I say wait until then before going into histrionics about the matter.

I agree

Was what I was trying to say admittedly in a more asshole-ish way lol

Maybe tiny tidbits from wow next year but honestly nothing we will really be to spoiled about I think atleast don't forget they have all the samples he's released to add into the end of season 5 to not spoil us sort of