GRRM Updates Fans on Multiple Projects

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

22 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

We seem to have collectively left the denial stage of grief and moved on to anger. Bargaining’s next, right? “We can live without ADOS, all we need is Winds!” Oy vey. 

I just feel angry at myself for believing GRRM every time he implied that Winds would be finished soon. A sweet summer child indeed.

[Jaenara Belarys]

3 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I think he feel like people will be angry at him no matter what he says, so he wants to avoid talking about Winds entirely.

Which will in all probability tick people off more. 

I honestly, by now (as compared to a post from, say, September when I came back after a longgg forum break.) don't care about those darn TV shows: I would prefer TWOW or at least another volume of FaB and/or another batch of D&E. 

Edited March 13, 2022 by Jaenara Belarys

[The Bard of Banefort]

2 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I just feel angry at myself for believing GRRM every time he implied that Winds would be finished soon. A sweet summer child indeed.

It’s so ironic, because a few weeks ago I was saying how I had started to wonder whether I was a fool for still thinking that a book would come out after ten years of waiting.

2 hours ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

 I would prefer TWOW or at least another volume of FaB and/or another batch of D&E. 

Same. I just hope we get something soon. 

[HokieStone]

10 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

...but George’s tone seems to be what’s really setting people off. I generally find him pretty amiable, but he does sound pretty resentful here, considering that it’s been almost eleven years since AFWD came out.

Well...yeah.  I just read his update, and this:

"I know, I know, for many of you out there, only one of those projects matters.

I am sorry for you.   They ALL matter to me."

...and this:

"Yes, of course I am still working on THE WINDS OF WINTER.   I have stated that a hundred times in a hundred venues, having to restate it endlessly is just wearisome."

...come across as particularly bitter and resentful towards fans. I found those comments to be in pretty poor form. Considering the fact that many people found the last season of the TV show to be a let-down, the fact that he's going on and on about MORE TV shows...and lashing out about the book that everyone has been waiting 10+ years for...yeah, no surprise there's some backlash. 

[The Bard of Banefort]

14 minutes ago, HokieStone said:

Well...yeah.  I just read his update, and this:

"I know, I know, for many of you out there, only one of those projects matters.

I am sorry for you.   They ALL matter to me."

...and this:

"Yes, of course I am still working on THE WINDS OF WINTER.   I have stated that a hundred times in a hundred venues, having to restate it endlessly is just wearisome."

...come across as particularly bitter and resentful towards fans. I found those comments to be in pretty poor form. Considering the fact that many people found the last season of the TV show to be a let-down, the fact that he's going on and on about MORE TV shows...and lashing out about the book that everyone has been waiting 10+ years for...yeah, no surprise there's some backlash. 

Not to mention, “I am sorry for you” sounds like the sort of thing that my boss would say to me in an email when he’s in a douchey mood 

[EggBlue]

it's probably an unpopular opinion. but part of me thinks that if main series aren't gonna be published , it's better that that DnE and F&B stay unfinished as well . I do want to read them but I know they just make me want Winds and Dream more and that's frustrating

Edited March 13, 2022 by EggBlue

[Caligula_K3]

What makes me disappointed, aside from the tone, is that George has fully bought into the idea that a coffee table book and an animated show about Yi Ti and a Who's Who of Westeros book are just as important as The Winds of Winter. Once you've bought into that, and once you start viewing yourself as more Kevin Feige than author, why ever seriously work on Winds again? Writing Winds and ASoIaF is hard. Working on new shows is fun.

It's not like this is completely coming out of left field. It's been obvious for a while now that GRRM resents that his legacy is so tied to the ASoIaF books, and that he gets much more enjoyment out of editing Wild Cards and writing fake histories and working in TV. And to a certain extent I don't even blame him. He's in his 70s, past retirement age, he wrote himself into a corner with AFFC and ADWD, and he's obtained a level of success he could never have dreamed of. But I'd respect him a lot more if he admitted he's lost interest and passed on the ending of his books to someone else (though, tbh, it would be a brutal and horrifying job for whoever accepted it). But now we're in this middle ground where he admits he doesn't care and gets angry at fans for caring. What a mess.

 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

16 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

What makes me disappointed, aside from the tone, is that George has fully bought into the idea that a coffee table book and an animated show about Yi Ti and a Who's Who of Westeros book are just as important as The Winds of Winter. Once you've bought into that, and once you start viewing yourself as more Kevin Feige than author, why ever seriously work on Winds again? Writing Winds and ASoIaF is hard. Working on new shows is fun.

I think it ultimately comes down to whether or not there is any actual demand for all this other stuff. We'll have to wait and see.

Edited March 13, 2022 by Takiedevushkikakzvezdy

[Black of Hair and Heart]

@Ran I doubt you have any insider info in this regard (or would be able to share if you did) but if you had a personal opinion, I'd be interested to hear it. With George bringing the histories back into focus (more D&E, F&BII, etc), do you think we'll see a return of anthology installments over the next few years? They seem to have been on pause since the passing of Gardner Dozois, which is understandable, but as someone who's worked with George, I wonder if you have any insight into his calculus on this going forward. 

If he's going to try to crank out more D&E novellas in advance of the show and if he plans on making them longer to encompass important events like the Third Blackfyre Rebellion, it would probably make sense to just continue with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Vol. 2, containing the fourth and fifth stories (or the fourth, fifth and sixth, depending on how long they are and how quickly he can finish them) rather than first releasing them individually as part of anthologies. 

The fact that he already has hundreds of pages of F&BII already written (which was a really nice surprise) makes me wonder if we'll get another historical anthology entry soon in the vein of "The Princess and the Queen" or "The Rogue Prince". I know George doesn't like to sit on finished material so if he has a lot written for F&BII but the book as a whole is still a long way from done, it would be nice to see some of it, even in an abbreviated form. "The Reign of the Broken King" detailing the 20 post-regency years of Aegon III's reign? "The Conquest of Dorne"?

Although I've always been curious about George's release strategy when it comes to those anthologies. If he's serious about getting this stuff out there, tying each one to an anthology involving a dozen plus other authors that also must vaguely align with the subject or theme of the story itself seems like a needlessly difficult way to go about it. 

[Ran]

@Black of Hair and Heart

Interesting thoughts, but afraid I can't comment on any of it!

[Werthead]

25 minutes ago, Black of Hair and Heart said:

If he's going to try to crank out more D&E novellas in advance of the show and if he plans on making them longer to encompass important events like the Third Blackfyre Rebellion, it would probably make sense to just continue with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Vol. 2, containing the fourth and fifth stories (or the fourth, fifth and sixth, depending on how long they are and how quickly he can finish them) rather than first releasing them individually as part of anthologies. 

I'd be interested to see if the "hundreds of pages of F&B2" is new material or stuff he'd written for F&B1 and cut for space (stop me if this sounds familiar).

For Dunk & Egg, it's worth remembering that he had part, most or almost all of The She-Wolves complete at one stage, then seemed to realise he needed to write The Village Hero beforehand, which he may have done some (or none) work on, so that's maybe not as fanciful as it sounds.

[Ran]

There's material for Aegon IV and Aerys II that was very condensed for TWoIaF and not used for F&B, but that would be only a fraction of the couple hundred pages GRRM refers to.

[Black of Hair and Heart]

36 minutes ago, Ran said:

@Black of Hair and Heart

Interesting thoughts, but afraid I can't comment on any of it!

Interesting. I'm afraid I'll have to take that as confirmation of me being right about everything!

But yeah. It is what it is (or isn't) when it comes to Winds, as someone who's been following the series since '06, I can accept that. But it would be nice to get anything new at this point. I was just thinking about it the other day and we're approaching the longest drought between new material in the history of the series.

It's currently been about 3 years and 4 months since Fire & Blood was released, which is a tie for the second longest gap, which came between A Storm of Swords getting released in August of 2000 and The Sworn Sword coming out in December of 2003. The longest gap was between the release of A Feast for Crows in November of 2005 and The Mystery Knight in March of 2010, about 4 years and 4 months. Just thought that was kind of interesting. As much as the main series has gotten away from him over the last decade, he was pretty good about releasing new material every year or so even if it was just the histories. Hopefully something new will come out in the next year, in some form or another. I don't expect it to be Winds but at this point, I'll take what I can get. 

 

[Lord Varys]

I really hope we won't get the silly 'historical novellas' thing we had with the FaB material. The fact that it took us years to actually read the complete material in order caused many people to develop queer notions and interpretations about the characters and events in the historical framework and that's entirely due to the fact that the readership got only bits and pieces of the full story.

I'd prefer it, if that didn't happen with any of the new material.

[Black of Hair and Heart]

3 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I really hope we won't get the silly 'historical novellas' thing we had with the FaB material. The fact that it took us years to actually read the complete material in order caused many people to develop queer notions and interpretations about the characters and events in the historical framework and that's entirely due to the fact that the readership got only bits and pieces of the full story.

I'd prefer it, if that didn't happen with any of the new material.

That was half the fun. My personal favorite example of this was how Rhaena comes off in the World Book and "Sons of the Dragon" vs. what she's revealed as in Fire & Blood. In the abbreviated works she seems like just another one of Martin's sad widows, but then you get the curveball and she turns out to be (in my opinion) one of the coolest and most interesting characters in all of F&B. 

[The Bard of Banefort]

TPATQ was published before The Rogue Prince, right? So were people confused when Rhaenyra’s sons were referred to as bastards? And no one had any way of knowing why Criston Cole hated Rhaenyra so much at that point, right?

[Black of Hair and Heart]

51 minutes ago, Ran said:

There's material for Aegon IV and Aerys II that was very condensed for TWoIaF and not used for F&B, but that would be only a fraction of the couple hundred pages GRRM refers to.

That's cool to hear. Would have expected it re: Aegon IV considering Martin said he could write a whole novel about him. Neat that there would be that much material about Aerys II. I'm guessing some of that overlaps with the expanded Westerlands material from the World Book?

I guess it's a testament to how well all the Regency stuff was done in the first volume, but the part of F&BII I'm looking forward to most is probably the reign of Aegon III. It's kind of a 20 year blank spot and there's so much cool stuff teed up at the end of the first volume:

* Torrhen Manderly's beef with Aegon and what I assume is an upcoming alliance with Cregan Stark (assuming the Jeyne Manderly that marries Rickon Stark is Torrhen's daughter).
* Unwin Peake still scheming in the Reach.
* Whatever the fuck is going on with Alys Rivers in Harrenhal
* The deaths of the final dragons (I'm especially interested to see what becomes of Morning and what the realm finally does about Silverwing).
* Further voyages of the Oakenfist.
* What I'm assuming will be a lot of regional strife due to all the local regencies. I don't know how intentional this was on Martin's part or how much he'll follow through on it, but I was struck on a re-read of F&B by the fact that, as of 136, roughly half the Lords Paramount in the kingdom are minors. Lyonel Tyrell is 7, Loreon Lannister is 10, Royce Baratheon is 5 and Toron Greyjoy is 9. Plus, you've got Kermit Tully and Aliandra Martell who, although they're in their twenties, have reputations as being impulsive hotheads. There's definitely a lot of set-up for inter- and intra-kingdom strife in the late 130s/early 140s if Martin wants to go there. 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

For Dunk & Egg, it's worth remembering that he had part, most or almost all of The She-Wolves complete at one stage, then seemed to realise he needed to write The Village Hero beforehand, which he may have done some (or none) work on, so that's maybe not as fanciful as it sounds.

Didn't he say that he simply wasn't able to finish She-Wolves in time for the release of Dangerous Women?

[The Bard of Banefort]

I have wondered before whether the reason George sat on some of the DnE stories was because they had some kind of spoiler for Winds, like with Daeron and Daemon’s dragon dreams.

[Werthead]

7 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Didn't he say that he simply wasn't able to finish She-Wolves in time for the release of Dangerous Women?

Not that I recall, or it was a mixture of that and then the Village Hero switcheroo came up later on.