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[Sorcerer]

George is saying that if he doesn't have the book done by next summer that he has given permission for New Zealand to arrest him and place him on an island to finish the book.

Well they can arrest him and place him on an island, but he still won't finish it. Even if he does, I would expect another decade to go by before book 7 got finished. Its seems hopeless to wait.

 

[Rentahamster]

George is saying that if he doesn't have the book done by next summer that he has given permission for New Zealand to arrest him and place him on an island to finish the book.

I thought that was pretty funny. The promo video Air New Zealand did is fantastic.

Thanks, New Zealand | Not a Blog

As for finishing my book… I fear that New Zealand would distract me entirely too much. Best leave me here in Westeros for the nonce. But I tell you this — if I don’t have THE WINDS OF WINTER in hand when I arrive in New Zealand for worldcon, you have here my formal written permission to imprison me in a small cabin on White Island, overlooking that lake of sulfuric acid, until I’m done. Just so long as the acrid fumes do not screw up my old DOS word processor, I’ll be fine.

The New Zealand Worldcon is happening at the end of July, 2020, FYI

78th World Science Fiction Convention - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Kadayi]

I've already given up any investment I had in the series. He's been faffing around and struggling to write the books for far too long. Honestly, he strikes me as having gotten out of his depth and lost his way. There was a notable decline in the last 2 books - they didn't feel as well considered and coherent as the first few books and the structuring of events was at times forced.

Every year now he puts out the obligatory "I'm still working on it, but it's going to take a bit longer" and at this point he just seems like an author who is stalling to cover for his lack of interest in (or perhaps fear of) completing the series.

Indeed, things turned to shit around the time he got involved with those two money-grubbing banana riders from Westeros.org and their original desire to cash in on ASOIAF and make a game, which turned into them becoming his 'Fact checkers'. Suddenly, book output dropped off a cliff and GRRM introduces countless more viewpoint characters and insane numbers of NPCs and the entire narrative drive of the series heads into a quagmire with barely any plot advancement whatsoever.

 

[bitbydeath]

George was shocked that King disciplines himself to write 6 pages a day and then give those 6 pages touch ups.

Yeah but Stephens writing isn’t as focused.
When he’s done with a story he’s like fuck it. The hand of god comes down and kills them all. The end.

 

[TheSadRanger]

I think the trick here is to never go past 3 books. George has a wonderful arc in the first 3 books. If he could have somehow wrapped up the story he would have finished a masterpiece. But you can't sustain that kind of intensity with the 4th book. You have to start over and build again. Which is agonizing for the reader. Its pretty clear he wrote himself into a wall. He should have used the themes in books 4-7 for another story entirely instead of forcing existing characters into it. Consider the fact that Lord of the Rings is around 1200 pages, and a single book in the Song of Fire and Ice saga is that long. That's insane. Every time you read a book in the series you have read the equivalent of Lord of the Rings. I can't help feeling George got overambitious and tried to out Tolkien Tolkien, and it bit him in the ass.

I worry about Sanderson finishing the Stormlight Archives because of this. It's already starting to take him longer between entries.

 

[DKehoe]

I think the trick here is to never go past 3 books. George has a wonderful arc in the first 3 books. If he could have somehow wrapped up the story he would have finished a masterpiece. But you can't sustain that kind of intensity with the 4th book. You have to start over and build again. Which is agonizing for the reader. Its pretty clear he wrote himself into a wall. He should have used the themes in books 4-7 for another story entirely instead of forcing existing characters into it. Consider the fact that Lord of the Rings is around 1200 pages, and a single book in the Song of Fire and Ice saga is that long. That's insane. Every time you read a book in the series you have read the equivalent of Lord of the Rings. I can't help feeling George got overambitious and tried to out Tolkien Tolkien, and it bit him in the ass.

It's weird to think that when the series was originally planned to be a trilogy the Red Wedding would have been in book one.

Also, book 4 not sustaining the intensity of A Storm Of Swords is one of the things I really like about it. That it's all about stopping to actually look at the effects of the chaos of the previous book.

 

[Jon Neu]

I think the trick here is to never go past 3 books. George has a wonderful arc in the first 3 books. If he could have somehow wrapped up the story he would have finished a masterpiece. But you can't sustain that kind of intensity with the 4th book. You have to start over and build again. Which is agonizing for the reader. Its pretty clear he wrote himself into a wall. He should have used the themes in books 4-7 for another story entirely instead of forcing existing characters into it. Consider the fact that Lord of the Rings is around 1200 pages, and a single book in the Song of Fire and Ice saga is that long. That's insane. Every time you read a book in the series you have read the equivalent of Lord of the Rings. I can't help feeling George got overambitious and tried to out Tolkien Tolkien, and it bit him in the ass.

George calls his style of writing as gardening. He plants a seed and then he let's that seed grow naturally, which means he has an incredible amount of stories within stories and too much characters that somehow have to, at some point; interact with each other in a meaninfgul and believable way.

 

[pr0cs]

I still can't believe how much my life has changed since dance was released. 2011, fucking crazy, it's the literary version of half life 3 or duke nukem forever.

 

[DKehoe]

George calls his style of writing as gardening. He plants a seed and then he let's that seed grow naturally, which means he has an incredible amount of stories within stories and too much characters that somehow have to, at some point; interact with each other in a meaninfgul and believable way.

That's why his biggest challenge so far was the Meereenese knot. He had to start bringing together a bunch of different story threads into one place and struggled to figure out exactly how best to do that.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

But you can't sustain that kind of intensity with the 4th book.

The 4th book might be my favorite. While I agree that it isn't as intense as the previous three, I feel like Westeros, as a place, is more interesting in it. It's at a complete decay of the peace and values it had after Robert's Rebellion, and the land is hurting. Brienne's Big Adventure through the middle of it shows a society that is barely hanging on, with the population turning to religion and poverty with the Sparrows. The big POVs for the 4th book are Brienne/Jaime/Cersei (basically one set of characters sharing a single story arc), Dorne's stuff (which was building towards Daenerys foothold into Westeros), and a little bit of Sansa/Arya/Iron Isles.

I haven't seen the tv series, and don't want to, so I don't know how much of this stuff has already played out for other people. But I think the "love triangle" (if you will) of Brienne, Jaime, and Cersei is narratively fascinating. Jaime is looking for redemption (he's coming to terms with being an honorable man, despite having grown up surrounded by Lannister pragmatism, and he sees salvation in Brienne's sense of justice). Brienne is looking for justice in an unjust world (leading her to Lady Stoneheart - I know she's not in the tv show, which is weird, because her forgiveness, which won't be easily given, is where Jaime will find the peace of mind he's looking for), and Cersei is paying the price for basically destroying Westeros with her own greed - her story is going to be a tragedy, almost assuredly, but it's forcing her to rock bottom so she can have a moment of redemption.

Anyway, for me, the 4th book has some of my favorite character moments in the series, and focuses largely on the characters that I like the most. The 5th book suffers a bit from not actually being in Westeros for most of it, so it feels like the stakes are somewhat far removed from the rest of the series, but it moves some important pieces around the board, setting up the next book. I really think the 4th and 5th book get a bad rap. They are not the same kind of story as the first 3, and I think the expectations of having to wait a decade for each book really makes people want them to be something more explosive than they end up being, but there's good stuff in there. I've only read the 5th book once so far, and it is easily my least favorite of the bunch, so I'm curious if rereading when Winter has a release date will improve my opinion of it.

Its pretty clear he wrote himself into a wall.

Oh, I disagree. It's pretty obvious where he is going. But knowing where you are going and actually getting there is two very different things. One of the things I like about the series is how complicated it is (over a thousand named characters!) and moving a character from point A to point B while also making it an interesting story unto itself can be a challenge. I feel like the final book will go much faster because the difficulty is in setting up the dominoes, not knocking them down. But, of course, this is George R. R. Martin, who would take 3 years to write a birthday card.

 

[Rentahamster]

I've only read the 5th book once so far, and it is easily my least favorite of the bunch

Have you tried reading books 4 and 5 at the same time? There's a list online of which chapters in which book to go through in a particular order that keeps everything somewhat chronological.

A proposed A Feast for Crows/A Dance with Dragons merged reading order, with explanation (and Dorne Reveal variant) [UPDATED x8]

NB: This post is intended for people who have already read both books, as are its recommendations for the combined order. SPOILERS AHEAD. For a new-reader-friendly version, click here. The order:...

boiledleather.com

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

Have you tried reading books 4 and 5 at the same time? There's a list online of which chapters in which book to go through in a particular order that keeps everything somewhat chronological.

I’ve considered it, but it seems like it would slow down the 4th book too much. The first half(?) is just people traveling around for months, and stretching that out seems like a terrible idea.

 

[Jon Neu]

But, of course, this is George R. R. Martin, who would take 3 years to write a birthday card.

As a joke is funny and all, but I think people forgets GRRM has actually written a ton of stuff, both ASOIAF related and unrelated.

People complain that has been 8 years since the last ASOIAF book, but in that time he has released A World Of Ice And Fire, The Princess And The Queen, The Rogue Prince, The Sons Of The Dragon and Fire & Blood (that has been cut in two volumes, but overall is roughly going to have more pages than the entire trilogy of the Lord Of The Rings, for example).

He even complained about having to cut an inmense amount of material that was intented to be in the A World Of Ice And Fire because it got too big. And he half joked about one day that becoming his GRRmarillion.

So yeah, he is struggling with the main books and the last years he's had to many diversions, but that doesn't mean he isn't writing. He is still building this gigantic world he has created.