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I joined the WGA in 1986 and have been through several strikes with them. We made gains in all of them, but some issues are more important than others… and this year’s strike is the most important of my lifetime.
The first thought that runs through my mind anytime I see George RR Martin’s name in a headline is “Shit, he died!”.
And I don’t know if I’ll even be disappointed or not, which is sad, since it seems he’s never going to finish his books anyway. Unless he’s pulling the ultimate troll and already has the entire series finished, but is refusing to release it until his death.
I'm a huge Wheel of Time fan. If you're not, or for those that aren't, Robert Jordan, the author, died before he could finish the series. He had some rough notes, a few important scenes written out, but the man was diagnosed with a terminal disease. Despite best efforts, he didn't make it to the finish line.
The last three books were written, with the blessing and cooperation of Jordan's widow and estate, by Brandon Sanderson.
Jordan's death was a huge blow to the story. We didn't know, really, what was going to happen. The story and world were epic, and we knew Jordan had a plan, and that there were "notes", but no one save a handful of people, knew more.
When Sanderson stepped in to finish the series, there was an obvious shift in how the story was written. He is, after all, a different author. But he did an absolute amazing job. If there's one thing Sanderson is good at it's the "Sanderlanche", where the last chunk of the book is full of insane, crazy, over-the-top exciting things happening one after another. It's no secret that the entire series is building up to "The Last Battle", and there is a (cough, 200-page-long) chapter in the last book titled "The Last Battle" and it is, I shit you not, non-stop action, revelation, emotion, and more happening in rapid fire.
Sanderson took the build-up from 14 books and slammed it all down at once in a "...holy shit" moment. He couldn't have done what he did (well, after reading Stormlight Archive so far.. maybe he could've) without Jordan laying the groundwork.
What I'm trying to say: If GRR Martin has built a world that works, even if he dies, they'll find someone to finish it and leave us with a complete story. And if we're lucky, it'll be someone like Sanderson.
He had some rough notes, a few important scenes written out, but the man was diagnosed with a terminal disease. Despite best efforts, he didn’t make it to the finish line.
I feel like you're downplaying it a bit. Robert Jordan spent the last year of his life dictating the final novel (which was ultimately split into 3 novels because it was so large) to his editor, who was also his wife and a stenographer, including detailed notes of the world itself so that someone could finish the series after him. It was much much more than some rough notes.
Fair.
I'm going off what I heard and what was said at the time by Jordan. Like the Forbes quickie (linked from the Wikipedia, I'm not some sort of weird bookmark crazy) https://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/robert-jordan-illness-tech-media_cx_hc_books06_1201jordan.html
He said he was "getting out notes" and generally acknowledged the books weren't done.
I won't speak for Sanderson, but I seem to recall him saying Jordan provided an outline, notes for major events, and even some parts fleshed out and written in full (Rand in the cave comes to mind), but pulling all together was Sanderson.
It was absolutely a posthumous collaboration between the two.
GRRM has already said that if he dies, he doesn't want another author to finish his series. So no, this is not going to happen.
I've been a believer in the posthumous publication conspiracy since the backlash from the show ending. I wouldn't want to hear from the gaggle of fans that think they could have written a better ending either. Leaving "unfinished" works for the estate to hand over to the publisher to "finish" editing seems like a nice way to never have to answer antagonistic questions in a comic con panel ever again.
That would actually be a baller move to troll everyone and leave the fished books to be his final message to the world. I doubt that's his plan though.
No his plan is far worse. This is a literal quote from him in like the 80s.
"If I were really cynical...I wouldn't write what I'm writing now, these novels. I would start some sort of medieval sword-and-sorcery thing and say it's a trilogy...and then keep writing it for the rest of my life."
He doesn't even plan to end them. And now that there's an ending via the TV series I'm sure he's even less motivated. He just wants money and fame.
If this is true I would laugh like crazy after he died that would be god level trolling at its best
Any excuse to not work on Winds of Winter, huh George? Of course, I’d probably call it quits to if I’d be relegated to little more than a fan fic writer of my own story.
At this point, because I've seen the show, I'd have to go back and re-read all the books, to even start Winds of Winter. It's all so mashed together in my head, I don't remember the real story very well.
I've also accepted that he isn't even going to finish the books.
One day it will be Brandon Sanderson who finishes. He’s probably already done with it and just waiting on GRRM to visit Valhalla.
Please stop trying to force Sanderson to write a series his style would be horrible at and that he would not enjoy finishing.
Joe Abercrombie and Robin Hobb are still alive, among plenty of other excellent grimdark fantasy authors, if you must insist on naming a successor.
I agree with Abercrombie and I don’t actually really care for Sanderson all that much. Sanderson is a prolific writer though, and his speed is in direct opposition to GRRM’s long droughts between books. It would be a bit less funny if I was being serious.
Dude has written himself into three different corners and likely doesn't see a (satisfying) way to wrap it up in two books, so he's decided to give up. If the rumors are true and he gave B&B the elevator pitch version of his ending, he may be hemming hawing about how much to course correct from their version. His Bran running Westeros could certainly come into being more elegantly than the show's, but jeez it would be very weird in its own way.
So I never read through all the books, but I've listened to/read bits and pieces across the first few. Would you mind sharing what you mean by writing himself into 3 corners, and what those 3 corners are? I've watched a bunch of videos with lore explanations and obviously seen the HBO adaptation so spoilers aren't something I'm worried about.
I was being glib about how many corners, and it's been years and years since I read the books. That said, what I've heard is that he doesn't fully outline the story first, and follows it where his imagination leads him (to a certain extent. he's obviously a successful novelist). But it has meant that there are a LOT of threads left to trim or weave together and only two (theoretically) books left to do it. Dany is still stuck in the east with a lot of important shit to do, the Dorne stuff and the fake Targaryen have to find some reason to be so prominent, the white walkers were handled a bit haphazardly in the show and show little sign of being integrated into the books overarching plot YET. He still has to decide how (and "if" I suppose) he wants to bring Jon back, whether R+L=J is still the way he wants to go with that, to say nothing of how he will actually end the thing... There are just a lot of spinning plates, and I can imagine he doesn't want to let any drop but may have to if he actually wants to finish this story in no more than 3000 pages (and even that will be a lot)
Thanks for the response! Sounds about right from what little I remember about all the lore and stuff lol
Winds of Winter has literally nothing to do with the strike because it's a book. He's perfectly okay to write for Elden Ring 2, for that matter.
If anything, the strike should be good news for the people who still care about asoiaf because now George can't spend all his time writing five different pilots for the various projects that are all going to get cancelled or promote his tv shows on conventions.
The people that still care about ASOIAF know that George doesn't need an excuse to stagnate progress on new books. He could have all the time in the world and he's still just throw all his work into the garbage and start over.
IDK, what if he has a deal for Winds of Winter with HBO? He'd then be a writer, working for the studios that the WGA is striking against.
That's not how this works at all. I honestly don't know how to explain to you that tv shows and books are different things without sounding like an extremely condescending asshole, so I won't even try.
The strike rules come from the union, not from the greedy capitalists trying to fuck over the writers. There's absolutely no reason for union to have a rule forbidding people from writing books. Especially since HBO can't even adapt the book into the TV show, anyway. GoT is over, they're not going to reboot season 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 to show us the WoW adaptation.
"Winter is coming."
I'm sorry, but it takes him so long that I'm no longer interested in any of his worlds/works.
Guess that would be considered scab work
The night is long and full of strikes and terrors
I looked forward to House of the Dragon. I won't be watching season 2 though.
Maybe he can use this time to finish writing the Game of Thrones series. Fucking loser.
It's been ten years since I gave up on ever reading the last books in that series.
I gave up reading the first book in the series until he's able to finish it.
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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