Any news on TWoW?

[Pedro Del Mar]

Hi all,

Any news/rumours/information on The Winds of Winter?

Not seen anything for ages on GRRM's blog so wondered if anyone had heard anything from any of his interviews or appearances?

Cheers
Crooksy

 

[Robjwhite]

It's only been a year, if history is anything to go by we're going to be waiting another two or three, at least. He's said he wants to make sure he stays ahead of the TV show, so hopefully that'll speed him up a bit.

 

[Werthead]

Confirmed information:

Martin has completed 200 manuscript pages which are in final draft state. He has also an additional 200+ early draft pages which require an as-yet-unknown amount of work to bring to final draft status. So that's about 400 pages done.

However, before you get too excited, note that this is manuscript pages. ADWD and ASoS were both 1,500 manuscript pages in length. GRRM has said that TWoW will likely come in somewhere about the same. So that's only about 25% of the book done, almost eighteen months after ADWD came out.

That said, Martin has also stated that he has made slower-than-expected progress due to several other projects taking up more time than he had hoped (most notably both The Lands of Ice and Fire and The World of Ice and Fire). With them almost done, progress on TWoW should pick up.

GRRM has also said that he hopes to release the book in late 2014, but I'd take that with a grain of salt the size of Casterly Rock.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

GRRM has also said that he hopes to release the book in late 2014, but I'd take that with a grain of salt the size of Casterly Rock.

ha ha!

Thanks for the update

 

[Mark_Harbinger]

I try not to be a hater. But, given how this thread left off, I am wondering if many others feel the same way as me?

Be It Resolved: I think the inability (or unwillingness) to bring a story to resolution is a symptom of a real cynicism, or maybe lack of perceived accountability, towards the audience.

I mean this not only in the macro sense, ie, the unwillingness to finish the series ("Hey, I made my money optioning it to HBO. I'm good."); but also in the micro sense: the entire series (as far as I read, about 2-1/2 books in) was just a series of cliffhangers and inelegant pathos—salting the land with the shock-killing off of key characters as his go-to plot device.

Don't get me wrong: He's obviously a talented writer. Just like Andy Kaufmann was a talented comedian. But, just as with Andy, at some point, the joke is on the audience for paying money for the privilege of being punked. This is why I almost never invest in a "Book One of..." anymore, unless I have independent verification that the initial novel could function as a standalone—that it is, in fact, a (finished) story.

Another author whose work I've enjoyed much more, Patrick Rothfuss, has fallen into this category, too; although, he's roughly a quarter century younger, and he's been active in various other projects and philanthropic endeavors, so I still hold out hope that he'll finish his Kingkiller Chronicle. A Midwesterner who went to Wazzou, maybe he gets things done, lol.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

Be It Resolved: I think the inability (or unwillingness) to bring a story to resolution is a symptom of a real cynicism, or maybe lack of perceived accountability, towards the audience.

Or it might be performance anxiety? The pressure on him to live up to the hype must be pretty huge. And trying to wrap up all those threads in a way that will surprise and please readers - can you imagine that? There's so much speculation and "theories" out there - trying to find the path less travelled must be impossible.

 

[Mark_Harbinger]

SRD (reportedly a close friend of GRRM's) was faced with a similar dilemma in his Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (10 novels over 36 years). Now, I personally think Donaldson failed in his stated goal (in point of fact, he really did re-hash a lot of his previous concepts/character archetypes from the earlier books) and didn't really stick the landing in terms of story-telling. But, I truly respect that he felt the need to finish it.

I *am* done buying his works, though.

For me, Herbert's ultimate ending to the Dune Chronicles, in Chapterhouse Dune, was the best example of how to end a grand saga. I mean, at some point, the scope becomes so cosmic that you really have no choice but to make a nod to the absurdity of it all. Gravitas with Playfulness. At the end of the day, we're all just engaging in little kids' make believe, right?

 

[nixie]

Oh the discussion is very much ongoing The Winds of Winter publishing date guesses?.

 

[Glaysher]

For me, Herbert's ultimate ending to the Dune Chronicles, in Chapterhouse Dune, was the best example of how to end a grand saga.

You mean die before you are able to finish?

 

[Mark_Harbinger]

You mean die before you are able to finish?

Ha. No. Sorry, but I'm skeptical of the whole 'Hey, look! We discovered his notes a decade after his death...now, watch as we whore this out for as long as we can!' thing. There was an interaction I had in a book club where someone proudly said "I've read all eighteen Dune books" and I about fell off my chair.

I held my tongue, but I felt like saying "Oh? And did you like both Woodstock festivals, too?"

Anyway, my point is each novel in a series should have an arc being resolved. Period. IMO, Herbert could have died after any of those books and you'd look at what he'd finished and go "Wow. What a great story."

I do realize that cashing in on franchises is the norm, not the exception—it's just sad to me. Like when her publisher+agent wheeled out a sun-downing, almost ninety-year-old Harper Lee, after she studiously avoided any publicity for decades, and released her notes as a "sequel" to To Kill A Mockingbird. Or how his widow said an (again, almost ninety year old) Dr. Seuss reportedly had a change of heart, after decades of saying he didn't want his works licensed out after his death.

p.s. Before someone says it: Yes, LOTR was chopped up and sold as a series. But, if what I've read is correct, at the time, no one thought there would be much of an audience; so, their decision became an unfortunate precedent.

 

[Mark_Harbinger]

Oh the discussion is very much ongoing The Winds of Winter publishing date guesses?.

Ha Ha Ha. I'd missed that (very entertaining). Thank you, @nixie!

 

[Glaysher]

Ha. No. Sorry, but I'm skeptical of the whole 'Hey, look! We discovered his notes a decade after his death...now, watch as we whore this out for as long as we can!' thing. There was an interaction I had in a book club where someone proudly said "I've read all eighteen Dune books" and I about fell off my chair.

The quality of the books written from the notes was poor but it is clear that a confrontation with an unknown enemy is coming from Frank's books so I do think that the notes are genuine.

Spoiler

Making the enemy thinking machines makes sense with all the mentions of the Butlerian jihad

 

[Mark_Harbinger]

The quality of the books written from the notes was poor but it is clear that a confrontation with an unknown enemy is coming from Frank's books so I do think that the notes are genuine.

Spoiler

Making the enemy thinking machines makes sense with all the mentions of the Butlerian jihad

Okay. Even so, it doesn't directly refute my point about story arcs.

Besides, I think all writers have notes about future projects laying about somewhere. I have a half dozen right now. I personally don't equate those germs with finished stories. At all. It's like me stealing seeds from you, planting them and watering them in my yard, and selling tickets to "your" garden as they grow. Just not buying it.

 

[Werthead]

The quality of the books written from the notes was poor but it is clear that a confrontation with an unknown enemy is coming from Frank's books so I do think that the notes are genuine.

Spoiler

Making the enemy thinking machines makes sense with all the mentions of the Butlerian jihad

No, the "notes" were massively exaggerated. In an interview years later, Anderson and Herbert Jnr. confirmed that all the notes (which totalled maybe 2 sides of A4 paper) contained were musings on bringing back previous Dune characters as gholas in Book 7 and that was it. There was zero information on the identity of the "great enemy." Omnius and Erasmus were 100% their fan-insert characters.

 

[Glaysher]

Omnius and Erasmus were 100% their fan-insert characters.

That's definitely true but I felt that the enemy as a general concept (ie as a one line idea rather than particular characters) made sense as to where Dune was going. I didn't know that it wasn't revealed in the notes.