When do you think we'll see the next ASoIaF book & when will the series finish.

svalbard said:
Regardless if he think's that it is fanfiction or not, the vast majority of people will find out the ending of the series from the TV series and that is a shame. One of the great literary series of our times will find it's ending not on print but in celluloid.
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I actually think they'll have different endings. I think the TV fanfic will end with a literal war for the dawn, a big battle where the baddies get destroyed by the goodies and the books will end with peace, negotiated by Jon Snow and Benjen Stark (who I think is now an Other)
 
Considering Benjen Stark was killed off in the last series I do not think that is going to happen.
 
GRRM has said something like 20 characters killed off in the TV show are still alive in the books. Other than the ending, I don't think the TV show and the books (however much will ever be written of them) have much in common anymore.
 
I confess for a long time I tried to deny I had picked yet another epic series only to get Jordan-ed..but I fear we have to acknowledge at this point in bookland the long night has descended. i have made my peace with it, and now look forward to the show with baited breath!
 
The TV show is rubbish and i refuse to acknowledge it as canonical. If George dies before finishing I firmly believe the publisher will commission someone else to finish it based on George's notes.

Its a shame David Gemmell died so young, he'd do a grand job...
 
Narkalui said:
Its a shame David Gemmell died so young, he'd do a grand job...
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Honestly I'd not pick Gemmell for the job if he were even an option. Granted I've not made it to his latter books so his style might well have changed, but to me Gemmell is bad at endings. Oh he writes a brilliant introduction, beginning, middle and right up to the last moments - but his endings always hit on a handful of pages and resolve very fast. To me GRRM's series won't end on a huge moment; but would likely end rather like Lord of the Rings. That is to say it would be a major event or two and then a series of winding down moments that follow through in more detail the closure of the series.
 
I dispute that. Gemmell's endings are quick and to the point because his books have a small cast of characters, even smaller by the end of the book, with the size of the cast in SOIAF i'm sure you would receive your ending.

No, the reason i mention Gemmell is because he is the only writer apart from Martin that i have encountered who can truly get inside the minds of his characters and create some truly beautiful inner thought monologues without rambling. Two examples, same book, in Ravenheart we are introduced to the teacher Aterith Shadler early on as a stock minor antagonist but at the start of the closing act he re-emerges as an unlikely and unlooked-for for hero. In fact, Shadler is one of my favourite characters in this story because he has no martial knowledge or ability, physically he is quite 'weak' and yet he still draws his line in the sand and does not budge in spite of the retribution visited upon him. What a hero! And it is Gemmell's explanation of the character's mind which makes this believable and thusly so much more heroic.

Second example: when Maev sees Jaim naked and gives him the sharp side of her tongue (which is sharp indeed) then once she's left the room nd closed the door, she can't help grinning to herself. Such a tiny little sentence gives us SO much insight into Maev Ring and her feelings for Jaim when all we otherwise see from her is constant condemnation of Jaim's behaviour...

Sorry, i disagree. If Gemmell was still with us and GRRM died, he'd be more than up to the task...
 
Gemmell and GRRM are very, very different writers. Gemmell had a clear, heroic moral vision. His protagonists suffer for the greater good. The suffering has meaning. Evil is defeated. GRRM is inspired by history, not heroism. Good people often lose and bad people often win because that's how the world really is. And bad people are the heroes of their own story - they have their own complex motivations for their behavior.

And their writing style could hardly be more different. GRRM loves to paint detailed scenes, help the reader see, hear, and smell the fantasy world he's crafting. The feel of traveling under the canopy of an ancient forest. The sounds and smells of a raucous feast. Gemmell almost entirely eschews that sort of writing. Gemmell books do not deposit you in a vividly realized imaginary world in the way Martin's does. He's far more focused on moving the plot forward and showing the emotional journey of the protagonist.

This may be heresy in a SF/F forum, but I actually think a historical fiction writer would be better suited to finishing ASoIaF. Bernard Cornwell comes to mind.
 
@MWagner that's a very good summary and I'd agree with it.
Let's be certain I don't think either of is (I certainly am not) saying that Gemmel is a bad writer, nor a worse nor better writer just a different style of writing. Whilst writers can have very different styles (Robin Hobb under her name of Megan Lindholm writes totally differently and the two are so far apart it would be hard to tell they come from the same author); from what I've seen of Gemmel to continue in the same style and structure of Game of Thrones would be a huge challenge to him. Gemmel is far closer to your heroic questing DnD style of fantasy; rather than a huge sweeping saga of epic.


I can also agree that an historical writer might actually do better with the material. I've always felt that Martin is one of the more heavily historical writers within a lot of modern fantasy. His stories feel gritty and "real" because there's a fair bit of that realism sunk right in there and brought out through the story. Sure he's got dragons and undead and giants and vast walls of ice and all - but he backs up that with a very gritty real medieval inspired world. The fantasy is easier to keep up with (you only have to read his work and his notes) whilst the reality aspects that underpin the world are far harder and would require far more study if one were not already heavily interested in that era and suchlike.
 
I see your points about Gemmell now and wonder how i didn't see it before...

Thanks for posting the interview Harebrain, I never knew it existed
 
Pedro Del Mar said:
GRRM will never finish the books so the only ending we’ll see is the TV show
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The sad thing is that you may be right. If we do get to see the books finally finished I would wager my house on it that the TV series ending is the one that will have the greater impact. Martin's ending will always be compared to the TV version whereas it should be the other way round.
 
Just thinking aloud, but I wonder if it's possible that he's also writing A Dream of Spring and is holding back on releasing Winds of Winter - partly to ensure the continuity is all there, but also to counter complaints of about waiting that will inevitably follow a single book release?
 
Brian that could well be it. One massive problem for an author releasing tightly intertwined books one after the other as they are done is that if you make a mistake or do something in an earlier book you're stuck with it. By and large you can't change those things once they are in print so suddenly if you back yourself into a corner that could be resolved by changing one earlier chapter or even paragraph - you can't. I think George has hit that wall as he's started to try and bring things together for a conclusion and has found himself possibly with too many threads to pull together (not that I expect him to resolve every thread - in something as big as this I'd expect some areas to go unresovled by the end).

So yes it wouldn't shock me if he's trying to write both books and complete most of the work in one go so that not only are the next releases quicker, but also to help him with his own writing and continuity.


Writing and publishing as you go works if you've got a really tight structure already written or if its something like Discworld where each book is fairly self contained. Or even DnD style adventures where each book is a self contained adventure in its own right.
 
Brian G Turner said:
Just thinking aloud, but I wonder if it's possible that he's also writing A Dream of Spring and is holding back on releasing Winds of Winter - partly to ensure the continuity is all there, but also to counter complaints of about waiting that will inevitably follow a single book release?
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If he was making that much progress, I don't think he'd be keeping it a secret. He's pretty candid about how slow and arduous writing this series has become for him. Publishing Winds of Winter would be an enormous relief to Martin. I can't see him delaying that in any way in order to expedite the release of the following book.
 
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