I have thought for some time now that the greatest shame about ASoIaF is not that it is (obviously) not going to be concluded, but that in all these years GRRM has spent trying to complete these books he could have been writing standalone SF novels and short stories that (a) he would probably have enjoyed writing much more, and (b) would have been better and more satisfying. His SF shorts, such as Song for Lya and With Morning Comes Mistfall, were among the finest SF published in the 70's, and his standalone novels, such as his vampire novel Fevre Dream, were excellent. I mourn the loss of the fiction that could have been much more tbh. He seems to have to auto-hijacked his stellar SF career with an unfinishable fantasy series.