The World of Ice and Fire

[HouseLaLaurie]

Hmm, even if I had a good idea for a book, I wouldn't be able to write one. If someone has the talent, training, and ideas to make a wonderful book, I'm not going to question how long it takes and I don't understand people who harp on an author to finish a book or series. It takes them as long as it takes and nagging them about it can make them do things like Zelazny did with the Amber series, which is a shame.

100% this.

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Stephen king is a freak who makes people think books can really be written in a weekend. BUT, lets be fair, dragon speech software works like a mofo, more writers should use it

[HouseLaLaurie]

Stephen king is a freak who makes people think books can really be written in a weekend. BUT, lets be fair, dragon speech software works like a mofo, more writers should use it

I just found out Doctor Sleep is a sequel to the Shining, and now I'm dying to read it. Have you, and if so, is it worth buying?

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I overdid horror when I was younger and now I don't keep up with it much, but now I want to check it out... Lately I've been filling in the gaps on my William Gibson collection, I seem to have skipped the thicker books (ever hit a spider with a dictionary? Well I'm pretty sure Idoru could knock out a yetti).

King always seems to write solid stories though, I can't imagine it would suck, I'm definitely going to find out soon as I finish my current read..

[Dallane]

Stephen king is a freak who makes people think books can really be written in a weekend. BUT, lets be fair, dragon speech software works like a mofo, more writers should use it

Martin is also a notorious slow writer. I can't remember the term for people like him but others like king have a set outline and a general direction on where they want the story to go. Martin started out with 3 planned books and kept adding more here and there jumping around the story that it grew to what it is now.. Who knows if he will actually finish the story in 2 books.

[HouseLaLaurie]

Martin is also a notorious slow writer. I can't remember the term for people like him but others like king have a set outline and a general direction on where they want the story to go. Martin started out with 3 planned books and kept adding more here and there jumping around the story that it grew to what it is now.. Who knows if he will actually finish the story in 2 books.

This is true to a degree, except for him being a slow writer. He actually writes at a pretty good pace, but he has a much larger body of work than the one series, as well as a career in television, and an insane publicity tour for the TV shows AND books. The wait for "Dance With Dragons" was due to his heavy involvement with the development of the show that we all love so much, so I think I can forgive him that. Remember how season one was pretty much book one verbatim? I sense a connection there.

Even he has questioned whether there will be more than two books. Personally, I think everything about the Iron Isles beyond Theon and his immediate family are to blame. I like that there are editions of just those storylines, and I think if he would just publish their storyline as a tie-in novella series, like Dunk & Egg and the Targaryen stories, the whole series could progress a lot quicker, and he could give us the ending in two books. With these new characters popping up all the time, and his -alleged- opiate painkiller use (just a guess on my part, since each and every interview he seems to be scratching his nose off and babbling like a maniac), it may end up being released as a trilogy.

Terry Goodkind is a perfect example of a bad writer in my opinion, although he kept a decent release schedule for the most part. His grand finale was deemed "too large to publish as one volume and make any money," so he divided it into a convoluted and disappointing trilogy, the final book being a longer and more arduous fantasy version of the "I am John Galt" speech from dear ol' Ayn Rand, and about 200 pages of someone explaining an algebraic organic spell structure. (Seriously.) He also had a television show based off of his work, but was such an arrogant douchetard, with such a bad reputation from his online fan forums, that the show refused any input from him. It failed pretty dismally as a result, and was nothing like the books (which are nothing to get wet over in the first place once you've read Rand's work).

Anyways, my point is, this is a good enough series that it will not die without a fight. It makes beaucoup money for HBO and all involved, and it has been well established that GRRM -has- covered his bases and given the producers all of the info they need to finish the show AND books if need be. I think we should all be giving him his propers for that at least. As Terry Goodkind has proven to the world, there are worse ways to be a fantasy author.

[Claeyt]

edit: didn't read whole thread before posting reply... anyway...

Binks: love that fight poster!

As far as different actors, I hadn't noticed or cared. He's a background character that is meant to conjure up images of the boogeyman.

They just needed to put a bigger beard on the new Mountain.

[HouseLaLaurie]

Rolling Stone did an amazing interview with GRRM last month, it's probably the best interview I've read with him so far. Read it here:

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news ... w-20140423