Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
The sun rises in the east, and sets in the west. Everything has its time, and everything dies. These are constants in life on the planet Earth. Another constant: The next chapter in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire saga, The Winds of Winter, has been delayed.
While it was always a bit of a stretch, despite George R. R. Martin’s previous optimism, a new blog post on the writer’s newly-moved-from-Livejournal version of Not a Blog has officially confirmed that The Winds of Winter will not release this year. Martin delivered the news before detailing release information for at least one other Westeros-bound book coming out in 2018—his history of House Targaryen, Fire and Blood, due later this year:
No, winter is not coming… not in 2018, at least. You’re going to have to keep waiting for The Winds of Winter.
You will, however, be able to return to Westeros this year, as I suggested back over on Live Journal.
Archmaester Gyldayn has at last completed and delivered the first half of his monumental history of the Targaryen kings of Westeros, Fire & Blood, and Bantam Spectra and HarperCollins Voyager will be releasing the hardcover on November 20, I am thrilled to say.
I’ve seen the archmaester’s manuscript. Since it was handwritten on vellum with a quill pen, he required my help in transcribing the text to a more modern format: WordStar 4.0, on a DOS computer. Took a while, but a few weeks ago I was able to ship it off to my editors on both sides of the Atlantic, and to my foreign representatives for all my publishers around the world. Some of my foreign publishers will be releasing their editions simultaneously with the US and UK hardbacks; others may need to wait for translation from the Common Tongue.
Expanding on the already pretty extensive notes and details Martin penned for the wonderful A World of Ice and Fire a few years ago, Fire and Blood, the first volume in what Martin has previously described as a two-part history, covers the lives and times of the first seven Targaryen rulers of Westeros, 300 years before the events of A Game of Thrones, from Aegon the Conqueror to Aegon III, the Dragonbane. The rest will be told in a future volume, but according to Martin, that will be “a few years down the pike,” so please look forward to it still arriving before The Winds of Winter does.
Fire and Blood hits shelves November 20, 2018. The Winds of Winter? Well... we’ll see
One wonders now if he is perhaps required or obligated in some way to wait until the TV show is finished ?
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Captain Brown wrote: I think it has to do with all the appearances and travel that are delaying it. Almost interested to see how the books diverge from the show.
My two cents,
CB
Nah, he has always been like this. Sure, those are his excuses. Also football is an excuse for him. Also the other editing jobs he takes while he is doing the appearances and still working on the book.
The man is a procrastinator. He will do almost anything to put off writing, it seems.
djones520 wrote: I don't know, but I'm starting to cross into that point where I don't care anymore, and just may not pick the book up when it eventually comes out.
Im already there. At this point, who gives a gak?
The show will have severly hurt the book sales by the time ir comes out.
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
2018/04/26 20:56:35
Subject: Re:Winds of Winter : not this year either
Captain Brown wrote: I think it has to do with all the appearances and travel that are delaying it. Almost interested to see how the books diverge from the show.
My two cents,
CB
Nah, he has always been like this. Sure, those are his excuses. Also football is an excuse for him. Also the other editing jobs he takes while he is doing the appearances and still working on the book.
The man is a procrastinator. He will do almost anything to put off writing, it seems.
He's written seven books since the last one (not to mention all the other gigs he's been involved in). By procrastination I suppose in advancing the plot of the existing series, instead of adding more background information I suppose.
2018/04/27 01:41:34
Subject: Re:Winds of Winter : not this year either
One wonders now if he is perhaps required or obligated in some way to wait until the TV show is finished ?
Obligation or no, that makes good business sense. Game of Thrones wraps up at the end of Season 8, people want more by Martin; here's this shiny new Winds of Winter book everyone has been talking about for so long.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
I feel like this is the novel version of the video game Ark where the game is still not finished, they are charging full price, have a paid DLC, and announced a sequel.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
2018/04/27 18:55:24
Subject: Re:Winds of Winter : not this year either
I'm the sort of person who rereads the Silmarillion, though. That sort of world-building really appeals to me.
I feel it'll be less world building than George hammering the mostly European Middle Ages into a sort of Westorosi shape sprinkled with lifts from obscure Sword and Sorcery pulps that he hopes nobody will notice (aka The Tarantino Slip)
"AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED."
Captain Brown wrote: I think it has to do with all the appearances and travel that are delaying it. Almost interested to see how the books diverge from the show.
My two cents,
CB
Nah, he has always been like this. Sure, those are his excuses. Also football is an excuse for him. Also the other editing jobs he takes while he is doing the appearances and still working on the book.
The man is a procrastinator. He will do almost anything to put off writing, it seems.
He's written seven books since the last one (not to mention all the other gigs he's been involved in). By procrastination I suppose in advancing the plot of the existing series, instead of adding more background information I suppose.
The issue is almost certainly about Martin writing himself into the literary equivalent of the Gordian knot with ASOIAF. I don't think that he doesn't want to untangle it...I think he's just having a hard time doing it in a satisfactory manner.
Look at all the ridiculousness the show had to go through in order to bring it towards a conclusion.
Captain Brown wrote: I think it has to do with all the appearances and travel that are delaying it. Almost interested to see how the books diverge from the show.
My two cents,
CB
Nah, he has always been like this. Sure, those are his excuses. Also football is an excuse for him. Also the other editing jobs he takes while he is doing the appearances and still working on the book.
The man is a procrastinator. He will do almost anything to put off writing, it seems.
He's written seven books since the last one (not to mention all the other gigs he's been involved in). By procrastination I suppose in advancing the plot of the existing series, instead of adding more background information I suppose.
The issue is almost certainly about Martin writing himself into the literary equivalent of the Gordian knot with ASOIAF. I don't think that he doesn't want to untangle it...I think he's just having a hard time doing it in a satisfactory manner.
Look at all the ridiculousness the show had to go through in order to bring it towards a conclusion.
Please don't - I'm trying to avoid anything approaching spoilers from the show, and I'd like to keep reading this topic. It'd be appreciated!
I'm the sort of person who rereads the Silmarillion, though. That sort of world-building really appeals to me.
I feel it'll be less world building than George hammering the mostly European Middle Ages into a sort of Westorosi shape sprinkled with lifts from obscure Sword and Sorcery pulps that he hopes nobody will notice (aka The Tarantino Slip)
Well, I enjoyed reading lots of the old Warhammer Fantasy background, so that's clearly my thing as well!
2018/04/27 20:34:40
Subject: Re:Winds of Winter : not this year either
gorgon wrote: The issue is almost certainly about Martin writing himself into the literary equivalent of the Gordian knot with ASOIAF. I don't think that he doesn't want to untangle it...I think he's just having a hard time doing it in a satisfactory manner.
Please don't - I'm trying to avoid anything approaching spoilers from the show, and I'd like to keep reading this topic. It'd be appreciated!
I'm not going to put any spoilers in here but I want to touch on that, spoiler free.
Suffice it to say that Gorgon raises a good point and I think he's hit the nail on the head. The show and the books started out very similar but they started to diverge markedly in the latter seasons. The show omitted major characters, it simplified multiple characters into single ones, and all the other streamlining that you'd expect when you're adapting a thousand pages of text into 10 hours. The thing is that I think the show has been delivering a better, cleaner narrative while the book narrative has gotten increasingly crushed under it's own weight.
IMO he's written himself into a corner and can't figure out how to get himself out of it, and he's waiting to see how the showrunners resolve it... and how well it's received, to finally resolve it on his own.
I'd like to rail about this approach but the truth is I myself did a project once that got totally out of hand and I was overwhelmed, so mostly I understand. It's a bad boat to be in.
I'm sure I'll buy and read this book, just like I read the terrific Dunk & Egg stuff, and that other background book he put out a while ago.
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
People generally talk about timing in regards to jokes and comedy, but there's a lot of it in all forms of story telling. There are plenty of movies and shows in which a lull in the pacing gives the audience to put the clues together and spoil the reveal and that's essentially what happened here.
Martin wrote a nice, satisfying arc for these characters, but took so long to unveil it that the audience had ample opportunity to parse it out. He made the situation worse by trying to write alternative paths to lead people astray and regenerate the mystery, but it feels false because its not as organically seeded as the original clues and foreshadowing.
I see it as similar to what happened with Tobi in Naruto.
Ouze wrote: The thing is that I think the show has been delivering a better, cleaner narrative while the book narrative has gotten increasingly crushed under it's own weight.
The books have too many characters, with too many callbacks. I don't want to earn a degree in ASOIF history in order to understand what is going on in the novels.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/27 22:28:17
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
2018/04/27 23:00:45
Subject: Re:Winds of Winter : not this year either
I'm the sort of person who rereads the Silmarillion, though. That sort of world-building really appeals to me.
So am I, but I sure as hell wouldn't have been happy if Tolkien decided writing the Silmarillion was a bigger priority than finishing Return of the King.
Finished Forge World Elysian Army 
Finished Tau Sept Cadre 
Finished Ork Waaagh | 
Alaitoc Eldar Warhost 
Finished Order of Our Martyred Lady - Sisters of Battle 
Finished Necromundian Imperial Guard Regiment 
