It is always difficult when a writer has a hard time finishing a sequel. We as readers usually want the next book as quickly as possible and rarely give understanding to the necessary time needed for the writer to produce said book. Sometimes a writer takes longer to write a sequel than readers are willing to give—leaving rancorous animosity and outlandish opinions bandied about to give meaning.
It can get pretty ugly for some of those authors.
George R. R. Martin is one of them. He took five years to published A Feast For Crows, and, once he released that book said he was “almost done” with the next book, A Dance With Dragons. That was three years ago. And while I understand why many of his fans are angry and upset, I see the other side of the coin and fall on the side of Mr. Martin when it comes to his craft of writing, how he spends his time, and the history of him splitting A Game of Thrones into two books. I’m considering writing a very long article about my feelings concerning Mr. Martin and his fan base. We’ll see if I want to tackle that!
Today I was reminded, however, that three or even five years is nothing when it comes to past sequels coming to readers late.
Sci-Fi Wire has posted an article titled Which SF writer has made us wait the longest for a sequel? It details some of the longest waits for readers in the genre and you’d be amazed at how many decades some of those books took to be written and published! For me, the Dark Tower releases were always torturous waits. A Princess of Landover by Terry Brooks is a sequel 14 years in the waiting.
Take a look at that list and see how good you guys really do have it!
I say let him take all the time he needs to get it right.
I want the darn thing done YESTERDAY too but at the same time I realize that the reason we all want it NOW is because of the consistently high quality of storytelling in this massive Epic Fantasy.
I have yet to find an author whose work engages me the way his does and if it takes him another couple years to bang out ADWD, so be it.
I'll still be here (God willing)...
I've always been shocked at how freely people who claim to "love" Martin are willing to attack him for not producing his art on their schedule.
When you look at the scope and complexity of A Song Of Ice and Fire, they very thing that makes us love it so, you really have to ask yourself, do I want it done fast, or do I want it done right? Balancing over a dozen compelling POV characters into a cohesive story spanning multiple continents is no small task. There are few authors who can do it at all, and I don't know any that can do it at the same rate Piers Anthony churns out Xanth novels.
14 years? Pah! Take a look at Jerry Pournelle. He promised to write a sequel to H. Beam Piper's "Space Viking". Still waiting. He's had a couple of sequels to his "Falkenberg" books in the hopper. Still waiting. Then there's the next installment of his "Janissaries" series. Still waiting.
Here's my rundown on a number of MIA books, some sequels, some promised releases.
My main complaint with these angry people lies in their hypocrisy: they decry the very craft of writing that gave them such pleasure. To force Martin to change and speed up would force away the very magic people love about him.
Yeah, I'm going to write my long article. I have to do it. I can't handle it anymore. :) I was sick all last week and while I didn't write an article for Suvudu this article percolated inside. Time to let it out.
To be honest I think your comparison to these other works is a poor one. GRRM's series is not a standalone book, but a series of interconnected, very cliffhangerish books. With none of the examples posted by Scifiwire were readers actually actively waiting for a sequel.
Sure, they might have enjoyed more books in that setting, but there was no definitive need for more books. Totally not the case with GRRM, who's only finished half the story of all the characters, has consistently misled his fans by promising incorrect release dates and has, in general, made a mess of things. The man says he cannot write so much as a word when away from home, and then goes off to do dozens of conventions each year. He has trouble focusing on ADWD and then takes on several different editing projects to consume even more of his precious little writing time. Keeping his fans up to date of his progress now is also something he has completely abandoned for more than a year now.
GRRM is talking about everything but the next book, ADWD. And this half-book, due in 2006, and then in 2007, and then in 2008, is still not done. The writer in this case has lost his dedication and seems very much keen on profiting from the lifestyle he has now to rest on his laurels.
So no, it's a bad comparison with those other writers ( in the same way that the oft made comparison to Tolkien is a bad one, who was a full-time professor instead of a full-time writer like Martin, or at least that is what Martin claims to be). What GRRM is doing is quite a bit worse in my opinion.
Armand
Armand,
I was merely illustrating that some people wait a long time for a sequel. Some of those books posted on that list are indeed sequels people have been waiting for or had to wait for, just like GRRM.
As for your comments, I'll be rebutting them here in the next week or so. :) My main point when it comes to the "lateness" of DRAGONS is if Martin had kept his mouth shut when FEAST came out, none of you would be expecting a book for at least another two years. But I'll be getting into that later... :)
Shawn
Shawn,
Let's not marginalize the wait that this has been. It's been 9 years now since the last complete book. Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Bran, Davos and a host of other very interesting characters, we last saw those in 2000 when Storm of Swords came out. That is a magnificently long wait for the next book in any saga, and it is unrivalled compared to other writers of epic fantasy sagas currently writing. There are many authors writing fine series and doing so at a regular pace of a book a year, or a book per 2 years. There are reasons why Martin is not achieving this, and some of these are not to be praised or apologized for.
As for the claim that no one would cry havoc now if Martin had kept his mouth shut when AFFC came out, this is obviously wrong. You see, Martin had been writing A Feast for Crows for 5 long years before it was published, and when it was, it was half a story. During those 5 years many of his fans have been with him every step of the way, finally expecting the book in 2005. Of course GRRM had to explain to his readers that this was only half a book, and he did. He had some 1,600 manuscript pages at the time ready for AFFC but was forced to split the manuscript in two, one being AFFC, two being ADWD. It was just that ADWD required more work, more chapters to be written, which is why he figured it would be done a year later, in 2006.
Obviously, this never happened. He had half of ADWD done when he started writing it, but 3 years later he still has not done the 2nd half. He's having massive difficulties writing the series now, and that's a shame. He's ceased to communicate about the book, regardless of the topic of discussion. But it's no other way, I just think the comparison to books that are not really sequels but rather book in the same setting is off.
It's like people pointing to Stephen King and saying "hey, he took a long time off between Dark Tower books as well, man that was almost 20 years. You guys have it easy with Martin". These people forget that King wrote some 20 books in between the Dark Tower books, whereas GRRM of course, has not produced a single one. A bit slothful really, at the least.
I'll be commenting on all of your points, Armand. :) It's just going to be a massive article that will take me at least a week's worth of hours to write. haha
All of the points you make are valid if you forgo certain other facts that the average reader simply do not take into account because they don't know them. I'll be trying to shed light onto those facts and we'll see how you feel afterward.