So today is the day he called for his fans to imprison him if he hadn’t finished. Kinda funny he made that promise.
In other news, Patrick Rothfuss publisher said this week she doesn’t think he’s written for 6 years. On a meta level, my consumption of fantasy books has changed as a result of Martin. If an author breaks the implicit contract, they’ll finish their story then I am less likely to purchase newer authors writing trilogies.
OTOH, authors I know that are either transparent or have a good work ethic (Abercombie/Sanderson), I will gladly purchase their epic sprawling tomes on day 1.
On the one hand, Neil Gaiman is correct in saying “GRRM are not your bitch”, however on the other “Ice & Fire” has confirmed my resolve to only ever start series / trilogies if they have been completed.
You know it’s weird but i get it from a creative level. There are some things i’ve written a couple years ago that i have a hard time returning to. The spark that lit my interest has gone out, and it’s more intellectual impetus than any fire in the gut that makes me return to it. This is especially true once you’ve reached the “twist” and the rest of the short story / novel / series is just playing out in an obvious way.
On a business level he clearly has more money than he ever hoped to gain and is content enjoying the harvest and seems little concerned for the next. But it’s bad form and unprofessional and frankly a bit flaky. It’s also possible though, maybe he discerns not to look the gift horse too far in the mouth, and is content to let the show finish the series for him and not stir up a lot of drama and change a bunch of plot and in any way disparage HBO.
Honestly Rothfuss could just ditch it. Announce no plans to finish it. I’ve been watching his Twitch streams where he interviews other authors and he’s a fantastic presenter/entertainer. Even his gaming streams are great, where he’ll stop and talk about different ways to tell the story for like 20 minutes in a middle of a single dialog choice.
I’d almost rather that Patrick keep up public output than hide away for a few years and finish the book.
I guess that’s like having my high school soccer coach note that I haven’t been to practice for years now. So basically former publisher. I keep seeing his name associated with various kickstarters and other projects, which is a negative for me since I didn’t care for his writing at all. He must be keeping busy living the life and avoiding having to finish his series as much as possible.
I would love to see Rothfuss finish the series, but I think while in book one he knew what he wanted to do when it came to moving on with the rest of the series he got lost. I am sure that happens with authors all the time, and it is probably the danger of writing multi-book stories. Better to use the same character and just put him in different stories for some authors.
When people say they want Rothfuss to finish, do you mean book 3? Because book 3 won’t finish Kvothe’s story, not even close.
GRRM’s recent posts are similar in tone to what we were seeing from him in 2010. Covid seems to have slowed his other distractions such as new HBO productions down enough that he’s not as distracted and has refocused on book 6 and has been building momentum. The bad part is he’s basically admitted to not having written as much as hoped in the intervening years, so someone like Wert thinks he’s still 100s and 100s of manuscript pages away from completion and that 2022 is the likely release date.
Well it was supposed to be a trilogy but based on book 2 there is no way he could finish it in 3 books. In fact if you go by the pace in book 2 the trilogy will now take a dozen books. And if they are like book 2 I am afraid he won’t have many readers by that time.
Yeah, Book 1 was really fast moving at times, and covered many years of the main character’s life. And then suddenly, Book 2 covered one summer vacation.
I’ve read the first book in the series, liked it quite a bit and then the show came out and watched all of the seasons, but I haven’t read any of the other Game of Thrones books. Now there are some of the spin off ‘history’ books - Fire & Blood: 300 Years Before A Game of Thrones (A Targaryen History) and The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones (from 2014).
I want to read the series and will probably reread the first book. Should I read any of the other Game of Thrones books before the main series, like the Targaryen history? I know that story from the TV show, but don’t know how it differs from the books. So, what is the recommended Game of Thrones reading order? Thanks!
PS - I pretty much only read Kindle books these days, but I’ve heard the hardcover / illustrated editions of the books are nice. Worth it, or just stick with Kindle versions?
Kindle vs paper. I also read mostly kindle these days. But one thing I loved about reading the first three books originally back in the early 2000s was the fact that I could turn to the maps from the beginning of the books easily and just stare at the maps for a while. It’s really not convenient or easy to do that on my phone on the Kindle app.
You don’t need the other books to read the main series.
I did read most of Fire & Blood, and I enjoyed it, but it’s not a novel, it’s more of a series of events that are described by a historian from the future, talking about how this happened, and then we have an account from a maid that this is what happened between this king and queen, etc. It’s a different kind of book, but I did find it fascinating as a sort of outline for several eras of stories that would make great novels.
Read the series as published, and if you like it well enough to want more history then read Fire & Blood. You’ll appreciate it more having read the series.
Books vs kindle is impossible to answer. I’m a bibliophile and while as an IT nerd appreciate tech and what it brings, I’m not able to let go of physical books. But that’s me, the illustrated editions are nice, no doubt.
Thanks for the input. I already have all the Kindle versions of the series so I’ll stick with those. I was tempted to pick up the illustrated editions because I thought the first 3 were part of a buy 2 get 1 free, but the deal is missing book 2. I’ll hold off getting Fire and Blood and The World of Ice & Fire. It will take me ages to get through the main series.
Change of plans. Target has buy 2 get 1 free for books, so I got the three illustrated editions of books 1,2,3 of the series, Fire & Blood, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, along with one other items to get 2 free items.
