Sounds like they’re going to shoot in the UK. Costs are higher than NZ or Eastern Europe, but they do have the BBC on board to co-produce it, which probably helps quite a bit.
A blog that GRRM recommended got a hold of the script. Not really spoilers unless you haven’t read the books.
http://winter-is-coming.blogspot.com/2008/12/winter-is-comings-exclusive-pilot.html
Sounds like a good start to the show. That guy mentions how surprised he was at how many changes there were to the story, but honestly that sounds a lot closer to the books than I was expecting. Can’t wait until it goes into production.
Damn straight. The problem with GRRM is that he just doesn’t work at writing SoIaF hard enough. Period. And if he’s tired of seeing that opinion voiced, then he should get his fingers off of the remote control and start typing. Because my sympathies for the man are at an end.
He’s a writer who, for whatever reason, seems to have needed the motivation to pay the rent to actually write. Success has destroyed his motivation.
Add to that that his planned five year gap didn’t work and he’s struggling with how to tell the story…
Anyways, I once had some sympathy for GRRM in the delays over AFFC, but the delays over ADWD are now almost as interminable and - if he is to be believed - it has now taken him FOUR YEARS to write four hundred pages of text. Most serious authors can write that in a month - or two - tops. Four plus YEARS? On top of the 5+ he took on AFFC?
The problem with GRRM isn’t that he is not a brilliant writer - because he is. He may well be the “American Tolkien”.
The problem with GRRM is that he’s nearly as damned lazy as many of his fans.
For me, GRRM is the “Tom Clancy of fantasy.” He’s a bit better writer, but he still writes giant, unnecessary tubs of prose that meander unnecessarily. Now, to be fair, I only read the first two books and stopped when I realized 1) I wasn’t loving them and 2) he was never going to finish the series, so I may have missed the best parts. What I read had promise for a fantasy novel (mostly the first one until the very end), but I felt like I was reading an author who could compose a solid sentence but had no idea how much he had just bitten off.
So you’re saying he’s the American Tolkien?
Well played, sir… well played.
Good point. I wasn’t thrilled with the LOTR series either. Cool idea, not the best story-telling structure, definitely not the best pacing with the point of the books being to describe this world he created.
But there’s the point with LOTR, at least that setting was incredibly realized. With the GRRM books I read, I never felt like the world was nearly as fleshed out as Tolkien’s. It was some neat ideas mashed up with a lot of typical fantasy bits. But like Clancy, there’s just tons of useless stuff fattening up the book for no reason. It’s almost like GRRM favorite Clancy novel is Executive Orders and he decided one day to do that 7 times to make a fantasy series.
Book 3 is amazing. You should read up to through 3 and then wait to see if he finishes it before he (or you) dies.
I agree. A Storm of Swords wins my “favorite fantasy novel, ever” award.
Does not change the fact that A Storm of Swords was delivered to the publisher nearly nine years ago … and there has been only one follow up released since.
Stop screwing around George. If you were my employee, I’d have fired you by now.
I remember posting to another board in JUNE that we should be crossing our fingers that he’d finish up before his big European booksigning tour that was going to consume all of July and then some. Sigh.
I dunno if he’s lazy, so much as he just has so much other stuff (related, but not-writing, like aforementioned tour) on his plate, and maybe even a little disinterested? I know when I get bored by my current project at work I’ll do a ton of goofing off to avoid working on it. Between the cons, the signings, editing Wild Cards, watching Giants football, he just doesn’t seem to prioritize writing much. Reminds me of me trying to work from home and spending all my time browsing the web or gaming.
EDIT I guess that is laziness now that I reread it.
Meh. There are a lot of writers that release books on irregular, multi-year cycles. It’s frustrating when those books are in a beloved series, but it’s not like he’s unusual in that regard, or that I’d necessarily want to read the result if he were to just churn something out to meet a deadline.
Yeah, I’ve been waiting for about 12 years for someone else that’s in perfectly good health to release the next book in a series. Annoys the hell out of me because the last one ended on a cliffhanger.
So there’s no chance that your ‘perfectly good health’ guy will be eating himself to death at a Liechtensteinian all-you-can-eat tiger buffet. We cannot say the same for Martin!
Now that the Giants are out of the playoffs, he’ll probably go on a Twinkie binge for a few months before sitting down to “write” again.
She. And I think she had like a mental breakdown and that’s why she hasn’t written any more books recently :P
unfortunately i read book 1 and decided it is not my type. there are just too much sex and penis in the book. the sex bit i can deal with, even the twin sex bit because it relates to the story. however i am so digusted by how much he fixated on penis / manhood / whatever the fuck he calls it and force that onto the reader every 50 pages or so… i mean do i need to read that Hudor went to the hotspring, came back naked and he has a huge dick? it is completely irrelevant!
some of you mentioned that he is good because you cannot tell what is going to happen to the story. however, i feel that it is difficult to want to read on because i cannot tell which person to pay attention to…
/handbrake
I just want to say I am re-reading A Game of Thrones right now (I’m up to page 597) and I have no idea what you’re talking about. Every 50 pages? I think we know who it is that’s obsessed with penises, eh? >.<
(Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
This latest penile-focused criticism reminds me to post this leaked footage of what will be incorporated into the Red Wedding scene.
Wow, I think if anyone is focused on penises it’s you.
Quite. Who needs to fixate on penises, when there are so many other things to enjoy in these long, thick books? I mean, why not talk about the meaty characterization of Arya, who is always full of spunk?
Seriously, though, no clue what you’re talking about. I don’t see how you can find such a penis fixation unless you’re doing a SMASH PATRIARCHY radical feminist reading. If anything, the dong-free sex (Daenerys and her handmaidens) creeped me out more, just because I couldn’t shake the feeling that the author was lurking in the shadows of the tent, leering and slobbering.