Second season talks under way

Don’t think they have made a decision just yet, should a least wait and see the response from the first episodes of the first season. They are after all quite seasoned when it comes to decisions like this, but still:

First book: Good
Second book: better
Third book: Greatest thing since slice bread, It’s known.
Fourth Book: Meh! will likely be shot and aired togther with the fifth.

Crotalidian,

I don’t honestly think that would ever happen – but I’d love to be proved wrong! I think 3 – 5 seasons would be the absolute most that will happen. Didn’t I read somewhere that HBO had provisionally booked the Paint Hall for 5 years?
It would be really difficult to keep all the actors in for longer than that – especially seeing how quickly the children grow up. Harry Potter anyone?

They have to make up for Rome, Deadwood, and Rome again.

For some reference, HBO officially greenlit the second season of Treme the day after episode one aired. I’m assuming the same will happen with GoT.

HBO are not strangers to renewing shows early. True Blood was renewed for season 4 two episodes into season 3. It would be such a relief to know that we get at least two seasons, even though that’s obviously not nearly enough!

While not HBO, AMC has picked up season 2 of the Walking Dead before the first episode aired and the same thing happened with Spartacus on Starz. I think it’s safe to say that it will be a hit and they want to start negotiating now before prices are bumped due to demand & popularity.
Also, didn’t George say that the producers/writers of the show know some of his secrets, which I assume would be to cover their bases for when the series catches & passes Georges progress on the books.

I cannot fathom why many of you cannot see Games going for more than 3 seasons even if its a major success. If you look at television history most successful series go on for 7-10 years and some that are not so successful but have critical acclaim go on for 5 seasons. Many sight that the actors will not stay commited for that long, well its called contracts. If I were HBO and the first season were a success I would sign on the actors for the duration of the show, there is plenty of gap between filming where the actors can pursue other projects, film or stage, so they should not be restricted in terms of artistic freedom. I am sure the actors were notified of the possibilty that the show would go that long and they understand the commitment they will have to take, and of course for the crew, its quaranteed employment for 7 seasons.
If the production crew, actors and scripting maintains the high level of quality in each season and keeps the viewer interested and entertained, there is no reason not to go the duration. If this is a success, imagine how it can effect television for years to come, there is a plethora of book series out there across all genre’s that networks can go to for future shows.

This is one area which I believe HBO needs to be given serious love and patience. They are having to navigate a very bumpy path here.

For one thing, ADWD has remained “soon to be published” for 5 years. If Martin has as much difficulty with TWOW and ADOS, the most we will realistically be able to look forward to are possibly 7 seasons, adapting 6 books–assuming we split ASOS, a notion to which I am not opposed, both because of its serious heft, and also because it would buy GRRM another year’s time to work on the last books.

Here’s what seems to me to be the best case scenario, and we all know how rarely that’s the one that comes to fruition:

2011-GOT (and presumably the release of A Dance with Dragons…)
2012-COK
2013-SOS1
2014-SOS2 (…ideally, WOW could be released at or before this point…),
2015-FFC
2016-DWD
2017-WOW (…leaving DOS to be released here, giving HBO a year to prepare.)
2018-DOS

As unlikely as Martin finishing the last two books in 3 years per book is, though, I’m guessing we don’t ever see the story fully told on screen. I suppose HBO could always go on an 18-month release schedule here though. In fact, that might be a fairly wise course of action. Except the children will have aged an extra 2 years by the end…

see what I mean? Even for attempting to do this, HBO deserves some major kudos.

brainneek,
Sadly, season 2 of the Walking Dead has not yet been greenlit (that was just a rumour), although if there’s any justice in the world, it will be. :)
Anyway, HBO also greenlit season 4 of True Blood two episodes into season 3, so alongside Treme, early renewals are definitely not unheard of for HBO.

Tysnow,

I like your attitude and totally agree. I think ASoIaF will be the biggest thing ever,and set the standard for a new era in television. To pull the plug on a mega successfull show half way through seems unthinkable and does`nt make economic sense. HBO have a potential legend on the hands, I can see dvd sales of the complete story selling record breaking numbers for many,many years to come. I know its very early days to be talking about this, but I think the size of the fan base will continue to grow to mega proportions, and by the end of series two there will be no turning back.

Zach,

I think that if the series goes well they will probably fit it together that way but I don’t see them leaving FFC and DWD split up since they would then be hiring a half cast of characters for one year, then the other half for the next. Instead I see them trying to fit it together chronologically the best they can, and then the time difference that is supposedly in DWD would probably be the tail end of that season.

One thing’s for sure, and that’s that I want DWD to release alongside the premier of GoT. Need something to distract between episodes.

I don’t think that there will be any problem with material, as I believe that A Dance With Dragons… is already finished! I mean, really, think about it. What better way to increase sales than to publish the book when the TV series premiers?

If we work under the idea that ADWD has been held back by HBO for the right “time,” then book 6 could be well under way…

Just a thought…

While it’s good that talks are going on, I think that’s all it is at this point just talks. I’m sure they’ll wait till it gets on the air before any anouncement is made. I’ll be surprised if they do.

Many of you who say that actors will not stay on this project so long are wrong.
TV has changed, I think it’s not longer a shame for quite succesful actor to do a TV show. TV can easily reinvent the actor’s career and give him possibly the best material to play nowadays. Many great actors who got rejected by Hollywood turn to TV (Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Spacey is possibly going to play in HBO show, Elijah Wood , Laura Dern, Diane Keaton etc.). The only one person who is somehow successful and more known is Sean Bean. He probably doesn’t like to stay long on project so it won’t problem for him, but I wanted to say that even Bean isn’t a great name this times. Right now he is doing crappy movies and receiving paycheks.
Rest of the actors are mostly not so known and they are working on fantastic material.

And Treme and Game of Thrones comparisons about renewal are stupid.
Game of Thrones has like 10x bigger budget than Treme.
We have to see what kind of numbers Boardwalk will receive and when they will announce renewal for BE.

Tom,

I dunno about Hung, but Carnivale (not whatever the hell you wrote) season one was great. What other “horrible” shows have hbo renewed the last five to ten years?

Nigel Bradley: I don’t think that there will be any problem with material, as I believe that A Dance With Dragons… is already finished! I mean, really, think about it. What better way to increase sales than to publish the book when the TV series premiers?
If we work under the idea that ADWD has been held back by HBO for the right “time,” then book 6 could be well under way…Just a thought…    

From what GRRM writes on his LiveJournal blog it is pretty obvious he’s somewhere near the end. He had a big problem with some plot point (Meereenese knot, as he called it) but as far as I understand, he solved it. I don’t think he finished the book and doesn’t say so because HBO told him not to, but it will be out somewhere near the premiere of the TV series.
He also wrote that he already has few chapters for the next book, mostly the chapters he wrote for ADWD but decided to move them to the next book for various reasons.

Like the rest of you I am very excited about this project. And like many of you frustrated with how long DWD is taking to finish. We must all keep in mind that SOS was the longest and most exciting book so far, but was also the quickest written. The problem with these middle books is they are the ones that must take all these story lines and focus them so they all point to the conclusion George has planned for Dream of Spring. I’m sure it is a logic nightmare trying to get all the characters moving in the right direction while still staying true to the characters motivations. Once the foundation for the rest of the books is set I see no problem with the last to books only taking 2 to 3 years to each to complete, so I think the TV series is safe.

Still it’s been 2-3 weeks on the con trip away from any work getting done. Geez George your killing me. Where is that patience knob, I need it increased again.

I really dont want them to do two seasons out of SOS. If you can not do it in, say 15 episodes, then you’re doing it wrong. 15 episodes would mean 5 and half chapters per episode. Easily doable.

It would be a bit like if they did FFC alone for the fourth season. Though, not because some characters would be missing (like in FFC’s case) but because the first half of the book doesn’t have that many big things happening (some probably disagree). It would kill the momentum.

The Dude,

Entourage. Sex and the City.

I think a second season is almost a fact. After all the money HBO has invested into this project, it is obvious to try at least with two seasons, and then decide the future of the series. Concerning the structure problems of the whole series I totally agree that ASoS deserves two seasons but I think HBO will only accept this possibility if the two former seasons are an exceptional hit. If this was not the case, the channel would just order a season per book. The two-seasoned version of ASoS presents two clear advantages: 1) The storytelling and 2) One more year for George to write the last books.

Children are actually a problem, but it is so obvious a problem that I’m sure George, D&D and the rest of the staff thought about that when structuring the whole series. I’ve always thought that the TV show will do what George initially wanted in the books but finally discarded while writing AFfC: to make the story last for several years, thus the children growing would be natural (and a clear sign that time is running!).

This is my first message (although I’m a follower of this blog since the very beginning ;) ) soy “Hi all” from the Island of Mallorca, Spain.

If SOS is two seasons long (say 10 episodes per season, any less would start to be pretty unsatisfying after a year long wait), that would mean only 4 chapters per episode. That’s just too slow. Hell, the first season has an average of 7 chapters per episode.

agor,

But if they adapt AGoT in 10 episodes, adapting almost the double of pages in the same number of episodes would be too fast. However, your previous suggestion of 15 episodes is quite accurate.

But we must also take into account the duration of each episode. Assuming that episodes 2-9 are about 50 minutes, what about episodes 1 and 10? HBO series usually have 12/13 50 min episodes per season. However, Treme S1 had 10 episodes, but both the pilot and the final chapter had a duration of about 80 min. Can we expect that for season 1 of GoT? A pilot of almost 90 min would be really amazing!

Carnival was amazing and actually ratings for s1 were quite good because it was heavily marketed.

I don’t understand why everyone is saying some things about Treme etc.
We are talking here about big budget. There is a reason why Rome, Carnivale and Deadwood didn’t have an closure.

fuelpagan: Like the rest of you I am very excited about this project. And like many of you frustrated with how long DWD is taking to finish. We must all keep in mind that SOS was the longest and most exciting book so far, but was also the quickest written. The problem with these middle books is they are the ones that must take all these story lines and focus them so they all point to the conclusion George has planned for Dream of Spring. I’m sure it is a logic nightmare trying to get all the characters moving in the right direction while still staying true to the characters motivations. Once the foundation for the rest of the books is set I see no problem with the last to books only taking 2 to 3 years to each to complete, so I think the TV series is safe.Still it’s been 2-3 weeks on the con trip away from any work getting done.Geez George your killing me.Where is that patience knob, I need it increased again.    

Took the words right out of my mouth. I know we’ve all become a little disheartened over the last decade, but from reading GRRM’s blogs I think we’ll get ADWD next spring or summer and we also don’t know how long the last two books will be. They may only be as long as AGOT. I don’t see HBO having any problem giving George up to 8 years if he needs it, and four years per book sound achievable to me. I know some of you may be saying in the last 10 years we’ve received 1 and 4/5 of a book, but like fuelpagan said he shouldn’t have as much logistical problems for the last two.

And as for the timeline and the child actors growing up; George had planned for there to be a 5 year gap around ADWD (I can’t remember now if it was before or after anymore) and given that by AFFC about two years has pasted it seems like George had planned for characters like Arya, and Bran to be in their mid-late teens and Dany to be in her early 20′s. Besides how bad ass is it going to be to see Maisie as Arya go from being a little tomboy in season one, to being the merciless assassin it looks like she will become in the last season eight or so years from now.

First off I dont think retaining actors for a full series treatment would be undoable. A lot of people are getting their big breaks especially the younger actors (Alfie Allen, all Stark kids, Dany etc.) so if they stay on for their entire character arcs of a successful HBO series they will definately be getting some other job offers post series. Even actors like NCW are trying to use this series to make it big in the States, Heady as well to an extent.

It makes sense from a marketing standpoint for ADWD to be released around the start of the tv series but if that was the case I believe we would know about it by now, it still has to be edited and everything else that goes along with turning a finished manuscript into a novel. But I believe its not done yet and still wont be ready my fear is not to be released until it coincides with season 2s start date. (My secret hope is that George is just conning us all and hes waiting till he has the entire series completed to realease ADWD)

Last thing – I still like Entourage even though season 4 and this last season were pretty weak. (Entourage is at its best when everything goes well for the guys and the best way to make that not stale is having these character arcs like Vinces this season so they can redeem him in the final season and leave the boys ontop)

nsk: The only one person who is somehow successful and more known is Sean Bean. He probably doesn’t like to stay long on project so it won’t problem for him, but I wanted to say that even Bean isn’t a great name this times. Right now he is doing crappy movies and receiving paycheks.

Nasty, nasty and not true.

Dead Mad Greyjoy,

I did not mean to imply that anyone should try to do SOS in 10 episodes. That would be crazy. The creators have made very good choices so far, I have no doubt they know that SOS needs to be longer than 10.

I don’t know if GOT really needs those extra long episodes. I would imagine that the writers have broken up the book in 10 equal sized blocks of story. Sure the episode runtimes will vary a bit but I see no reason to make those +20-30 min episodes. Those extra minutes cost, it’s not like they can just do them without anyone noticing. They have to go and ask HBO if it’s possible to have more money to do so. And well, that’s probably not something I would do as a first time showrunner. GOT is expensive enough already. Of course it could be that they have already made plans of this kind with HBO, but I doubt it.

The old pilot script that went from the prologue to “the things i do for love” felt well paced, well structured and doable in 60 minutes. That cliffhanger is so good that I hope they don’t do 90 minute episode because I feel that would run way past that point.

There’s many reasons why David Simon has had those extra long episodes (two for Treme that you mention, and also season 4 finale and series finale of The Wire) but he also had to go and ask for those extra minutes. I believe season 2 of Treme will have more episodes but all of them will be the usual 50-60 minutes long.

I loved the most the promise that they will update often :D

Ups, I commented on wrong thing. Treme got renewed right after pilot was aired. Wouldn’t it be great if they would do that to Game of Thrones as well :)

Im definately in the 3 seasons or bust group of people. That book definately has the ebst payoff moments so far in the series. Also it has to get that far so when I watch the show with friends and family who havent read the books I can see their reactions to some of the biggest scenes in the series so far.

Also HBO when making shows has some precedents on what to do with longer seasons. Starting season 2 they could easily go upto 12 episodes. And if they want to do a 16 episode treatment for season 3 they can do (as theyve done in the past) break it into a two part season 8-8 or 10-6 with an extended break between parts 1 and 2 of the series.

Crystal Sky:
That being said, I think the best we can hope for is 5-6 seasons. I have noticed most high-profile TV series last for about 5-6 seasons (not talking about soaps of course).It seems saturation level is reached at around that point (see Lost for example).

They ended lost after 6 seasons because that was when they ran out of original material to keep pushing the story forward. Martin has clearly said this will be at least 7 books. So the story won’t reach “saturation” until it gets there. If the show is hugely sucessful up to and including a 5th or 6th season, HBO isn’t going to just stop making it because of some unseen and unfelt imaginary “saturation” level where they think the audience has had enough, and I guarantee if the show lives up to our expectations of quality and sticking to the texts, we as fans aren’t going to want them to stop one season short either. I get what you are saying, but an adaptation, and one sticking as close to the original text as this, are another beast entirely. As long as the fans hold out, and there is an end goal in sight, the show won’t just magically stop.

As for everyone freaking out about how long its taken Martin to release ADWD, remember, after this book there was supposed to be the huge time leap where the children were aged. After releasing AFFC, and supposedly having ADWD a few months away from being released, he realized he would not be able to do that, and he scrapped his entire writings of ADWD, so OBVIOUSLY that was a huge set back. What ALSO happened in that time frame, was a restructuring of the entire story, as he had never planned to write what will become ADWD. He is obviously working towards an end storyline, and has to get everyone where they need to be, and doing what they need to do, but ADWD was him trying to create a bridge between AFFC and TWOW. So once he releases ADWD, and I really do think he is close, I think many will agree if they read his blog, things should pick up again once he reaches time to write TWOW and DOS. Am I saying they will be released as quickly as his previous books? No, but I think he has a much more solid idea of where those last two books are heading than he ever did with ADWD, which was made as a result of him realizing that his time jump just wouldn’t work. Assuming the end of ADWD is the beginning of where that Time Jump would have left off, I think he will be back on track, and know where he is going. I would be very suprised for another 5 year wait.

So for the TL:DR-ers, Just be patient!

I’ve felt the same way for a while now. That the investment up to this point has been so big that it only makes sense for them to do another season, while everything is in place.

My HOPE is that this momentum carries us into Season 3, which has to potential to be the best thing ever seen on TV.

After that, I’m not so sure. It’s hard to stay optimistic for later seasons, when we don’t even have the books.

Ten years ago, there were only three more books to write.

Now, there are still three more books to write.

The rate of progress does not seem too great.

We know HBO will receive that hefty 300 million paycheck from Fox, how much of that will be parceled out to GoT is anyones guess. My thinking that if the first season is a big success HBO might want to try to get another major corporate sponsor to help depreciate the cost, that would not conflict with them or Fox.

Abe,

I thought AFFC was good, but I honestly think the television show could cut the entire content in half, not just Brienne… in fact, I kind of think that it should. There’s only so much of Brienne wandering, Sam travelling, Arya learning, the Dornes conniving that you can make interesting for an entire season – especially since much of that is told through inner dialogue without much of importance really happening. I think the Cersei / Lannister downfall would be great TV but should be intertwined with the story in aDWD.

Quick question…After A Dance with Dragons what is the title of the next book? The final book is to be A Dream of Spring, right? Yeah I know thats two questions……..Doh!

Mr. Donnerfaust,

Thanks dude, I appreciate that.

nsk: Sekhmet, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000293/I am just being honest. Sean Bean’s last big thing was The Island, 5 years ago.    

I disagree. You’re wrong. He’s done a couple of Sharpes and he’s fantastic in Red Riding and way cool in Percy Jackson the Lightening Thief. There are other efforts I’m looking forward to seeing like Cash, Black Death, Clean Skin (for which he interrupted GOT a bit) and Age of Heroes. Just because you’re not familiar with these efforts you’ve been nasty.

Oh yeah, Bean was good in Far North, which you can stream at Netflix as well as Red Riding. He’s a busy man. He’s just not doing many American flix. He’s doing interesting roles to him. He also did the Hitcher with the popular Sophia Bush. Sending me to IMDB is kind of insulting, although you may need it NSK.

i noticed the new title font for the site. where did you scrounge up the official GoT HBO font?

Two Feathers: Just been on Amazon, they have release date for A Dance with Dragons as 29th Sept. 2011!    

Amazon had all sorts of release dates for this book. One of them was somewhere in 2009, one in 2013, so this one is probably some wild guess too. It’s not finished until GRRM says so on his blog, as he promised.

As to Sean Bean – Black Death is great, one of the best movies I saw this year.

Two Feathers,

Good info, if it holds true.

I would expect a big campaign in the spring to re-release the books with the actors on the cover the way they always do with books turned into movies. The publisher can probably move a couple of million new copies. I hope George gets a bigger chunk in re-releases.

Two Feathers,

So what else is new? Amazon’s been showing a (meaningless) release date for ADWD for a couple of years now; they just keep pushing it back. They don’t know anything we don’t; until you see a message here stating that the manuscript is complete and off to the publisher, any release date shown on Amazon has no basis in reality.

Joe Campo said that the next video will be THE audition video and so it will probably be a while before it gets posted.

Two Feathers: On a different subject anyone know what happened to Game OF ThronesJoe Campo?? Seems he has gone of the radar after third audition video..    

Raynette Schroeder: Joe Campo said that the next video will be THE audition video and so it will probably be a while before it gets posted.    

You will know Mance Rayder before dusk falls this time next week.

GameofThronesJoe

GameOfThronesJoe: You will know Mance Rayder before dusk falls this time next week.GameofThronesJoe    

Excellent! I was thinking about this earlier today.

I’ve always felt a second season was a guarantee unless the show was an unprecedented bomb. HBO is very concerned with providing quality shows that gain critical success, and I think GoT can attain that and be popular; how popular remains to be seen.

Season two will be the challenge though, considering the cast will be…slight different and the inclusion of a pretty big battle scene.

Two Feathers: Thanks for info on Amazons rep. Didn`t know they made shit up.

They’re not making it up with malicious intent. Unless a lot has changed in five years, you can’t list book in the catalog with a null value. Usually, though, these added dates will have a ridiculously long lead time. For example, January 1st, 2010 used to be used a lot back in the early 2000′s.

A more specific date is usually gotten from Amazon by a feed from the distributer they’re using for the specific book, usually one of the larger ones, like Ingram. Where the distributer gets the date (whether it be from the publisher, or whether their own systems can’t handle a null date value either) I can’t say.

I’m not speaking from direct experience with the catalog system itself, just that I’ve been involved in more than one complaint over listed release dates.

HBO might be in favor of holding back the book’s release until the show premieres. The publishers, however, would probably be happy with anything right now. They’d probably love releasing the book now and then releasing them again with new HBO covers when the show airs.

The good news was that he seemed to be making a bit of progress on aDWD. The bad news is that news came just before he left for his current 2 month gallivants. So who knows.

Currently, on HBO’s Youtube channel, the two GOT videos from Sunday night are at 95,000 views (Raven teaser) and 42,000 views (Production vid). The other shows they previewed on Sunday night range from around 2,000 – 4,000 views.

I’m not sure exactly what that says about the potential for GOT, but it sounds good.

To the guy who said somethin like ‘poor george’ in reference to him gettin dad out -and no offense george buddy its your career and your life, you work on what you want pal- but seriously, fuck that. Hed have DOD and the nex one out i bet if hed quit sidetracking off on those ridiculous short story, comic, ect ect and all that bullshit aide work and work on his moneymaker, his real seller – this series. No offense again george, but all that short story collabs he does is lame lame lame. Cut back on the traveling to fairs and shit all over the place too every 2 days( which im sure a lot of that isnt his choice if the pub says GO) but still. I had hoped hbo picking this up would give him a new fire, ya know? I think he was getting burnt out on it and before i hears abou all thia when it started, i treated it like just another great series that would painfully never see the end

AGOT has a great chance of a successfull seven year run because of GRRM’s great source material. Many of the truly great HBO series mentioned in this thread did not continue, despite much begging by fans and studios alike, because the writers were fresh out of ideas or too exhausted to continue. Consider launching a series of this magnitude with only one season’s worth of material. Imagine the writer’s internal stress to complete his/her vision for the story and the fortitude necessary to resist the demands from fans, studio execs, investors and anyone else with an opinion to change the material. Thankfully, that is not our problem. It is known – and written (mostly).

Winter Is Coming: WhoIsJacopoBelbo?, Narwen from 7kingdoms.ru made this for me. Don’t know where she got the font, but it’s pretty cool!    

did she “make” it or did she find the one that HBO is using for the series title. because it looks the same to me? maybe they are using a font she made? or they both found the same font? i am just curious about what the font is because i am a bit of a font nerd.

About the release on the books and so on. GRRM has said in his blog that he is working on the next book alongside noting the last books. Like if he writes in bulk :p So I guess a Dance with Dragons will come early 2011, and then the last books on a row with 1-2 years between. (I hope)

Talking second season? Good. I can begin again canvassing for my guy the Blackfish to have a decent actor playing him, and decent scenes. Also Edmure.

Personal interests aside, I believe that right now, the more we talk about GOT on our blogs, sites, Facebook, Twitter, etc, the more support the series will receive and the more chance it will have to be renewed also for a third season and… who knows.

GameOfThronesJoe: You will know Mance Rayder before dusk falls this time next week.GameofThronesJoe  Quote  Reply

Cool, looking forward to that. Good luck man,,your the Daddy.

I may sound like an idiot here, but the waiting is half the fun for me. For years and years we are awaiting the faiths of Jon, Tyrion, Dany and all the others. Everyday I check the blog and in the meantime I’ve read all his other non-aSoIaF books. Daily discussions on different fora are ongoing as we speak. I don’t think this would be the case if everything was wrapped up in 5 years. I must admit that with waiting this long the discussions are mostly repeats but nonetheless they stay interesting.

We don’t have any influence on George’s writing speed, so it’s no point getting frustrated over it. I have mastered that simple lesson (no influence=no frustration) except for my favourite sporting teams…

Wastrel,

That was well said. Gaiman’s pointed comment is appropriate to particularly belligerent / insulting hecklers. But it shouldn’t be trotted out and referred to every time a person acknowledges out loud that GRRM has been having some trouble meeting (his own!) publishing goals, and that we as paying customers hope the business transaction can be finished soon.

GRRM, all best wishes. Thanks. And good luck meeting (your own) publishing goals.

Meanwhile, the rush of video, set pics, and blog attention we’ve seen in the past 5 days is unbelievable!! A great time to be a non-beligerent / non-insulting fan!

Knurk: I do see your point of view. I DO like waiting for (some) books. Waiting for the WoT books, for instance, was the best thing about them; I enjoyed the online theorising more than the books at one point, I think.

But for me, there’s a limit to that. Wait a year, that’s fine, I don’t notice. Wait two years, I get agitated, that’s fun. Wait three years, I’m devouring everything online. That’ great.

Wait ten years, and there’s nothing left. I stopped reading the AFFC forum at Westeros five years ago probably, barring the odd reaction-to-an-update (and then they banned reacting to updates so I stopped altogether – when the updates are the only new material what else are we meant to talk about?). I’ve heard every sane and many of the insane theories. Every word has been discussed and debated to death. There’s just nothing more I can actively do with ASOIAF in my head other than mutter darkly and complain about it. [Note: not true anymore, due to the series, but you get the point]. The fact that I’m annoyed is a good thing for Martin.

Because if I weren’t annoyed, then after ten years I’d have filed the books away as ‘something I read once’ and stopped caring about them. When the next one came out, I might have bought it, I might have not, who knows, I’d probably have said ‘I can wait a little longer’ and then never stopped waiting. I’ve done that with authors before. Maybe other people are different, but for me, the characters have to be alive for me for me to want to go out and buy the next book. And after ten years of repeating their actions and rehearsing their futures, they’re not alive for me anymore. All that’s left is this (partly self-created) agitation of “when is the gods-damned book coming out???”, which of course carries with it the flipside of a promise to buy the thing if ever it does come out.

If I stop being annoyed by the delay, it’ll be because I don’t care about when the delay ends anymore. And since I WANT to care, right now I WANT myself to want to finish the series, I keep the last, slightly bitter embers of my emotional commitment artificially stoked.

Here’s that link, wasn’t included last time for some reason:

Your “link” button don’t work for me, obviously.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/FAQ/Entry/What_happened_to_the_five_year_gap_that_was_supposed_to_follow_ASoS/

the goat: Steve B,
If you have a link to that publisher’s interview, I’d love to read it. I’ve never heard (from GRRM or otherwise) that he had to scrap a bunch of ADWD chapters because it was going to slow, but it would certainly explain some of the delay.

Here’s some links to check out– Hmmm….. well, I can’t get the links to work, but here’s where you can fish on google–

Pat’s Fantasty Hotlist is the name of the first website. This is from the guy that interviewed GRRMs editor. The stuff re: ADWD is farther down on the page.

This is the important bit–

Many fans have been wondering why it should take this long for the author to write this new book, what with 50% of it having been completed already. Rumors have been circulating that GRRM did scrap some portions of what he had when they decided to publish AFfC in its current format. Well, unfortunately that’s not hearsay. It appears that GRRM did cut some chunks out of the original manuscript and has been tinkering with a few things. Hence, he didn’t truly have 50% of it done with and ready to go. Which explains the slower than expected progress for A Dance with Dragon

The Wertzone, a blog (run by Adam Whitehead, a regular poster on here), has a very detailed post re: ADWD called “A Defence of Dragons”. In it, he discusses all this, and provides a link to GRRM’s notablog, where he talks about basically rewriting all of Jon’s chapters, as well as the Fantasy Hotlist discussed above. There it’s also discussed how Martin wanted to stop the “creep” of the series into more and more books.

Now, I didn’t read a blog post from Martin directly, so it’s all second hand, but the implication was that the narrative was moving too slowly, and that he wanted to pick things up a bit. If Adam Whitehead sees this post, perhaps he can illuminate it a bit. But what I’ve seen is three things 1) alot of ADWD being rewritten 2) wanting to stop the “creep” of the series into more volumes, and 3) the desire to rewrite Jon’s chapters that were originally going to be in AFFC…. and related them to each other. It’s not some direct causality that I’ve seen spelled out word for word, but the implication seemed pretty clear. To me atleast.

Hope all that was helpful. I found the reading very interesting myself.

The idea from The Wertzones post is that Martin was concerned the series was getting too long- “creeping” slowly, volume by volume, into a series that was much longer than he originally thought it would be. I think the quote went something like Martin being concerned about the “creep” from 3 to 7- the implication being he didn’t want it to get longer.

Knurk,

By “slowing the creep” he is referring to his attempts to halt the unplanned expansion of his story. A Song of Ice and Fire started as a projected trilogy after all and is currently planned for seven books. He doesn’t want it expanding to eight if he can help it, and thus his efforts to rewrite material rather then put it off till the next book…er, the book after the next, that is.

Steve B,

Thanks homey. As far as links go, apparently the best way is just to cut and paste the url, even though they have a link button and instructions how to wrap tags. I heart technologie.

Its kinda funny, I’m pretty sure most authors would call all these delays, “writing.”

Whatever. This is nothing compared to what’s gonna happen once the series explodes all over the faces of the masses, and then they find out George hasn’t finished the story. The whole interwebz might shut down.

Graskell: Damn it, Ninja’d    

Lol

Steve B,

No prob.

Oh wait, did I forget to mention that this will be the greatest television show in the history of television shows. Y’know, because its true.

SKYCELLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:)

I am so looking forward to these scenes. I’d been fearing that perhaps HBO wouldn’t do them right, because they manage to convey so well that sense of “group of scared kids pulling together.” Arya’s chapters always make for some good reading, and I’m not sure her storyline will have the same impact with an aged-up Gendry like we’ve got, so I’m certainly hoping they at least get Lommy and Hot Pie right, and don’t cast too old.

But I don’t know if HBO is going to feel up to entrusting such great material to young kids…

the goat,

Since we are blue-skying happily on this topic, in the unlikely scenario (I hope) that the HBO series would outpace GRRM and it was still storming along, D&D could theoretically retain GRRM 9 for $$$) to write a Season outline pre-empting the books without cannibalizing sales. That is: GRRM could write plotlines for the other writers on the series that was detailed enough to make up 10-13 episodes and most probably not negatively effect the sales of the book itself when it did appear. With GRRM’s unique background, he could do it. He could even do it and not have the show track the books at all. A parallel universe.