George R.R. Martin Laments the Loss of Carrie Fisher and Richard Adams

(Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)

2016 has been a no good awful year, in terms of celebrity deaths. With the deaths of beloved musicians like George Michael, David Bowie and Prince, and actors such as Game of Thrones‘ Peter Vaughan, Alan Rickman, Anton Yelchin, Gene Wilder, and Alan Thicke, as well as astronaut John Glenn, boxing icon Mohamed Ali, and golf legend Arnold Palmer, it seems as if 2016 has been the year that we’ve lost everyone. Now, with Tuesday’s tragic news that Star Wars actress, Carrie Fisher passed away from complications after suffering a massive heart attack on her flight from London to Los Angeles last week, 2016 will go down as the year the Grim Reaper had its way with Hollywood.

Many celebrities have taken to social media to express their grief over the loss of these great entertainers, and George R.R. Martin is no different, as he published a new post on his Not a Blog expressing his sadness over not only the loss of Carrie Fisher but Watership Down author, Richard Adams, as well.

"There is not much I can say about the death of Carrie Fisher that a thousand other people have not said already. She was way too young. A bright, beautiful, talented actress, and a strong, witty, outspoken woman. Princess Leia will live as long as STAR WARS does… probably forever…"

Martin then talked, at length, about Richard Adams, and what the author’s work meant to him:

"Adams was a wonderful writer. Yes, WATERSHIP DOWN was his masterpiece, but it was by no means his only great book. He wrote two terrific epic fantasies with human characters, SHARDIK and MAIA, both of which I think are criminally underrated, as well as an erotic ghost story, THE GIRL ON A SWING. His other “animal book,” THE PLAGUE DOGS, also has some wonderful sections… though it is such a dark, depressing, angry, gut-punch of a novel that I can’t say I ‘enjoyed’ it."

In a year filled with unexpected celebrity deaths, Adams passed away at the age of 96, peacefully and surrounded by his family. Fisher, on the other hand, passed away in the ICU at Ronal Reagan  UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.

While Richard Adams may not have been considered a celebrity, his books helped shape the minds of young readers and writers the world over. In fact, Watership Down is being made into a four part mini-series to be aired on BBC One and streamed by Netflix in 2017, with Star Wars: The Force Awakens star, John Boyega voicing the character of Bigwig.

Carrie Fisher recently finished her scenes for Star Wars: Episode VIII, so we know that we will get to see her on the big screen at least one last time when the film premieres worldwide in December of 2017. What we don’t know is if General Leia will make it through Episode VIII, and if she does, then Colin Trevorrow, the director of Episode IX, will have to use the same CGI work that Rogue One director Gareth Edwards used in bringing the late Peter Cushing’s Star Wars character, Grand Moff Tarkin, back to life. Here’s to hoping we don’t lose anyone else, this year, and that 2017 is much easier on our beloved celebrities.