He asked us to be his fans, to be a part of the story, to follow him, etc. He's right, in theory GRRM could stop writing today - or release a 100-page final book in which the red comet hits Westeros and everyone dies.īut I submit that would make GRRM an asshole.īecause the entirety of his fame, fortune and notoriety is based on the notion that he - not a bunch of HBO writers and producers - would tell his whole story. Neil Gaiman thinks about it in terms of a contract: That George is under no obligation to you or me, as fans, to write another word of this series. When he took a long time between books, he told us, essentially: "Don't worry, just hang in there, the rest of the story is coming. He encouraged people (as any author would) to read his books, become fans, follow his stories. He did that and was hugely successful because the books are simply outstanding. We can't force him to finish the story on any time frame, or at all.Īt the same time, we did not ask George to start writing Game of Thrones, or to publish it and put it in bookstores, or to fuel interest in it with marketing, conventions, communication with fans, etc. Artists need to work at their own pace, and it's true that GRRM has the right to do other things with his time. We should just be thankful that he's given us some great reading, and there's no contract between us and him that by paying $10 for his books thus far, he has to meet our writing schedule.
Gaiman's argument, which the GRRM defenders here on this subreddit have basically adopted, is that George RR Martin doesn't work for us, as fans, and we don't get to dictate what he does with his time. Basically, I think Neil Gaiman's famous "George RR Martin is not your bitch" post is flawed.
I am 0% surprised by this news (if you can call it that) that TWOW is not imminent, but I think it's absurd to argue that fans who are disappointed in GRRM - or even outright upset at him - are being entitled or whiny. And in the long streams of comments I keep seeing the same pattern: Readers angrily ranting that GRRM doesn't care about his fans, that he's a jerk who doesn't give a shit, etc., followed by the "GRRM is not your bitch" crowd criticizing the criticizers. There sure are a lot of posts flying around this week about the (completely unsurprising) news that TWOW is not about to be released and that the show is practically guaranteed to finish before the last book is released.
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