'Game of Thrones' author says latest installment delayed

He would fit right in as a manga writer. Fans always want more from their favorite authors then they can provide.

Changing the words slightly from a quote I read by a musician, "the book won't be good when it's ready, the book will be ready when it's good". Sucks to wait (I've been waiting years), but if it takes a little longer in order for him to get it right, then that's what it takes.

Will the show, then, get ahead of the novel?

It already did at the end of the last season.

Thus making the old joke about him not writing true for one more year.

This was always going to happen. ASOIAF isn't Harry Potter drivel that can be mass produced within a year so it's understandable it will take a good 5+ years

It doesn't matter once you're as big (reputation-wise) and famous as people like him are, and the demand is only growing stronger. People will wait, and if the end product is better for the wait, then you can't ultimately complain. And hey, it means you get to enjoy it (if you enjoy that) for that much longer once you get it.

The problem is, I'm the kind of person who is worried the author might die before they finish their series. That would be the worst thing to happen IMO.

Woah, how totally expected! I seem to remember him being "nearly finished" with the last two novels about 10 years ago, when "A Feast For Crows" was released...

The problem is, I'm the kind of person who is worried the author might die before they finish their series.

Me too! And if you look at Martin, he's not exactly young and spry. I definitely worry.

There was a series called the Wheel of Time that I used to read as a teenager. It ended up being 14 or 15 books, but the last one had to be written by someone else, because the author died. He left notes on what was supposed to happen, but its not the same as if it were written by the author himself.

@smithinjapan

That isn't true. When the demand is strong enough, wheels can't be stopped.

The running man. Stephen King: "I have no idea, what will happen next. This isn't the story I wrote."

Tora! Tora! Tora!. Writer: Akira Kurosawa (uncredited).

The Hobbit. Peter Jackson: "The writers haven't done the script yet. Could I now stop the shooting, please? I can't? Okay, I write it myself while I direct these movies, but it won't be good."

He will die before he finishes this.

It's already turning into a bit of a novel form of a Lost or BSG, both of which started out strong but then became so convoluted that there was no way to end them well. He can't possibly write himself out of the corner he's backed into; there are just too many loose ends. It was obvious by about book 3. Even before that. He was a tv writer in his earlier days. Think soap operas, they just have to keep going and going and going.