It’s been 14 years since George RR Martin published A Dance with Dragons and fans are continuing to wait for the penultimate book in his A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series.
In that time, the Game of Thrones TV show has come and gone, with showrunners having to rely on the author’s plot points for the yet-to-be-written The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring, to complete the screen adaptation.
The 76-year-old occasionally gives titbit hints of his progress with The Winds of Winter on his blog and the latest post featured a blistering slamming of fans complaining about the delay and everything else that comes with it.
After mentioning other projects, Martin turned to Winds and mockingly took on the voice of the fans who are fed up of waiting, claiming he doesn’t care and expect he’s given up.
Martin wrote on his blog: “(I know, I know. Some of you will just be pissed off by this, as you are by everything I announce here that is not about Westeros or THE WINDS OF WINTER. You have given up on me, or on the book. I will never finish WINDS, if I do, I will never finish A DREAM OF SPRING. If I do, it won’t be any good. I ought to get some other writer to pinch hit for me… I am going to die soon anyway, because I am so old. I lost all interest in A Song of Ice and Fire decades ago. I don’t give a s*** about writing any longer, I just sit around and spend my money. I edit the Wild Cards books too, but you hate Wild Cards. You may hate everything else I have ever written, the Hugo-winners and Hugo-losers, A Song for Lya and DYING OF THE LIGHT, Sandkings and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, This Tower of Ashes and The Stone City, OLD MARS and OLD VENUS and ROGUES and WARRIORS and DANGEROUS WOMEN and all the other anthologies I edited with my friend Gardner Dozois, You don’t care about any of those, I know. You don’t care about anything but WINDS OF WINTER. You’ve told me so often enough). Thing is, I do care about them.”
The Game of Thrones author added: “And I care about Westeros and WINDS as well. The Starks and Lannisters and Targaryens, Tyrion and Asha, Dany and Daenerys, the dragons and the direwolves, I care about them all. More than you can ever imagine.” He concluded the post with “Current Mood: determined”. Take from that what you will.