Kevin's Watch

Not sure why it isnt showing my name now? or on the above
Cail

Did you log in?

This is the first time I've heard the Dance with Dragons flashback anecdote. Hopefully there is some truth in that, and Book Five won't take until 2010 to be published.

What was the source of this story? Does anyone know?

And I do agree and don't agree with Cail (He, Stee.)

Martin IS overweight. He's probably okay for now, but down the road, with the assumption that it will be many years before he completes SoIaF, I could see it impacting his health and by extension, his ability to finish his monumental tale.

So how about a few more salads, Double R? For your legions of fans if nothing else?

Yeah didnt realize i wasnt logged pn at the time.'
Cail

NEWBIE!!!!!

The story comes from Martin himself, and those in close contact with him, over at the Martin board called A Song of Ice and Fire.
He apparently didn't realize that the flashbacks weren't working until he was writing A Dance with Dragons, hence the decision to write A Feast for Crows.
During the time period since the release of ASOS, he also completed a novella for the Legends 2 anthology and edited a very very large volume of his short stories, which was made available on a specialty press.
Nonetheless, the last time he updated his website, for AFFC he had completed:
41 chapters
8 additional partial chapters
911 manuscipt pages
So the man is chugging along. He says he can finish his saga in three more books, his lady Parris says four...obviously book five has been plotted out, and partially written...and I have not heard so much of a whisper about any health problems. I really wouldn't worry about him not finishing, other than by an act of God (accident, car crash, etc.) which could happen to anyone...

Incidentally, the 3-4 book count does include AFFC.

Thanks for the info, Duchess.

Well, it isn't just Martin's health, it's MINE. I hope I'm around to see the end of the danged thing.

Well, that makes two of us then.

Incidentally, I have not read The Dark Tower series yet. I have heard that it is a great piece of writing, and I have also heard that it will be finished and in print later this year. So I am waiting until the last book is published to start it. It will be a joy to start a fantasy series that is completed. I don't even want to think about all the partial series I am in the middle of...

Yes, Duchess, the seventh and final volume of Dark Tower will be published Sept. 21. So you have quite a treat awaiting you in a few months.

Can't wait for AFFC? Here's a great suggestion!!!!!!!!!! If you've seen "What Fantasy/Sci-Fi are you reading now?" You may know that I'm almost done with John M. Ford's The Dragon Waiting.

If you are a serious ASOIAF fan you must, I repeat MUST read this book!!!-It's been out since '83 or so and is very easy to find in used book stores. As ASOIAF fans know Martin based a good deal of his series on The War of the Roses. And I swear Martin must have been inspired by this book too. Billed as A Masque of History a Welsh wizard enlists a Greek mercenary, a German vampire and a scalding female Medicci (Italy, Florence) doctor in the service of Richard Plantagenet against his whacked brother Edward, King of England and the Byzantine Empire.

If I told you any more I'd really be spoiling-just let me tell you two things-Ford is a brilliant and highly economical writer-he can paint a phenomenaly vivid scene in two sentences! Not only is this required reading for ASOIAF fans but every afficiando of high, adult, fantasy needs to read this book! I was kinda skeptical about alternate histories too, but this book has seriously changed my mind. One last thought:

Another addition to my ever-expanding 'saved for later' list on Amazon...
Ooh, it's a Fantasy Masterwork...

Roland of Gilead wrote:In Stephen King's book, Danse Macabre, he states that any professional author who can't produce a novel in six years is "just dicking around." Martin is now two-thirds of the way there, with no signs of completion in the near future.

Hmmm. I say that any author who is taking more than six years to finish a book is probably not concerned with what a glorified movie script writer thinks.

As I recall (and I haven't read Danse Macabre since the early eighties), King was actually referring to an author like J. D. Salinger, but the principle works for Martin, too.

I'm a huge fan of SoIaF . . . but this interminable delay while we peruse his website and see that he's attending X number of conventiona and workshops is getting on my last nerve.

King is, in my opinion, only a mediocre script writer, by the way. But as a novelist and short story writer and essayist, he's unrivaled.

Back to Song of Susannah.