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Re: I'm always amused by these threads. Werthead Send a noteboard - 25/09/2010 05:04:56 PM
He shouldn't be doing this to us yet he is


Martin's argument would be that if he had kept the release date promise and released the book in 2006/07, it would not have been very good, and he took the decision to go back on his promise to make the book a lot stronger, rewriting about 98% of it from scratch. Fair enough, his PR and communication about that sucked donkey balls and he should be criticised for that (and has been, at tedious length), but the artistic decision seems valid.

Of course, if ADWD comes out and it's rubbish, or if somehow an earlier draft from three or four years ago leaks out and turns out to have been really good, that's another issue, since GRRM will have been proven wrong. But at the moment we simply don't know if that decision will have been vindicated or not. Certainly if ADWD had been released in 2007 and was as weak or even weaker than AFFC, people would now be very angry about that instead, so it appears to be a no-win scenario.

and for that, he will lost a good deal of his audience because they'll stop caring. I still want to find out what happens so I'll buy the books. It's the people who stop complaining and move on who will not support him. If he keeps this up much longer, he'll have a fan base half the size of what it was.


This has never happened to any major fantasy author, though, not even when the wait massively eclipses ADWD's. In SF, maybe David Gerrold who's coming up on 20 years between books in his CHTORR series has suffered this, but that series was nowhere near as massive as any of these fantasy ones and most people have now forgotten it existed. Melanie Rawn, whose sales are extremely modest by Martin's standards (and GRRM is not amongst the biggest-selling fantasy authors overall, though his per-book sales are impressive), is still getting a lot of flak over her CAPITAL'S TOWER series (12 years between volumes and counting) and the final book, when it appears, will likely be a huge seller.

Maybe GRRM will be the first author to see this kind of sales backlash, but the history of the genre and the forthcoming massive boost in sales that will result from the TV series (even if the TV show's success is relatively limited) make it extremely unlikely.
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Because George R.R. Martin does everything but write these days... - 22/09/2010 04:15:04 AM 2011 Views
I don't hate him. But, like you, I'm fed up with him. - 22/09/2010 04:47:31 AM 1051 Views
I'm pretty much in the same camp as you and Tom. - 22/09/2010 06:17:53 AM 1154 Views
I'm beginning to agree. - 22/09/2010 09:55:07 AM 1051 Views
I do like Neil Gaiman's writing, though. *NM* - 22/09/2010 10:01:24 AM 444 Views
I can forgive you. *NM* - 22/09/2010 02:08:46 PM 481 Views
Not only is he a writer, but he has really only one successful series. - 23/09/2010 03:40:30 AM 960 Views
Far more people watched B&B than have read ASoIaF. - 23/09/2010 07:01:22 PM 1146 Views
good point *NM* - 22/09/2010 08:07:16 AM 550 Views
Wait a minute... - 22/09/2010 11:33:37 PM 1088 Views
bahahahahahahahahaha - 22/09/2010 06:10:26 AM 1063 Views
I was in an odd mood last night - 23/09/2010 03:36:46 AM 919 Views
Hahaha - 22/09/2010 01:24:17 PM 1045 Views
I'm not sure I'd be dictating chapters from my deathbed - 23/09/2010 03:35:43 AM 941 Views
I was thinking the same things a couple days ago - 22/09/2010 02:22:49 PM 1179 Views
I'm not sure Brandon Sanderson could finish the series, either. - 23/09/2010 03:33:52 AM 961 Views
Sadly, I would be satisfied with this. - 23/09/2010 03:01:04 PM 1063 Views
If I was an author I wouldn't defend him. - 22/09/2010 03:35:17 PM 1042 Views
Martin is not the only one... - 02/10/2010 08:16:51 AM 1034 Views
If he had only ever written stand-alone books... - 22/09/2010 03:42:48 PM 1035 Views
There is more than an expectation. - 23/09/2010 03:30:32 AM 1023 Views
You know whenever the new book is ever released, it'll sell even more copies due to the wait, right? - 22/09/2010 11:06:37 PM 1069 Views
Bisson was already working on it when Miller died, IIRC - 22/09/2010 11:17:50 PM 1041 Views
Close enough - 22/09/2010 11:26:51 PM 1084 Views
Not neccessarily. There are plenty of series that I started but didn't finish because I lost - 24/09/2010 12:58:10 AM 892 Views
Don't mistake yourself for the average consumer - 24/09/2010 04:03:57 AM 1158 Views
Re: Don't mistake yourself for the average consumer - 24/09/2010 08:55:29 AM 1063 Views
which is why I always rant - why review a book on your blog, but not Amazon? - 25/09/2010 03:36:45 PM 993 Views
That's why I always do. - 25/09/2010 04:51:49 PM 906 Views
Re: Mostly, because I don't buy from Amazon. *NM* - 26/09/2010 12:09:03 AM 469 Views
I don't plan to read it. - 26/09/2010 03:28:02 PM 1160 Views
As I said in a previous response... - 26/09/2010 11:15:13 PM 944 Views
I only recently started reading the books - 23/09/2010 04:17:14 AM 978 Views
Re: I only recently started reading the books - 23/09/2010 03:36:17 PM 949 Views
Where's your evidence that Neil Gaiman thinks he's God? - 23/09/2010 01:31:03 PM 1009 Views
Re: Nothing wrong with him if does have a high opinion of himself. *NM* - 26/09/2010 12:11:06 AM 412 Views
I'm always amused by these threads. - 24/09/2010 08:22:54 AM 989 Views
Re: I'm always amused by these threads. - 24/09/2010 02:42:27 PM 1074 Views
So y'all just bitching? - 25/09/2010 10:31:23 AM 994 Views
Re: I'm always amused by these threads. - 25/09/2010 05:04:56 PM 926 Views
Re: This is funny beyond the telling. - 26/09/2010 12:07:40 AM 953 Views
Here's the thing... - 02/10/2010 08:23:14 AM 1322 Views

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