Martin is very actively involved in this series, and I think it shows. He has (or rather, as a writer, had) a good sense of pacing, plot and keeping audience interest, and when he's not left completely to his own devices (i.e., someone at HBO says, "Okay, this has to be in final form by Thursday - just do it" ), I think he works better. He has a wealth of experience in screenplays and I think he needs someone kicking him with hard deadlines all the time or else he'll just end up wasting his time painting knights and watching football.

I moved my Martin books into basement storage, the place where books go to die a long and anguished death in my home. I've already decided that Martin is a screenwriter for a wonderful TV series called Game of Thrones on HBO, and don't really care what he does as an author anymore.