Write like the wind, George!

George R.R. Martin's fans have been waiting impatiently since 2011 for the next entry in his fantastically successful Song of Ice and Fire saga. Of course, long-time Martin fans have grown accustomed to waiting. Maybe it is those newcomers among us (like me) who only discovered him after the start of the HBO series Game of Thrones who really haven't absorbed the lessons of the last seventeen years.

As all true fans know, Song of Ice and Fire was conceived as a seven book saga. The first entry in the series, which was entitled Game of Thrones, was published in 1996. It took only two years for the next book, A Clash of Kings, to gestate. And then two more years for A Storm of Swords to reach the salivating fandom. But then things slowed down.

The books got longer and (if possible) even more complicated and it took five years before A Feast for Crows saw the light of day.  But that was as nothing compared to the SIX YEARS that it took to produce A Dance with Dragons which came out in 2011.  As soon as that book was out, the watch was on, somewhat like the one for Kate and William's royal baby, but with a lot longer gestation period and a lot less patience.

The latest word from the author and publisher is that the sixth entry, The Winds of Winter, will be out next year, 2014. We'll see.

Meanwhile, the geek world is doing everything it can to encourage its favorite author, up to and including the composing of songs like this one by the duo Paul and Storm.




Poor George. It must be getting really hard for him to go out in public with people shouting at him, "Get back to your keyboard and finish the damn book!"

At least he has the consolation of his two cats, Augustus and Caligula. Hmmm...I wonder if those two inspired any of his characters.

Game-changer

I've mentioned here before that I am a Game of Thrones fan, both of George R.R. Martin's books A Song of Ice and Fire series and of the HBO series. When a book, especially long and extremely complicated books like Martin's, get adapted for the screen, there are bound to be changes. Plot lines are compressed and combined. Disparate characters are combined, their names sometimes changed. Some things get left out. Some things get added.

Although the first season of Game of Thrones on television adhered pretty closely to the storyline presented in the first book, this second season has been another matter. While the action on the screen has stayed fairly true to the spirit of book two, A Clash of Kings, important changes have been made that will only be evident to readers of the book. Some of them are disconcerting at least to some readers. Me, for example.

The scriptwriters have changed the stories of Arya, Jon, Robb, and Daenerys (not to mention Bran and Theon) in subtle and not so subtle ways. Arya, in particular, has been made cupbearer to Tywin Lannister, and this week they had Lord Baelish turning up to meet with Tywin and seeing Arya at his table. It's unclear whether he recognized her, but this never happened in the book and I'm wondering just how the writers will resolve this relationship and what effect the change might have on the future action of the story that involved characters who seem to have disappeared in the screen version.

Likewise, Jon's assignment with rangers north of the Wall, especially his meeting with Ygritte, was tweaked rather significantly in episode six that aired this week, but these changes will have to be accounted for by further changes in future episodes, as will Robb's meeting with the lady "nurse" in his camp.

But most distressing, in fact downright irritating, to me is the fact that the scriptwriters have Daenerys losing her dragons in Qarth! Again, it never happened in the book and it just seems so wrong. What are they thinking and how do they plan for her to get them back? Because we know that she has to get them back.

So many changes. Yes, the dark spirit of the tale survives intact, but with continual changes, it threatens to become another story altogether and that would not be a good thing.