Here's the thing that I'm sure many fantasy fans, if any of them read this, will be upset with me for: I didn't really like A Song of Ice and Fire. There, I said it. I didn't! I don't know how I'm supposed to get behind a series where everyone the author invites me to like dies! Usually at the hands of someone they trusted, or in some otherwise grueling fashion that is just heart-wrenching. And yes, I know that that is EXACTLY why many people praise his series; it does away with convention. GRRM is arguably one of the fathers of "gritty" fantasy that has come to dominate much in the fantasy scene nowadays. When a new "dark fantasy" hits the scene, it is inevitably compared to ASoIaF, although with only four books in the last ten, twelve years or so, that spot is rapidly giving way to Steven Erikson and the Malazan books. And I always kind of wonder why. The former, that is, not the latter, because that's a kettle of fish for another blog.
GRRM is a good writer, but he isn't great. He suffers from what the majority of fantasy writers do, a self-inflated, pondering tone that makes me cringe. But to his credit, it is minimal, and the storyline is often good enough to make me forget that "I'm trying really hard to be legitimate even though I've picked a field that will never be so and I'm ok with that REALLY and who the hell decided what legitimate was ANYWAY screw the literati" tone. I do like, to a certain extent, that he is willing to kill off his characters, because it does add a certain element of tension that is often missing from most fantasy. I have always been a sucker for the classic fantasy journey story, the one where there are medieval princes and princesses and evil to be destroyed and your hero always faces insurmountable odds and comes away scott-free in such a way that isn't at all realistic but hey, it's fantasy, so who cares. But even with the departure from that in A Game of Thrones where the main character *SPOILER ALERT* dies at the end, I enjoyed it. It fit the story, it made sense, even if it was sad. JK Rowling is a master at that, choosing which characters die in a fitting, believable manner without destroying everyone her audience has followed faithfully for years.
By the time Martin reached Storm of Swords, I literally couldn't go on. It took me two tries to finish that book, and I never have finished the last currently published novel, A Feast for Crows. I've tried too, and I'm not usually one to leave a thing unfinished. I can only read so much death, can only take so much tension, before the reading stops being enjoyable. I'm sorry, I know that that is often "how life is" (or was, in the case of fantasy), but fantasy IS partially escapism, and I don't want life to bitch slap me around and then go read about how it bitch slaps a bunch of other people around worse. Eventually it got to the point where I knew that the characters were going to die off, most likely all of them, so I thought to myself, "Why bother?" I guess he hadn't made me care enough about the living ones to see if they would make it, or maybe the copious amount of death wore me down until I couldn't actually believe that anyone would survive. And maybe in that respect he is extremely successful in recreating a medieval sense of existence in his reader, because I can believe that that was how daily life was for someone in that time. But guess what? I don't HAVE to feel like that, and when I read a novel, I do it for enjoyment, not so I can feel like everyone I knew will just end up in a gutter somewhere, or hanging off a tower, or being enslaved, or raped, or whatever.
ANYWAY! Having said all that, I am EXTREMELY excited for the debut of HBOs miniseries based on A Game of Thrones. They got some good quality actors, and the trailer is here. I don't have HBO though, so if you do, please invite me over so we can watch it! I promise it'll be good! But as with most things that I have read that make it to some form of screen, I get really excited and immediately re-read the book, not only to refresh my memory, but also so I can have the satisfaction of knowing what's coming and pointing out all the little details that are wrong. Yep, I'm that kid, and really white about it. Sue me. But I hesitate to do that with ASoIaF simply because it isn't finished. And doesn't look like it will be anytime soon.
But wait a minute, you say...haven't you been reading Wheel of Time for like, ten years? And it's not finished! Right, well, the thing with WoT is that I always knew it would BE finished. I picked that series up around 1999, right after Path of Daggers came out the year before. In the time that it took me to catch up, Winter's Heart came out in late(?) 2000. And then Crossroads of Twilight in 2002ish. And then Knife of Dreams several years later. The point is, there were three books published since I began the series, not to mention two more AFTER the author died. The last SoIaF book that was published was the aforementioned Feast for Crows, which came out in 2005. We are still waiting on A Dance with Dragons, six years later. And like any self-righteous fan, I get incredibly angry when I read Martin's haughty posts about how all the e-mails and encouragement and demands in the world won't make him go any faster. I can get behind that, really...part of being a fan is being blindly devoted and ravenously devouring of all the work related to your fandom, and with that comes a callousness to anything but what the author can provide, his product, and not his life as a person. As a Stephen King fan as well, I have been lectured on this by the author numerous times. But I think that, when you write something that is obviously meant for popular consumption, when you develop a fan base that is so devoted, you inherit a certain amount of responsibility TO that fan base. I would be angry, but understanding, if Martin had truly been working non-stop on this thing for the last six years and things in his life had simply gotten in the way. It happens. The thing that pisses me off, though, is that he's written whole other books within that time frame! He's been traveling to cons, and writing reviews, etc...part of his career, blah blah blah. In fact, he wrote a a very angry message a few years ago to people like me that don't like that he can take the time to do all this other stuff, but not find time to finish a series that thousands of people are clamoring for.
Yes, he has a life and a career that is not ONLY about this one thing. I get the feeling that he kind of hates it now, or else why would it take him so long to fall back into it? Every writer I've ever read of a long series expresses that love/hate thing, but the common thread in all of them is that it is like coming home when they pick it back up. It never feels like work, really, even when it is. I don't get that feeling from Martin in his posts, I merely sense a hostile, pressured man who is doing this because he is contractually obligated. I could be wrong, I don't know him personally, of course, but hey; it's like being a celebrity. When you choose that career, you must understand that the trade off is never ending prying into your personal life. You have a responsibility to be the public figure YOU YOURSELF chose to be. Should it be like that? Probably not, but if you want to be a movie star, you have to accept the culture that goes with it because it is a reality. And it's the same, to a much lesser extent, with authors. Except fans don't care at ALL about your personal life, and only about the lives of the characters you have chosen to bring to life. It isn't fair, at all...but it IS the nature of the beast. And when you decide to bring your vision to light, when you decide to take this creative impulse and give it to the masses, you implicitly accept the responsibility of providing to that fan base. You can choose to end it, of course, and NOT give the fans what they crave...he could leave ASoIaF unfinished forever. But he'll lose lots of fans, and therefore money, and I doubt he would even be creatively satisfied, because at that point it'd be like cutting off your nose to spite your face, wouldn't it?
Ah well....if any of his much more devoted fans read this and are offended, I'm sorry, but you know, that's kind of the point of a blog, isn't it? To express your feelings, regardless of how others might react? Good luck, GRRM...I hope you rediscover the passion that led you to create Westeros, and forgive your fans their disregard for you as a person. To a certain extent, you are the god that created this world, and gods are ever impersonal and resented among the mortals. Such is the price.
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