No, George R.R. Martin Does Not Have to “Throw You a Bone”

Why on earth is it a big deal that George R.R. Martin has not yet told us more about the state of The Winds of Winter this year?

Apparently, just because George R.R. Martin made a post last year about how he’d failed to finish The Winds of Winter, he needs to do this every year for the sake of his fans. At least, that’s according to a new article that appeared in Paste, with the creative title of “George R.R. Martin Is Not Our Bitch, But The Dude Could Throw Us a Damn Bone”. Fans will recognize the first half of the title as a quote from Neil Gaiman.

Now, our sister site, Winter is Coming, took the argument that Martin has, in fact, subtly been giving updates this whole time on his practically infamous Not A Blog, which still runs on LiveJournal. (He still even uses the mood indicator for all of his posts!) Yours truly doesn’t disagree with that argument at all. In fact, it makes perfect sense.

Honestly, and I’m about to date myself, the original Paste article reminds me of pretty much every somewhat…eager…fandom populated by the Internet generation. The article just has better spelling and grammar overall. I’ll explain.

Every once in a while, a fanwork comes by that absolutely dominates a certain fandom or the more general fandom in its genre. Fans then proceed to go absolutely mad. Groups  like Team Four Star (there’s the dating) actually have an update progression bar and answer the question right away in their FAQ.

Now, Paste likes to argue that there’s a relationship here in which GRRM actually does owe his fans something resembling an update, because, and I’ll quote here, “We buy his books, we appreciate his talent, we line his pockets”.

All of this is true. However, at the same time, there are so many more things I’d rather care about than refreshing a LiveJournal page rapidly in order to get something that I already basically know: that GRRM is still writing The Winds of Winter. Yes, it’s not fun that it’s taken him this long, but one imagines that reading things like that doesn’t really make him want to write more of the story.

Also, there are other books in the world to read. We literally have a list of 11 other science fiction and fantasy books that are definitely coming out this year.

Next: The New Books Roundup, Jan. 3

In other words, no, we don’t need a bone. Let the man write, and go read or watch something else in the meantime. Trust us. It won’t be that bad.