A Song of Ice and Fire 'Won't Be Finished' if George RR Martin Dies Before He Completes It

I think the majority of A Song of Ice and Fire fans have accepted that the books will never be completed. It’s been 15 years since George R.R. Martin released A Dance with Dragons and the wait for The Winds of Winter has been interminable. Following that clunker of a final season of Game of Thrones, there seems to be a distinct lack of enthusiasm for that story. There’s always hope, of course, but we know how to read the signs.

Martin is clearly sick of being asked about it. Wouldn’t you be? He’s never stopped writing and he’s remained active in the SFF scene, but all anyone wants to know about is The Winds of Winter. Where is it? Does it even exist? Has there really not been a new ASOIAF book since Obama was President? Fans are impatient and the lack of a new book is now as long-running a pop culture joke as waiting for Grand Theft Auto 6. Hey, it gives Patrick Rothfuss a break from all those nerds’ questions, at least.

GRRM is the cover story for the current edition of The Hollywood Reporter, tying in to the release of HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Discussing his lack of progress on the next book in the series — he said he’s about 1,100 pages in, but he said that in 2022 when he was on Colbert’s show — he admitted, ‘It would feel like a total failure to me’ if he never finished it. He’s now 77 and the older he gets, the weirder and blunter the questioning gets. Some have wondered if he’ll let someone else finish the series if he dies before that, which is a morbid question to keep asking someone. Hey dude, you’re old and slow, so what are you going to do about it?! Well, Martin says that the series simply ‘won’t be finished’ if that happens. ‘It’ll be like The Mystery of Edwin Drood, he said, referring to Charles Dickens’ last and incomplete novel.

Sorry, Brandon Sanderson. You can hang up now.

Honestly, I dig this. Yeah, I’m not a die-hard ASOIAF fan so it’s not like I have any skin in the game, but I respect GRRM for not wanting to relinquish his own work, even in death. If I was constantly asked the questions he’s dealt with for years, I’d be tempted to set my manuscript on fire and let those babies go home empty-handed. Oh, you’re not-so-subtly hoping I die so that some hack can take over and rush out an ending? You get nothing. You lose. Good day, sir!

That said, I do hope he finishes it, if only for his own satisfaction. Committing to a project that grand and letting it get away from you is so damn relatable, and I’m always rooting for an author to achieve the impossible. Personally, I’m hoping he hands in a 1,200 page sequel to the Beauty and the Beast show with Ron Perlman that he wrote for in the late-1980s. A girl can dream.