No more Game of Thrones

Vox Day is reporting that a CDan rumor that suggests George "Rape Rape" Martin has privately confirmed to friends that he has no intention of finishing his series.

CDAN reports that George RR Martin is not going to finish A SONG OF FIRE AND ICE.

This permanent A list author has told a few close friends that he never intends on finishing a long awaited book series.

It’s no surprise at this point. All authors, sooner or later, lose their literary fastball, usually around the age of 70 or so. Martin is 75, he is in poor health, he has more money than he can reasonably spend in his lifetime, and he has no children, so he has literally nothing to gain from finishing a story that has already been concluded, however unsatisfactorily, in the television format.

He knows that the fans don’t like his intended end to the saga, so what’s the purpose of devoting several of his last remaining years to torturing himself in order to finish a story that he knows the fans will not find satisfying?

As a reader, I completely sympathize with the firestorm of fury that will likely greet the realization that the saga has already been effectively concluded. But as an author, I can’t honestly say that Martin’s rumored decision is not the right one. Martin knows that his latter books in the series don’t live up to the first two, and I have no doubt he’s well aware that what he’s written since will be widely criticized as sub-par. Better not to publish than publish that which can only detract from his respectable literary legacy.

However, fans of the series need not worry overmuch. There is no way his publisher is walking away from a gold mine that is so easily mined, so I expect that after his death, the publisher will convince whoever ends up with the rights to permit the hiring of a writer to finish the series ala Brandon Sanderson and The Wheel of Time. 

Personally, I don't care. Halfway through the first novel, I got too busy to finish, and I never wanted to go back, because—frankly—the book was pretty creepy and suspect. The tone, the gratuitous rape and violence, especially against children, etc. was a major put-off. And given everything, I'm glad that I never got invested in it very much. As a therefore passive and dispassionate outside observer, I think Vox is completely correct to suggest that from Martin's perspective, he really has literally nothing to gain by finishing. (And given how long it's been, I've privately believed for years already that he wasn't going to finish.) He's also correct to observe that readers who are invested are likely to be unhappy, but the possibility of a Brandon Sanderson-esque finish after Martin's death, which could come much sooner than many people think, is probably a much better solution than Martin finishing it himself, honestly. Perhaps ironically, the best result from a fan's perspective is to hope that Martin kicks the bucket sooner rather than later.