I don’t think he’ll ever put out another book in the series.
I’m not worried about HBO. I’m sure they have considered for this likelihood… um, I mean… possibility. I’m sure they have writers who can finish better than “the Meister” and I’m sure they have contractual permission to have them do it. They would have been idiots to take this into production with no assurance that it would or could be finished.
I did a recent re-read of the series, and I found that I was overly harsh on Book 4. It’s actually quite a fantastic book, which goes far deeper into what the war is doing to the people of the Kingdom and the results of that, as well as a ton of character development on Jamie and Brienne. I found it to be one of the best books in the series. I found the first 2/3rd of Book 5 on re-read as pretty dull, but the last 1/3rd the action started revving up and it got to quite a good original trilogy level.
I’m not sure exactly how anyone’s surprised; at the rate of 1 season = 1 book (what we’ve seen thus far), we were going to pass it in season 6 or 7 for sure.
And really, after a certain point in season 4, the inclusion/omission of story lines and characters started to telegraph a bit more than I was willing to endure, since I’m a book-first kind of guy. So I watched the first couple episodes of S5 and decided that I’d just wait it all out.
He has already done so, as was widely reported several years ago.
Why only the show? He clearly has no joy in writing this series anymore. Theres no shame in that but he should just pass the ball and collaborate with another writer to finish it based on his outline and feedback. Then he can enjoy being a rockstar at cons and his fans can also be happy.
I agree about the quality of the books. Fourth being pretty dire, I call it “A feast for editors” personally.
I wasn’t that bothered about the show overtaking the book until Season 5 of the show. They made some appalling decisions in that season and I lost a LOT of respect for the show.
So when they do spoil the books like the major changes in S5, they’ll do it very badly. They’ve shown themselves to be completely illogical and terse in their changes to the show. Sure they had to speed some things up, I don’t disagree with that, but they just did it with the style and panache of a 12 year old fanboi.
they can just make more filler stories of training and raising your power level and learning to drive a car and whatnot until the books catch up
this reminds me of when bands/singers make it big they tend to take longer breaks in putting out new music. I guess in that case they are not putting out music more often just to make a fast buck.
Who will be the Henry Ford of Westeros, I wonder?
An Oct. 2013 NPR story on the movie theater Martin bought and refurbished in Santa Fe: George R.R. Martin, Author And ... Movie-Theater Guy? : NPR
I read something a while ago that said the publisher wasn’t even planning to have Winds of Winter out until 2017 anyway.
What makes you think he only has a little time left? I don’t know anything about any health issues he may have - are there known issues? But if it’s just his age, he’s 67. Not exactly young, but he could live another 30 years or more.
There’s just two more books, right? I really hope he finishes. I mean, it’s his life’s work/legacy even if he doesn’t “love” it anymore (which I don’t think has been substantiated - seems to just be speculation here based on the fact that he’s going so slow).
You’ve seen pictures of him, right? While being a 300-pound 67 year old isn’t a death sentence, I wouldn’t count on his arteries being in great shape.
Yeah, I think his last book was his last book.
saw where he said these next 2 would be 1500 pages each. I guess the success has really gone to his head.
I assume the publisher has suggested he break the books up but he rejected that idea.
He seemed bored with the books after the first one. I met him at WorldCon that year, and he showed a lot more interest in talking about Armageddon Rag than he did Game of Thrones.
I might very well get tired of discussing my most famous books 1 million times 
Didn’t the TV show veer away from the books like a year ago? I never saw the show, but I did see a list of characters that were dead on the show and alive in the books, and vice versa.
It did veer away, but generally tracked the same plot points. In general the show tightened up the story line and dropped huge, pointless arcs.
The show’s never tracked the novels all that tightly- there have always been characters left out, plotlines omitted, etc…
But in the past season or two, it’s starting to telegraph stuff that’s beyond the end of the last book with their additions and omissions.
Part of the charm so far for me is not having a clear sense of where everything’s going. I mean, we all think we have an idea of where it might ultimately end up, but we don’t know for sure, and we certainly don’t know very many people’s roles in it.
So by pruning whole story arcs and characters, it sends a signal to those of us who both read and watched that those arcs are ultimately not important.
That’s why I quit watching; I want to read the books first, and not have a preconceived notion of what happens based on the TV show, and then read 4000 pages to find out that it’s different in many important respects.