During the past week, on every single news site I regularly visit, I've come across George R. R. Martin's fundraising offer: $20000 and you can die in his books1.
The cause is good ( the money is for a wolf sanctuary ), and there are other options to support, all of them would be fine except the highest prize.
I was a fairly early reader of the original Game of Thrones book and it was something new, something no one did properly before: a fantasy with very life-like happenings and twist. I've later learned that the original first book was such a massive success that Martin altered his plans to continue the story five years later with book 2 and 3 for the trilogy; instead he started writing 7 books, filling in all time. That is how the fascinatingly boring A Feast for Crows and nothing-is-actually-happening A Dance with Dragons born.
And now, his offering to alter the storyline that was supposed to be the original trilogy. The story that he said he'd written parts of a decade earlier, according to his words.
Most of the best books I've read are stories that were a whole ( more or less ) before they were written; or at least this was what their writers told about them. ( Just search for the reasons why only 7 Narnia books exist, for example. ) They offer the possibility that Star Wars did: a long, long time ago…
But not Martin. This move is clearly ruining the last remains that The Song of Ice and Fire was ever a complete story, with a beginning and an end, that was waiting to be told. No, it's something Martin decides.
It would have been nice to have the illusion.
This entry was written by Peter Molnar, and originally posted on petermolnar dot net.
