George R.R. Martin spills some ambitious details on A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight
Martin promises to write more stories for the show… just as soon as The Winds Of Winter comes out
Aux News George R.R. Martin
We like to kid George R.R. Martin around here from time to time, mostly on account of that whole “It has been 12 god damned years since the last A Song Of Ice And Fire book came out” thing. But we have to admit that it’s genuinely nice that Martin is way more communicative with his fans than a lot of authors in his position might be, often disseminating new tidbits of information through his famed “not-a-blog.”
Thus a new post from the author today, spilling some new details about new “Max” series A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. (Martin notes that the creators really wanted to get the word “knight” in the title: They succeeded!) Among other things, Martin confirmed that the first season has been fully green-lit by HBO, hypothetically running for six episodes, and covering the entirety of the novella of the same name. Martin also re-iterated that, under no circumstances was the series ever going to be referred to by its frequent name among readers, Tales Of Dunk & Egg, because, “If you don’t know the characters, DUNK & EGG sounds like a sitcom. LAVERNE & SHIRLEY. ABBOTT & COSTELLO. BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD. So, no.”
The real Martin move here, though, comes when the author asserts that he’ll also be writing more stories about Ser Duncan The Tall and his squire Egg (whose true identity HBO is apparently currently treating like a spoiler, which, fair enough) in order to provide more material for the show. Here’s Martin, whose optimism remains apparently unabated:
Before we reach the end of the published stories, I will need to find time to write all the other Dunk & Egg novellas that I have planned. There are… gulp… more of them than I had once thought. There’s “The Village Hero” and the Winterfell story, the one with the She-Wolves, and maybe I need to write that Dornish adventure too to slip in between “The Hedge Knight” and “The Sworn Sword,” and after that there are… ah… more. I just need to finish THE WINDS OF WINTER, and then do either A DREAM OF SPRING or volume two of FIRE & BLOOD, and slip in a new Dunk & Egg between each of those in my copious spare time…
(Westeros nerds: That “ah… more” has to finally be The Tragedy At Summerhall, right? One of these days, George…)
There are three Dunk & Egg novellas at present, published in 1998, 2003, and 2010, so Martin has at least a little bit of time here…especially since Max has yet to set an official premiere date for The Hedge Knight.
43 Comments
Hey, we can’t ALL be as prolific as you when it comes to writing huge bestsellers.
He has a higher rate of throughput than Thomas Harris, but Harris still managed to publish a novel (not merely a fake history/encyclopedia) more recently than him.
I was kinda stunned how few works Harris actually has. But he also spent most of his time working at an old folks home and bird watching and being a reclusive author. So ya know he’s honest. Still writes faster too.
I was unaware of him working at an old folks’ home.
Never forget… Logan Lucky came out in -2017-
This joke gets posted every GRRM article and it gets funnier and sadder in equal measures every time.
I’m probably responsible for a good percentage of those posts, too.And if it introduces anyone new to Logan Lucky, bonus!
Yes you are and if you didn’t I’d be post them. And yes, great movie worth seeing.
Winds of Winter is still *too* ambitious apparently.
I remember back in 2016 he said he had about 3 more months of writing to complete Winds of Winter…
Did he specify if the months had to be consecutive?
DUNK & EGG sounds like a sitcom
I thought it was a chain of fast food places in Westeros that served some coffee equivalent and eggs. You know, Dunkin’ Egg.
Made more sense to me than a story about some guy called Duncan Egg anyway.
Dunkin’ Eggs use to be good when they made the donuts on site
It was really good back when they made the eggs on site. Straight fron the cloaca!
Serves eggs & soldiers:
Dunkin’ Egg, starring Ben Affleck
Is he out to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia in that pic?
Just say it’s a three-season show, George, and we can all be happily surprised if you ever get more of these novellas written.
I don’t post Deadspin links anymore as a rule, but this one is evergreen:https://deadspin.com/grrm-has-no-pages-1750057530
There are unpublished chapters of Winds that have been read publicly and/or appeared on his website (“Mercy” even had parts adapted in both seasons 4 & 5). People have seen photos of his computer showing part of an Asha chapter. But having pages is a long way from having a book, particularly as he can just repeatedly throw out much of what he has to start over again.
I have read the sample chapters from WoW, and I am fully convinced that the man has written nothing of substance since 2012.
It wouldn’t shock me if all the sample chapters were stuff written during A Dance with Dragons.
The unpublished chapters of WoW are chapters he wrote for the 5th book and cut.
It’s only been *checks notes* 12 years since A Dance of Dragons. I’m sure he’ll be able to finish the final 2(?) novels before he succumbs to Death’s greedy fingers. He’s only *checks notes* 74 years old, what could possibly go wrong?
Even if you take him at his word, that still gives him five more years or so to publish Winds of Winter.
The only important article at this point is an obituary. We all know this will end like Robert Jordan. If this man couldn’t finish the book during covid he never will. Wish he’d own up to it.
Robert Caro is older, but I’m still guessing he finishes The Years of Lyndon Johnson before GRRM finishes A Song of Ice and Fire.
I fully agree and Caro is a hard worker, he also has a valid excuse that research takes forever. I will gladly read the last Johnson book as GRRM says once again that he’ll finish Winds of Winter.
It’s been more than a decade since the last Caro book… but he’s always taken a long time between books and hasn’t yet exceeded the most recent interval. GRRM, in contrast, has taken longer to write The Winds of Winter than BOTH A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons COMBINED, with each of those taking longer individually than the gap between the first & third novels. Winds is just a few years (a fraction of the time it’s already taken, with no end in sight) away from exceeding the time between all previous books in the franchise. This just resembles an asymptotic function in which GRRM writes ever more slowly while repeatedly adding books he needs to write to the point that the finish line only gets further away as you approach infinity.
There is a great New Yorker interview with Caro where the writer was 20 minutes late and Caro said that could have been 20 minutes of writing. He’s just that kind of guy. Also he has multiple Putlizers, GRRM will not be getting any.
Honestly this is HBOs fault. They keep giving this guy money to adapt what he already wrote, he’s never going to finish the other booksHonestly I still stick to the theory that the show ending is pretty much Martin’s planned ending(yes, even with all the other people in the books and shit, it turns out they don’t matter) and he’s basically been stuck for years trying to change an ending he knows everyone is going to hate.
I agree with the premise, he’s never going to finish and the show ending is his ending but the logic is faulty.The theory only explains why nothing happened on the past, looks at calendar and crap, almost 4 years since the finale.Doesn’t explain the 7 years he didn’t get Winter out before the show passed him, specifically when he said he only needed 3 months at one point.He just can’t figure out how to solve the problems the show just cut through. And he rather be beloved for what the books could be in people’s imagination rather than finish it and make something people have to critique.The truest thing Martin ever said is if he wanted to get rich he’d start a fantasy series and never finish it. He did the thing he said he’d do.
He was already slowing down before the show premiered. I think the big thing is that he’s rich enough now his publisher can’t force him to ship out whatever he’s written (hence A Feast for Crows being split from A Dance With Dragons and the latter missing its climactic battles).
I think there’s a fundamental difference between his conception of the books and the public’s. “Those characters don’t matter” only makes sense if you see “The Story” as one narrative. It’s not, though; it’s a huge collection of stories, viewpoints, and narratives, etc. Ultimately, I think his point is that The Story of some great cataclysm in fantasy series doesn’t matter, in the sense that people’s human experiences within those cataclysms are much more interesting. (Nothing worth writing about except the human heart in conflict with itself, etc etc)
I don’t think Jaime Lannister plays any role in the ultimate endgame of the prophecy or ice zombies or yada yada yada, but his face turn is probably the most satisfying character arc that I’ve read. Maybe it means nothing in terms of The Story but it’s a damn good story itself.
But I suppose this is sort of the same as arguing that Lost was actually satisfying because it was about the characters, not the mysteries. (And I do think that, but I acknowledge that the argument has been lost in the court of public opinion.)
I thought it was common knowledge that the show used Martin’s planned ending. The problem was the execution was rushed and perfunctory.
Just get the James S. A. Corey guys to either collaborate with Martin or just finish it. They have worked with Martin in the past and they have shown they can do multicharacter works on a timely basis.
Before we reach the end of the published stories, I will need to find time to write all the other Dunk & Egg novellas that I have planned.Dunk & Egg?
Wtf I love those books. Even more than the main series
It helps that they’re pretty self-contained stories, instead of being parts of a sprawling epic that can easily spiral out of control.
I really like the Dunk and Egg series – but six hours for each novella? The nice thing about them is that they are lean and focused. Six hours feels like a lot of padding is coming.
I loved…LOVED GoT, including the last 2 season. I love HotD…. I put off reading the books until after GoT finished, I wanted to enjoy the series for what it was and then consume the literature. Bought the box set, like season 4 and let it sit. Was always tempted to pick them up, but abstained.Finished it just before HotD, my God is he a shitty author. I’m sorry but, to each their own, it took some work to get through his derivative, long winded nonsense. I powered through and finished, hell I’ll read probably anything connected to canon, I’m so invested at this point.I grew up reading sword and sandles fantasy, playing D&D, my OG AOL screen name was Tasslehoff, my favorite cat was named Robert Jordan…. I’m a legit fan of the genre. I sttttrugled to get through Martins books. STRUGGLED.I could care less if he writes anymore. Would love if he let someone else pick up the series and let them have a go at it.
The show will end long before Martin finishes Winds of Winter, let’s be real.
How is the identity of Egg a spoiler? Pretty sure the story was discussed in the original GoT TV show.