The Slothenly Author

KrKreuk's Recommended Fantasy/SF Reading

2009-11-23T17:09:29Z

Tired of rereading A Feast For Crows just to see if it gets any better on the 5th reading? Or scouring the Westeros board looking at spoilers for ADWD? Luckily for you, I have read some good fantasy books over the past years (and done both the previously mentioned things as well, sadly). In fact, fantasy is pretty much the only kind of fiction books that I read. This is because I simply enjoy escapism and getting lost in a story, and I just like fantasy books. I read current news and articles all the time as well on different subjects, but for different reasons than simple enjoyment.

Anyways, here are the books I have read over the past few years. I am grading them not on the quality of the writing necessarily, but how much I enjoyed the book. I also include books that have received good reviews across fantasy blogs or that I have heard good things about.

In no particular order within each category:

(SF denotes Science Fiction novel, O denotes older books)

Excellent (Don't miss these recent fantasy books)
The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss - Most hyped book that has been published recently. The first 15-20 years of Kvothe's life are explained, hinting at powerful battles, love, and loss to come. The story flows very well, and I enjoy the way that it doesn't hamfist all the information to you right away, rather letting things be revealed in later books.
Tigana - Guy Gavriel Kay - Kay is known as a great writer, and this stand-alone novel is no exception. A peninsula split into Roman-esque districts is ruled by two powerful wizards, and the locals must band together to overturn them. In fact, one wizard takes great strides to completely remove the name of one country from the world, an interesting and well-used idea.
The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch - Another hyped series begins with this book. Based around children thieves in a canal-laden city, the adventure and story are both very good, involving a little magic, gang lords, and treachery. The main characters are very likable, and the city very well constructed and vivid. The story stretches believability a few times, but this is fantasy after all.
The Gathering Storm - Jordan/Sanderson - Best installment in the series since book 4, although I have enjoyed most the books in the series personally. Rand is out of control, and Egwene is gaining control. Sanderson does an amazing job taking over where Jordan left off, and I can't wait for the next story. Also, Egwene is not annoying anymore, to be replaced by Tuon.
First Law Trilogy - Joe Abercrombie - Gritty fantasy series focusing on 4-5 characters going on an adventure that seems cliched like all series, but turns those cliches upside down through clever plot turns and realism. You think you know how things are going to turn out, you think you have the characters figured out, but you will be wrong. Lots of killing, cursing, and sex. Highly recommended to the ASOIAF crowd.

Good (Books that are still enjoyable to read, though with flaws)
Final Empire - Brandon Sanderson - Sanderson has a unique magic system in place, revolving around the use of metals and having to swallow said metals in order to use 'magic.'
Best Served Cold - Joe Abercrombie - Very similar to the First Law Series. I just didn't enjoy it as much as the first three books. In a book that is meant to have a lot of realism, there were too many questionable things occurring. Still, a very entertaining read.
Red Seas Under Red Skies - Scott Lynch - While the first book was based in a city, this novel mainly takes place on a ship. Not the best choice, but I still like the main characters development here. The ending set up an interesting book 3.
Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb - Not a big fan of stories that only follow one character's POV, especially if that POV is pretty closed, but this series is pretty good. The story follows a royal bastard, and his struggles growing up in a land plagued by raiders and civil unrest. Magic is light, and deals more with mind control and internal struggles than fireballs or the like.
Legend - David Gemmell (O) - 80s classic that I re-read every year. Druss is the legendary axeman who has killed thousands, and though he's now 70 years old, he must defend the castle from the savages. Most. Badass. Character. Ever.
Elantris - Brandon Sanderson - Sanderson's first published novel. In a land where people wake to find they are "dead," the prince wakes to find himself afflicted. This occurs the week before his wedding, and he is cast into an abandoned city to rot with the others with the same condition.
Enders Game - Orson Scott Card (SF, O) - Old book, but one of my favorite of all time. Have to include it in any list I make. Story of genius children going through space-ship training school to fight the alien invaders. Lord of the Ring, The Hobbit - Tolkien (O) - Godfather of fantasy. Would be in the Excellent category, but I'm reserving that for newer fantasy books. And I assume most people have read this.

Skip (Look elsewhere for fantasy pleasure)
Rhapsody - Elizabeth Haydon - If I made a section between Good and Skip, this would be in it. There is a somewhat unique magic system here, dealing with music and elements. I read the first 3-4 books in this series and thought they were pretty decent. A little too much arch-typical fantasy for me.
Raymond Feist (other than the Magician books) (O) - I like his books, but there are just better choices out there. I do recommend the first three books though, but you can probably stop there.
Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time) (O)- Such a huge commitment, and a lot of people do not enjoy the middle 6-7 books. I would probably skip this series if you aren't already invested.
A Shadow in Summer - Daniel Abraham - I couldn't get past how much he made this book realistically oriental. Very difficult to follow for me, as all names are foreign to me. Maybe you will enjoy this more than me, as this book is highly praised by many critics.
Terry Goodkind (Seeker books) (O) - Book 1 was enjoyable to me. Book 2 was not. I stopped there.
David Eddings (Belgariad, Mallorean, Elenium, Tamuli) (O)- Reading the Belgariad is ok to do. The Mallorean is pretty much exactly the same series. Elenium and Tamuli are also the same, but have different characters doing the exact same things in a different world. This is very cliched fantasy, so look elsewhere once again.
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (Dragons of XXXXXX) (O)- I read these books when I was young and really liked them. But I don't think I would like them as much anymore. Too high fantasy/good vs evil/etc for me these days.

In My "To-Read" Pile (Books I have purchased and I am currently reading/will read soon)
*Bones Doll's Twin - Lynn Flewelling
*Hyperion - Dan Simmons (SF, O)
*Acacia - David Anthony Durham
Winterbirth - Brian Ruckley
Well of Ascension - Brandon Sanderson
Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey
*currently reading

In My Amazon Wish List (Books that I have heard good reviews for or been recommended to me)
*The Price of Nothing series - R. Scott Bakker
*The Warded Man - Peter V. Brett
Nights of Villjamur - Mark Newton
*Song for Arbonne - Guy Gavriel Kay
Fionavar Tapestry Trilogy - Guy Gavriel Kay
Foundation - Isaac Asimov (SF, O)
Weavers of Saramyr - Chris Wooding
Lord Foul's Bane (O) - Stephen Donaldson
Briar King - Gregory Keyes
Foundling - D. M. Cornish
Un Lun Dun (SF) - China Mieville
Steel Remains - Richard Morgan
Live Ship Traders Trilogy - Robin Hobb
Lamentation - Kent Scholes
Drood (SF)- Dan Simmons
Drenai Tales (O)- David Gemmell
Neverwhere (SF) - Neil Gaimon
The Ten Thousand - Paul Kearney
*next to be purchased

Note: SF does not necessarily mean "Science Fiction." Several of these books could be considered fantasy. I simply mean they are set in a more modern time period than medieval times or standard fantasy novels. And it's my list, so no need to argue these kinds of points.

The authors I most want to read right now are Guy Gavriel Kay, R. Scott Bakker, and Peter V. Brett. I have heard good things about their writing, so as soon as I catch up on my other books I plan to get the collections of their novels and finish them. I also am interested in going back and reading classic fantasy/fiction books.

I wanted to say that I have NOT read any Erikson or Jim Butcher. I am probably missing out on this, but I really don't want to invest in a 10+ book series right now (or however many books there are). I prefer a stand alone novel or, at most, 3 book series. I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way. As you can see, I already have plenty of books to read.

Am I missing any books or series that have come out recently? I realize some of my choices above are not recently published books, but would be interested to hear if I have missed anything.

Swine Flu or Pigs Flying

2009-11-16T16:52:39Z

I've been pretty busy over the past month or so. Lots of traveling for work, traveling for fun, and getting sick with the H1N1 virus.

Well, I'm not 100% sure that I had swine flu. Hospitals are turning people away that think they have swine flu and just telling them to go home and quarantine themselves (unless it looks like you actually are dying). This makes sense, as I'm sure many of you have those relatives or friends that freak out about this sort of thing and rush to the hospital with a cough and in no actual danger. Or make their kids drive an hour to get home every night from college to avoid potential contact with sick kids at school (like my aunt). I'm sure my little cousin is really experiencing college!

So no, I did not go to a hospital to waste my time or money just to have them send me home (although this sort of thing will soon be free and cost nobody any money at all once Obama passes healthcare, right????). I did talk to a nurse-friend-I'm-dating-ish person who said I have 6/8 of the symptoms, which is a pretty good batting average even if you are Albert Pujols. So I have been sleeping the past 5 days, drinking sprite, and watching new crappy DVDs like The Tournament, GI Joe, and Taking Pelham 123 (weird, a bad Travolta movie). Alright GI Joe was decent.

Anyways, it doesn't look like George has been up to much recently. He's been in Britain the past two or three weeks, so we KNOW he hasn't been doing anything there realted to the novel. It's not a place he's able to write, even though those two islands are the physical basis of his entire ASOIAF series. Definitely not a place that might inspire him while working through his "knots" or whatever he's calling them. No.

But look! From the UK Publisher there is an update for ADWD (via Tower of the Hand)! Here's the money shot (empahis mine):

The really exciting news, other than the potential HBO series, is that we might get the long-awaited DANCE OF DRAGONS soon. I cannot wait.

Oh man, we have NEVER heard ANYONE say anything like this. SOON?!?! Breathtaking. Refreshing. Enlightening.

Do you think the publisher will get in trouble for spilling the beans? There has to be Non-Disclosure Acts for this kind of information. It's like a New England Patriots executive telling the media about a trade before it goes through. Surely heads will roll.

Even the followers of Tower of the Hand are starting to get skeptical now. I do judge them above the normal fan in their ability to actually think and process their own knowledge, unlike westeros or Not a Blog, so this isn't too surprising to me. It is nice to see other fans actually questioning the big man now.

The good news of all this is that filming for the pilot is expected to end in the next few days. That means George will finally be returning to the ole' US of A fairly soon. Just in time for...Thanksgiving! I think it's a foregone conclusion that little holiday will take a week of work away in preparation before and a week aftwerwards in recuperation of the festive event. Maybe some work will be done in December. The glass is half full. There is no spoon.

At least the Giants and Jets look like they may not make the playoffs this year. Yay for Mark Sanchez and Eli Manning starting awesome and fizzling out. Too bad they aren't Jay Culter-ing themselves though (5 interceptions? Come on Jay).

I'll probably be updating my tend graphs and everything soon. Well, sooner than the book will be completed anyhow.

Oh and we have officially passed the 4 year mark without a book, as of November 7, 2009. Pop open a bottle of bubbly to celebrate. (I suggest Andre, available for $5)

Four Years

2009-09-21T21:57:56Z

November 8, 2005.

That is the date A Feast For Crows was published.

This means that we are rapidly approaching 4 years since AFFC was published without seeing the 5th book in the series released. The same 5th book that was supposed to be half completed at the time the 4th book was offically on the market.

I have been so used to using the 3 year mark that I hadn't realized we were getting so close to the 4 year checkpoint. Four years and not finishing the book is just rediculous. How long will it take for the mainstream fantasy reader to agree?

Short of him announcing the book is finished tomorrow, hiring a small army to rush through the editing, and divine intervention from the Almighty, we will easily pass the four mark. In fact, with a book of this size, I almost wonder if he could release ADWD before we pass the 5 year mark with all the editing that goes into publishing books.

Also, I found this hilarious amazon listing showing ADWD being released April, 2008. I guess I just missed it at the bookstore since then. Silly me.

Anyways, I just wanted to put that one out there for everyone. I don't think it's just me, but 4 years seems significantly longer than 3 years, so I wanted to let people know. I have a special entry in the works for tomorrow, and I am working on my list of book recommendations for later in the week as well.

EDIT: I went ahead and changed the subtitle of my blog as well. I need to stay consistent after all!

Happy Anniversary, Finish The Book, George!

2009-09-21T21:26:33Z

It's already been one year since those two degenerates known as Liotta and Pesci began the blog Finish the Book, George. I first found their blog a month or so after it was created, and have been following ever since.

The time of creation for FTBG was great. I remember at the time all across the web, people were beginning to censor and put down any dissenting opinions or people questioning George's release date (*cough* Not A Blog, westeros boards, SFFworld, etc). As people heard about FTBG, they told others about it and a following grew.

Some of their entries have made me laugh out loud, often while at the office. Some have even made their rounds across the fantasy blogosphere, to the general disdain of the casual reader. But ever since the beginning, they have have provided an area that people can freely give their opinions about GRRM, fantasy books, and whatever else people felt like rambling about.

First, I thought I would point out a few of my favorite older FTBG entries:

http://grrrm.livejournal.com/525.html
-Liotta explains the reason for the blog's creation

http://grrrm.livejournal.com/2452.html
-Liotta hates Bran, and hilarious mock scene ensues. One of my favorite entries.

http://grrrm.livejournal.com/5621.html
-Liotta shares his (and my) disdain for Roy Dotrice

http://grrrm.livejournal.com/6254.html
-Daily life of George, as imagined by Liotta

http://grrrm.livejournal.com/8664.html
-Pesci gives the readers some amusing choices

http://grrrm.livejournal.com/14862.html
-Liotta's response to the general internet's worship of GRRM

Secondly, I thought I'd go ahead an do my normal statiscal analysis on them this week (George has done nothing the past week except complain about life and watch football, so it's not like I'm ignoring him or something).

Quick Statistics:

Total Entries: 100
Total Comments: 2,928
Most Comments in an Entry: 120
Most Entries in a Month: 21

The first chart here shows the number of entries each month:

The number of entries went down a bit over time, as you can see. But I dont think that tells the whole story.

The next chart shows how many comments each entry had:

The activity on Finish The Book, George really picked up around December and January.

The next chart shows the average number of comments each entry received, by month:

Clearly, people started commenting more and more for each entry Liotta and Pesci made. I think these graphs really help to show how much FTBG has grown over time. Traffic really started to pick up as the word got out, and people kept showing up. More and more people have been commenting on their entries, which wouldn't be happening if people stopped enjoying their posts.

Lastly, what has happened to A Dance With Dragons since FTBG started?

Obviously, ADWD is not complete, and I'm pretty sure this is not a surprise to either Liotta or Pesci
FTBG has been noted in pretty much every major fantasy blog, being the main voice in the "opposition" to GRRM and lazy writers
GRRM has made, and broken, two or three more of his own deadlines in completing ADWD
George has probably finished one or two chapters since then, tops

Many people have wondered what FTBG and myself will do once ADWD comes out. Personally, I think we have a long time (read: forever) to ponder that question. We'll let you know once (if) George actually announces he finished the book.

So congratulations, FTBG, on your one year anniversary. Does anyone else have some favorite entries or things I forgot about?

Exciting News!

2009-09-17T23:31:27Z

George has 4 new miniatures that you can purchase, and he now owns one of the most ridiculous pieces of art I have ever seen, the crossbowman's pavise! Who, other than George, would actually spend money on that? Now we know why he is trying to sell all of his crap to us; he needs to finance people to paint fucking shields.

Warriors is finally coming out! This is only going to be one the biggest blockbusters of the year, don't ya know. For your information, he finished this book back in april, mentioned it in his big "detractors" post, and first mentions back in October 2007 that it will (correctly) come out in 2009, not to mention an annoying amount of times in between all these dates. What this really means is George actually hit a deadline. Of course he only wrote one short story, but why should that matter?

And probably more importantly, I learned a few new things during my continuing education course today. Namely, that you are able to do regression analysis in Microsoft Excel!!!!!!!

I guess that news is only exciting if you enjoy my statistical analysis sections, as this means I will be able to be even more of a statistical nerd in my entries than previously (and I'm sure several of you did not think that possible). Otherwise this may not be as exciting to you. But it's still probably more exciting than either of George's entries, right?

Luckily, I have been keeping all of my information in Excel files already, so now all I need to do is configure it correctly and I can make some useful graphs!

All of this is especially extra exciting to me, as I now get to use some real statistical analysis in my job as well!

Stay tuned.

EDIT: Just re-read George's Warriors entry and saw the book won't be out until March 2009. Seriously WTF. He finished this back in April, and it won't be coming out til March of the next year? Quite a turnover. I don't think I can wait 6 more months to read one short story about the Hedge Knight.

How Many Books Can Someone Write in Three Years?

2009-09-09T20:40:15Z

If your name is George R.R. Martin, the answer is, obviously, 0.

If your name is Brandon Sanderson, the answer is around 4 to 5.

If your name is James Patterson, the answer is 17.

Yes, that is correct. Best selling author James Patterson just signed a 3 year deal to author 17 books. Here is one of the many news articles covering the announcement:

www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/books/09arts-YESJAMESPATT_BRF.html

Here are a few excerpts (some from the Kansas City Star):

...on Tuesday, the Hachette Book Group announced that it had signed a deal with Mr. Patterson that would cover 17 books...

...an unthinkable commitment for most writers, but for Patterson a mere three years worth of work...

...the ultra-prolific novelist will turn out 10 adult thrillers, one nonfiction work and six novels for young people by the end of 2012...

...Patterson will have help with those books...

To be fair, I wanted to provide the last quote. The point, however, is that there are authors out there who take on massive contracts, and actually plan on completing them on time.

You may argue that Patterson writes in different genres, that his books aren't as complete or thorough, that he has help writing his books, some are for young adults, etc etc etc, but I'm not buying it. You can't tell me that an author who plans on writing 17 books in 3 years has a more difficult time than an author who hasn't finished a half-completed book in 3 1/2 (or however long) years. The sheer amount of work is just not equal.

To bring up an author in the same genre as GRRM, and sorry to bring him up again, Brandon Sanderson has been the model for efficient fantasy writing. He has the first of three Wheel of Time books coming out in a few months (and the other two in 2010 and 2011), not to mention putting out his Mistborn books and other side projects he's been working on.

My guess is we see 17 more books from Patterson, or Sanderson for that matter, before we see ADWD

Side note: Sanderson has released Chapter 1 of the new Wheel of Time. I thought it was pretty good, considering he "isn't as good as GRRM" as all the enablers keep saying.

Labor Day

2009-09-04T23:18:00Z

September 3, 2009. A momentous day.

On the very Thursday before labor day weekend, George decided to actually perform some labor. This is (probably) the first day in the past few months that George decided to work on A Dance with Dragons. With all the time he's been spending thinking up casting clues, blogging, and responding to blog posts, it's surprising he'd take a break from all of his 'work' to write a few sentences about some silly dragon project he has going on.

While it's heartening to know that when he woke up today, he actually acted upon the thought "I think I'll do some writing today," I don't really take this as a positive sign. Yes, he gave us a mild teaser about what he's been up to. But those few lines of information isn't really anything revealing.

And yes George, it really can be September already. In the year 2009. Several months (and years) past the time we should be reading ADWD.

Hopefully George has a few more of these sudden inspirations to actually get something done. Such as finishing a novel.

Misdirection

2009-08-25T18:01:35Z

There has been a lot of press for A Song of Ice and Fire recently.

And none of it has had to do with A Dance With Dragons.

Don't get me wrong, I am very excited for the possibility of the new HBO series, and I check to see who has been cast to the pilot fairly regularly. However, all the buzz surrounding the upcoming pilot has pretty much taken all focus away from what made George R.R. Martin famous in the first place: the books.

It's been months since we've heard anything about it. The last time he talked about it was in February, when he bitched about how he doesn't like how everyone is questioning his work ethic. In this blog entry, he mentions that he thinks he can reasonably finish the book by June.

Clearly that time has passed.

He has recently said at some con somewhere (he was at a con! crazy, I know) that he thinks now he can have it done in by October or so. Once again, everyone simply believes him and moves on.

And they're all moving on to the new HBO show.

Let me show you a few graphs. First, I'll show you a google trends chart, which is a handy tool to see how often items are searched for in the google search engine:

As you can see, in recent months people have been more interested in news reguarding "A Game of Thrones" than "A Dance With Dragons." GOT started taking the lead at roughly the time that news started picking up for the HBO pilot.

Now let's look George's recent blogging trends:

*Note: Junk refers to all the books/random items he tries to sell or bring attention to

Perhaps not surprisingly, George has been making an absurd amount of entries about the TV show; mostly with casting news, rumours, and annoying hints to his readers to let them guess what actors have been cast.

These hints have done nothing more than keep his sycophants occupied for the next few weeks/months, helping them forget that ADWD is not complete, and doesn't seem to be any more close to finished than a year ago.

Here's a quick chart illustrating the growing amount of entries about the HBO show:

He has been making a lot of entries with casting news, sure, but it's pretty rediculous to see how many times he has giving out hints about casting news. It seems to be his sole focus at this point in time (other than which con to attend or buffet...nevermind).

As I said, I really hope that the tv show is successful and turns out to be amazing. But the damn show most likely will not be on TV until early 2011. People need to stop letting something so far in the future be a good excuse for a writer to not finish a book.

Hiatus

2009-08-21T21:15:25Z

Hey everyone. I've been away from blogging for a few months (obviously). During this time I have moved to a new state, gotten a new job, went to mexico, and done a lot of traveling to different parts of the country. I have been keeping fairly up to date on George's movements, as well as following Finish the Book, George regularly. And I'm glad to see they picked up my slack pretty damn well.

I tried to take a few steps back and not care as much about the lack of updates / lack of ability to actually be reading ADWD. It's turned out pretty well, as I've had time to read quite a few fantasy books that I've been meaning to read.

But I still kept checking on ADWD.

Over my hiatus, I have also become even more sickened by George's habits and tendencies than I thought originally possible. He seems to have stopped his non-stop merchandising of water damaged and out-dated products, which I like to think is partly due to FTBG and this site. He has continued to blog about pointless books and series no one wants to read. He has increased his blog censoring, made more excuses, eaten a lot of food, and added more and more cons to his calendar. And he has moved all his attentions to the new HBO pilot which won't even begin filming for months.

OH, and he hasn't finished the book. Even though he said it would be done soon months ago (again), and refuses to mention he passed his own deadline (again).

I have several things to write about over the next few weeks. Mostly dealing with what he has been up to the past few months. Expect some new charts, graphs, and other analysis about his activities and blog entries. Also, I will be making a few recomendations of books to read that I feel are worth your time reading (and some that aren't).

Be Satisfied, George Is Updating

2009-03-15T18:17:56Z

You may have noticed that George has been mentioning ADWD a lot more in his recent entries. I take this as a good sign, but I am not convinced he is really willing to give us an update as of yet. So as much as I appreciate letting us know you are still working on a Tyrion chapter George, the first time in a year or so you mention what character you're currently toiling over doesn't really cut it for me.

Hold on a moment, has George really been mentioning ADWD more often recently? Maybe it's time I update some of my only old graphs.

Here is a chart plotting his overall entries versus his mentioning Dance in those entries:

Hmm, it does seem that he has been blogging and mentioning ADWD more often, as both seem to be increasing over time. Let me plot a Best Fit Line over the graph to illustrate the trend of his posting:
(NOTE: the best fit line is only a guess, as I no longer have access to the advanced graphing software I once did)

Yes, the upward sloping lines show he both been blogging and mentioning ADWD more often over time. But look how much steeper the pink line is compared to the blue line. Basically, George has been blogging a lot more often over time, but has barely managed to give us any news on ADWD. To illustrate this, here is a chart depicting what percentage of George's entries each month mention ADWD: (NOTE: this is just mentioning Dance, not actual updates)

And the best fit line for this chart:

It's pretty clear through all of these charts that George has consistently been blogging more and mentioning ADWD less over time. This means that, comparatively, George has been mentioning ADWD less often over time since he started Not A Blog, rather than more often as he probably would like you to believe.

So excuse me when I don't buy into thinking George's recently newfound fervor of mentioning ADWD is permanent.

EDIT: Re-uploaded images since there seemed to be a problem with people viewing them originally

RReally George?

2009-03-06T02:51:08Z

If you thought George has reached the height of selling insignificant books in his ongoing selling spree, think again. No, I am not talking about the new international book sale he is currently conducting, although that does still qualify.

I am talking about this entry in which he talks about selling a friend's book called GRRM: A Rretrospective. (Did you notice he doesn't broadcast the price of the book like he normally does? There is a very good reason, but I'll get to that in a second)

Take a look at GRRM: A RRetrospective (very clever with the two Rs). A brief synopsis of the book:

"Over 400,000 words. More than 1,000 pages, including nine novellas, unpublished teleplays, rare, never before collected short stories, and a small volume's worth of introductions and commentary.

Each of the more than 30 stories will feature a full-page black and white illustration commissioned especially for this volume by Tim Truman, Mark A. Nelson, Janet Aulisio, Ron Brown and other fine artists

GRRM will be available only from Subterranean Press, in three editions:"

Unfortunately, all editions are sold out on Subterranean Press. Fortunately, Amazon comes to the rescue!

You can get a used trade hardcover copy for $129 to $225, or get the limited edition used for only $350! (No wonder George doesn't clearly advertise the price of the book)

Let me take a some excerpts from a few of the reviews (which are all 5 star reviews, of course. These are the type of people that would drink piss if George served it to them and praise the vintage):

"Most of the stories are from the late 70's and the 80's and nearly every one of them is powerful in its own way."
"his earlier compilations are all out of print and one has to look for old Asimov and Analog Magazines on Ebay to find all these stories"

So, you pay for short stories published in the 70s and 80s that are out of print and insignificant to the world. Sounds like a deal.

"Buy this book... it may cost a fortune but i assure you the vast treasures inside are worth the price... "
"a vast wealth of wonder and awe and passion await you in the pages of this tome. Dive in, and you will never be the same."

These reviews make me feel like I am reading the comments section of Not A Blog, and just a little sick to my stomach.

"My favorite stories of the book include Sandkings and The Hedge Knight"

First of all, I would like to admit I read Sandkings. I wanted to see what George wrote that earned him his Hugo and Nebula. I looked it up and found it cost only 2 dollars. So, I bought it and read it, and I liked it. ( I would like to take this point to say you can read this for free by typing in "Sandkings" in google search and looking for the pdf file, but it is worth buying).

Second, I haven't read The Hedge Knight. Maybe I will someday, once ASOIAF is finished. It only costs 3 dollars on Amazon.

Here's my point: the reviewers favorite two stories in this compilation can be acquired for $5. The RRetrospective costs you at least $130, and up to $350 if you think the limited edition is worth more money to you.

In other words, one reviewer's favorite part of this $130 (at least) book can be purchased for 4% ($5) of the sales price.

I'm not saying these other stories aren't good. I have no idea. I DO think there is a reason the majority of these stories never reached national recognition or awards. It's just not worth 130 of my hard earned dollars to find out if they are read-worthy myself.

So the next time you see a worthless book that never would have heard about suddenly show up on his blog and wonder, "wow, can he sink any lower?" The answer is yes, he could begin selling GRRM: A RRetrospective himself. And the cheapest price he would probably charge would be well over $250, with the "George Tax" he adds on to all market prices.

krkreuk Reviews Kristin Kreuk

2009-03-02T02:51:37Z

I just got back from a showing of Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li, staring one Kristin Kreuk, as I figured I wouldn't be a very good krkreuk fan if I didn't go see her newest movie.

The movie ticket, a medium drink, and a small popcorn cost me a whopping $18. That coincidentally is the same price as the discounted signed Windhaven book on George'g blog. It's really a shame the deal ended yesterday. Nevertheless, I still feel I got a much better value at the movie theater than I would have buying George's old junk with his scribble inside the cover.

The movie itself was alright. There were several actors in it I hadn't seen in a while, and they did a decent enough job. I thought several of the fight scenes were pretty good, considering Kristin Kreuk doesn't seem to be a combat trained actress. The story itself wasn't much to speak of. It didn't feel very well written to me, although it seemed like there were a few points where scenes were shortened to get the movie to a more marketable length.

Overall, I would give the movie a decent 2.5 Slothenly Authors:

However, I would rate Kristin Kreuk's physical appearance in the movie a solid 5 out of 5 Slothenly Authors:

Wait a second, what are those tiny Slothenly Authors I see? Let me give you a larger version to see:

Why it's a sloth with an outrageous beard and the signature bowler cap. The sloth told me he ordered it from the website of the steamboat captain in Fevre Dream. Apparently he sell's all kinds of stuff like that really cheap. It's all available here. Expect my new logo to be used for ratings in the future.

I have a few more entries planned so stay tuned. Anyone have a guess what the next discounted signed book George is going to sell? I'm guessing Portraits of His Children myself. Or possible Nightflyers, another stunning book published in the 80s.

What Does An Actual Update Look Like?

2009-02-27T15:25:37Z

This:

http://www.patrickrothfuss.com/blog/blog.html

George has already linked to this on his site, but that is not where I found it. Pat put it up on his Fantasy Hotlist this morning, which is where I suspect George got it from in the first place. My reason for this thinking is George did not comment on the whole "give us an update" argument until Pat deigned to give us his [un]opinion of the matter. Suddenly, it was worthy for George to comment on the matter, but it wasn't when thousands of fans where clamoring for an update.

Anyways, the link above with take you to Patrick Rothfuss' blog, where he describes why his new book is going to be delayed. If you have no clue who Patrick Rothfuss is, he is the author of the critically aclaimed new book The Name of the Wind, which is garnering a lot of support for SF Novel of the Year.

Here are a few samples from his update:

I love the Martin reference here.

Over the last six weeks, I have written roughly 60,000 words. Pretty good words if I do say so myself.

A quantitative update? Why would you do suck a thing Patrick? You're setting a bad example for famous authors!

Part of my job is also going to conventions, doing readings or workshops. I have taxes to manage. (And I fucked that up this year, let me tell you.) Part of my job is talking with movie people, or game people, or comic book people. This takes time.

Also, I like to have fun. I have a girlfriend who is good at kissing. I like to play boardgames. I enjoy role playing, though I don't get much chance these days. I like reading books and watching movies. These things are important. Without them I would become a dry, joyless husk of a man.

A dry, joyless husk cannot write a book that is full of wonderful things.

Ok, we get it. There are other things in life that authors like to do. We understand this. We also like kissing, reading, and fuck up our taxes.

What I *am* asking is that you don't bring your frothy rage round here to my house. Screed away on your own blog, curse my name on a discussion board, punch your pillow. By all means, vent your spleen. Just don't vent it at me. It makes me hurty inside.

See? Authors are fine we have blogs like this. And to all of you out there sending emails to our fat friend (George, not Pat), stop already.

Two years ago...I was poor, obscure, and pretty content to stay that way. I learned to write as a happy, carefree nobody. No deadlines. No editors. No stress.

Since then I have somehow become an international bestselling author. I've paid off my credit card debt. I own a house. I own a car. I get fanmail and invitations to conventions.

Sound familiar? Not unlike what George must be feeling?

Overall, I think most of us would have been very content to receive the kind of update Pat gave his readers. He gives us numbers to work with, reasons why he is delayed, tries to feel empathy with ALL of his readers, and just vents out. George skiped the first three when he gave us his update and went straight to venting (and I don't mean those stupid coors light beer cans with the 'vent' on it. How is that supposed to work anyways?).

Maybe George is just plain tired of giving us excuses and reasons for his many delays? He's done that kind of thing before, and people still get pissed at him. Maybe he just doesn't care, and only pleases the people he wants to, not worrying about his fanbase as a whole.

If you haven't read The Name of the Wind, go do so now. It's a great book. Give Rothfuss a few years to finish the series he is currently writing and I can promise he will have fans that are just as eager for his next book.

He shouldn't have to start worrying about people starting blogs and becoming crazy for a while, but if he continues writing books like TNOTW with huge delays between them (BTW this is not a big delay, his recent book came out within the past year), then he might expect the treatment George has earned in the future.

So George, although I wish I could say I eagerly await your next update, I already know you won't give us one.

To The Protractors

2009-02-24T17:39:37Z

You know who you are. Save yourself some time and email George this link now: http://krkreuk.livejournal.com/8739.html

For years, you have made excuses defending George RR Martin and his unprofessional attitude towards his fans and his work. All his acts you proudly proclaim as the work of a genius and akin to the almighty savior (which would be Barrack Obama in this case).

This may be surprising for some of you, but continually praising GRRM actually detracts (I like that word) from his attention on ADWD. Letting George think people don't want information about ADWD, and that they are content and happy with the scraps of information he throws out is not conductive to his work ethic. It reinforces his beliefs that it's OK to take advantage of his fans with worthless pursuits and lead them on thinking the book will be done soon.

You band together for the common cause of defending of GRRM and condemn those that have differing views than you. There's absolutely no way he could defend himself, a grown man and all. Every comment I see condemning the detractors is eerily similar in their opinions that those people shouldn't be allowed to post comments, or simply advise people to ignore those idiots.

Many of you have major qualms with the way the detractors (or anti-fans or whatever the FOTW term is) vent their frustrations. I will admit several people go overboard, but that doesn't mean everyone that 'disagrees' with GRRM is the same.

For the record, I have never made fun of George's age, nor made any comments about hoping he finishes the series before he dies of a heart attack or old age. Making comments about George's mortality is not something I care to comment on or make light of. But it's OK if the person commenting says this in a nice way, gently wishing you good health, which I see every other day on the Not A Blog? Seriously, if you haven't seen someone try to nicely urge GRRM to finish writing the book before he dies, then that comment doesn't receive negative feedback because it was said softly, look again.

I have made fun of George's weight and/or appearance. It's not difficult to use the treadmill or elliptical twice a week, and this issue is a huge problem in this country. If on-line blogs and emails are the only places he sees people making fun of eating too much in the first place, he needs to get out more.

I have never called George a liar. I do believe he shapes the truth as artfully as a politician would. Maybe this is why the political intrigue in his books is so believable, he has a skill for that kind of thing. You have to read carefully what George says in his entries. He will tell you the truth, but coat it in the way he wants people to hear it without actually answering the questions you wanted.

I have never said he shouldn't do other things he enjoys. Football, conventions, miniatures, whatever. But his utter disregard for what all of his fans care about most, ADWD, is surely fair game to comment on. If he refuses to give us information about one of the most hyped books in recent memory, I will refuse to stop pointing out things that bother me about his personality, lifestyle, and blog.

I have never made a comment on George's blog. That is his place to share whatever thoughts he wants to the world. To make snide comments on all of his entries is not something I condone, but people do it anyway. Some of these comments go way over the line, and George has every right to delete and screen these (although deleting any comment asking for status updates in a reasonable way should not be deleted, but I guess I just believe in freedom of speech). I do think it's fair for me to comment on my own blog my thoughts on how he uses his blog and time.

I have never sent George an email venting my feeling or frustrations. This falls in the same category as his blog. It's his personal space so I won't invade it with thoughts he clearly doesn't want to hear. As he mentioned in his blog entry, he easily can and does avoid sites like this and Finish the Book, George. It's not my fault you Protractors email him every time we make a blog post filling his inbox with crap he doesn't want to read. Maybe you hope he'll remember your name or at least send you a nice email or thanks (which you print out and nail to the cubicle wall at work).

Am I saying I have been nice and respectful of George RR Martin? Of course not.

But how is it fair to lump everyone that is upset with George RR Martin into one group (or the 'Detractors' as Pat from the Fantasy Hotlist made up)? That's like saying all Republicans or Democrats are the same, which we all know to be false.

I've seen several people post comments on FTBG or NAB asking simple questions to GRRM, but in a logical way that approaches the argument looking at all sides. They don't agree with all the arguments of the Detractors or Protractors, but they also don't agree with everything GRRM says. Surely there are more people out there that feel this way, and they don't deserve to have their heads bit off just for asking questions.

You may have noticed over 500 people have commented on George's ADWD 'update'. That is but a taste of how many fans read his site and want to know when the book is coming out. For every person that comments regularly on blogs there are many more lurkers that never post comments but just read the entries. Clearly, people care a hell of a lot more about A Dance With Dragons that anything else he may comment on, as the normal entry has only 50-100 comments. Strange that so many people respond positively to an 'update.'

In conclusion, I believe that there are still hundreds and thousands of fans still waiting for an actual update. But now that George (or his two assistants) screen every single comment on his blog, those voices will not be heard, and people will assume that everything is honky-dory and everyone agrees that this 'update' means he can do whatever he wants for a few months.

Update!

2009-02-24T17:38:26Z

Wow, George had a busy day. He set an all time record for entries in a single day with 13! If only he would stop blogging and get to writing A Dance With Dragons then we would finally stop having to read all the crap he posts on his blog and read the damn book this decade.

Alright, that was a joke. If you didn't read his blog we FINALLY received an update on ADWD. For that, George, you have my sincere thanks. Really you do. After all, that is exactly what I have been asking for since I started this blog months ago. Right?

I'm doing the best I can to be optimistic and believe that this time, George will actually get the book finished. I've been optimistic every time before this. I actually thought he would have it done last June. Then I thought by the end of 2008 it would be complete. Now I get to cling to the hope that it will be this June he tells us he in done.

I had a lot of thoughts on where to take this entry to show my true feelings for his update he gave us.

I'm almost tempted to make this a hypocritical blog entry. Since I've been clamoring for months for an update and he's finally given us one, I should just stop blogging now. I should be happy with what I've been given and say no more bad things about George. If I continue writing, it would be against my statements that I simply wanted an update and I would be happy.

I'm almost tempted to feel like every time he hits a deadline, he feels it will satiate everyone by telling us he'll have it done 6 months from now, even when he knows that realistically he can't meet that deadline. Hoping to have it done by a certain date is different than thinking you might have a chance to get it done. I'm almost tempted to think that doesn't sound like real honesty to fans (but certainly not lying).

I'm almost tempted to feel like he didn't give us an update at all. What did he really tell us that was new? Sansa is not in ADWD? Oh, and that 'progress has been made.' The only hard cold facts he has told us is he regressed from a point he was previously at, by taking finished material out. Oh, and that he hopes to have the book done soon.

I'm almost tempted to feel like he is trying to blame the detractors for some of the delays in his book. Surely he has received negative criticism in his long illustrious writing career, so I don't know why he would be blaming other people for anything that goes wrong now. Maybe to garner more support from his fanatic fans and cast a negative light on detractors, I'm not sure though.

I'm almost tempted to feel sickened by George nominating himself for a Hugo. Maybe he wants the Hugo for editing so he can put the 'Hugo Winning Editor' title next to his projects. Normally other people nominate you for awards, but adding the 'just make sure you vote' at the ends makes it so he really doesn't expect you to vote for him right?

Good thing I didn't take this blog entry any of those directions. Otherwise I might be called hypocritical.

One thing I can't understand is how he can complain about all this attention he is receiving. If you begin writing international best sellers, you can expect your numerous fans to care about the next book in the series. If you stretch the length time out between the books, you can expect negative criticism from fans that want to continue reading books in the series relatively soon. He's getting feedback from hundreds and hundreds of fans, which is what most authors dream of when they start out writing.

I think this is just like fans of sports teams (since I know this is a subject George can relate to). Not every fan will blindly agree with every decision made by the organization. Trades are questioned, draft picks are ridiculed, and once the losses start to pile up it's time to fire the coach. Only this time we can't fire the coach when we think he makes a mistake, we can only try to let him know what the fans want to see. Sometimes people say this in a nicer way than others.

On a final note I really felt like his blog entries the other day where heartfelt. He got angry and wanted to let his readers know how he felt. He did so in a manner that was much more respectful than many of his fans probably deserved (me included).

But that does not change the fact that he did not give a substantial update to the most anticipated book he has ever written, while trying to convince the public that was exactly what he was doing, and at the same time belittling a large chunk of his fan base that simply want news of his book.

He mentioned several times that he had things going on in his life that have slowed down the writing process. He thinks that the fans won't understand, or maybe they're private and he doesn't want to share with us (which is his right, and it does sound like something personal). He also mentions problems in the literary process of ADWD, but won't clarify there as well (and he doesn't have to).

If he has all these problems, why has he been able to churn other projects out non-stop? Why haven't we seen any entries apologizing to Wild Card fans that there will be a delay in the next book?

Maybe he has legitimate reasons, but if he doesn't tell us anything then he can say he isn't lying, but that does not sound like honesty to your fans to me.

Marketing 101

2009-02-16T17:12:14Z

You most likely know that George has been increasingly using his Not A Blog as a platform to sell products to fans. This is nothing new, and has been going on for years.

Within the past few months, however, he has started to try to sell damaged products as well as books published years ago. Several of the works his fans have most likely never heard of.

What irks me the most about these recent "sales" he has been having are the blatant marketing tactics he is employing. It honestly looks like George opened a Marketing 101 book and copied concepts straight to his blog.

Let me give you a few examples.

1.) Here is his blog entry trying to sell Tuf Voyaging. Here is an update just in case you missed the first entry. Here is an additional entry for Tuf Voyaging just in case you missed the previous two.

2.) Here is his blog entry about a Windhaven sale he is currently having. It's a new sale so there's only one entry on it so far.

3.) Here, here, and here are entries about that Game of Thrones RPG set that got water damaged.

Let me show you how his is blatantly trying to manipulate his fans into buying his junk that A) they don't need and B) can get get cheaper elsewhere. I will be using the Windhaven entry as my reference for pricing in my analysis, unless otherwise noted. Some of the marketing concepts he uses are:

Mark Down Pricing- In each of the above linked products George is trying to sell, he mentions how he is giving you, his most loyal fans, a special discount. By giving you a high pricing point, ($23.95 Published Price, $23 GRRM Original Price), and then telling you he will give you the special price of $18, shipping included. This is common in the clothing industry, where you see a price tag that has $60 crossed out and $30 written beneath it, making the customer think they are getting a great deal (then consider the said shirt costs about $6 to make in the first place).
Limited Supplies - By telling the customer that supplies are limited, George is trying to get you to buy the product as soon as possible. See below for examples of this, but the idea is used very often in the business world. The general idea is if you don't act now, you might miss out of this special deal!
Placing a Time Limit - This goes along with the previous tactic. By telling the customer that this sale is only for 1 month, it urges buying soon and making you think you have to make this purchase quickly. If you don't buy my product within the next few weeks, you'll never see this special again!
Easing Buyers Remorse - George made comments several times in his entries about how popular his previous sale was, how parts of the book were nominated for awards, and generally how pleased he was in the book. This is meant to make you think you are getting a better value, and to make you think once you purchased the product you made the correct decision. This way, he can make you feel better about previous purchases and urge you to take part in his next sale!
Repetition - George will typically send out several reminders for each product he tries to sell. By doing this, he is making sure the product is imprinted in your mind and so that you don't forget to purchase the item. Same tactic used by TV commercials, and why you see the same commercial over and over.

Note: I apologize if any of the terms are not the correct textbook name, and for the many marketing concepts he uses and I failed to mention

First, I want to point something out that any online buyer should do before making a purchase, do research. For example, you can easily get a brand-new hardcover copy of Windhaven for $6.41 at Amazon from several different retailers. You can get a used hardcover copy for less the $4.00 at the same site. Compare that to the GRRM special, discounted, once-in-a-lifetime, never-been-lower price of $18. It will not be autographed by George if you get in on Amazon, but ask yourself if a scribble on the cover is worth $11 more. Maybe it is to you.

Second, you have to take some of the claims he makes in these sales pitches with a grain of salt. For example:

I got such a great response to the sale, however, that I'm going to follow it up with a new sale on another title

There is no way to verify that there actually was a good response in the first place. As I mentioned earlier, this is meant to ease buyers remorse and make the people that did take part in the first sale to buy products in his next sale. In fact, there is reason to believe that the sale did not do as well as could be hoped:

(Dec 31st) The sale will last until the end of January... or until I run out of copies (the supply of the slipcased limited edition is, of course, limited, and that's the one most likely to sell out).

(Jan 4) Yes, I still have plenty of copies of the regular hardcover. Of the limited, not so much.

(Feb 1st) I still have plenty of copies of the book, so it remains available -- but the prices now return to their original levels

He still has plenty of copies left of Tuf Voyaging? Even though he first mentioned that the collectors edition is likely (or most likely) to sell out, then he doesn't seem to have so many copies anymore, and finally magically has plenty of both while making sure you know you can still buy them from his website for the full, above market price that George continuously charges. Seems to me this is just him wanting to make you think that the books might sell out to urge your purchase now. Or maybe he actually thought a lot of people wanted to buy a 1986 novel (that was reprinted) for $19.

Third, let me make a quick speculation on what George could actually do to get even more money from his customers (and might be doing for all I know). He can go to amazon.com and buy copies of his own books from discount retailers, sign them, then sell them to his fans through his website.

Let's see how much money he can make off each order by you, the customer, using this scheme:

[$18 sales price] - [ shipping cost ] - [$6.41 cost on Amazon] + [royalties from Amazon] = Profit

So not only could George earn money from the difference in sales price, he can most likely make money from buying the book from amazon. From himself. I would estimate $10 of profit per purchase, maybe a little less.

And finally, does it still sound like "In the hopes of getting some of these books out of my garage and into the hands of readers who might enjoy 'em, I'm going to have a sale" are his true intentions from all these deals? I refuse to believe he has any lack of space in his mansion and that cleaning up space in the reason for this sale. Someone who is building a library tower can surely afford to store his excess books in a safe place.

Although this is speculation based on this entry, he most likely got all of these books on deep discount from the defunct publisher Meisha Merlin. Especially since he says he is "saving these copies from the landfill," it is difficult to imagine the publishers charged him much money since they would be throwing the books away otherwise.

What a nice guy to only charge $19 for the book he managed to save from going to the paper pulp factory, while making it sound like he has too many books sitting around his house when he went out of his way to buy them in the first place.

Am I the only one that is reminded of crappy infomercials every time I read these entries?

Do these sound like "special" deals to you?

Or someone trying to take advantage of his customers and earn a nice profit?

EDIT [15:45 PM]: Unbelievable, but during the time I spent writing this blog entry, George has already outdone himself and made a new entry exemplifying exactly what I was talking about. Let me show just how it fits in:

Mark Down Pricing- For only $29, you can get the version from me that costs $125 elsewhere!
Limited Supplies - Direct quote: "so long as that supply lasts. It probably won't be long." and "If you'd like to snag one of these last few copies" and "which I've been offering autographed on my Signed Books page for, like, forever, is also running low. At this writing fewer than twenty copies remain, so if you want one of them, this is the time to act on that as well."
Placing a Time Limit - Similar to above, but to quote: "so the book is once again (briefly) available"
Easing Buyers Remorse - To quote: "This is a really stunning edition, with some magnificent artwork by Justin Sweet" and "if you want to voyage down into the heart of darkness on the fleet packet steamer Fevre Dream with Abner and Joshua, this is the time to board."
Repetition - Hopefully I dont need to tell you he has (several times) mentioned Fevre Dream before, but you can do a quick search to see how many time he has mentioned it

Thanks for proving my point again George. Your blog has turned into one giant sales page with lame marketing tactics becoming rampant.

Absence and Anti Fans

2009-02-12T21:51:02Z

It's been over a month since I last made an entry. I've been busy with a lot of things, and work has picked up for me. It's not a real excuse, but sorry for my absence.

My main reason for the delay was utter astonishment of no update on the progress of ADWD from GRRM at the New Year. I don't remember exactly when it was, but I gave up on George ever giving updates on ADWD or finishing another book in the series. I stopped checking to try and find any new information, or hope that he would surprise us all and deliver the book at the New Year.

This little break has given me some time to think, as well as read a few fantasy series I had been putting off (First Law and Farseer Trilogies). It also gave me time to think of several new entries to make, but first I want to respond to a recent Finish the Book, George entry.

Yesterday, Ray made an excellent entry over at FTBG about the recent uprising of defense articles making excuses for George that have been infecting the internet. It's surprising that no one has countered any of these until Ray did yesterday, but then I realized people with dissenting opinions are censored on every other website, such as Not A Blog and the westeros board among others, except on FTBG and here.

Just follow along nicely in a pretty little line and be happy with what you've been given is the general opinion it seems.

I had read Shawn's article before. I thought it was a well written, but so biased towards one side of the argument I couldn't finish it. Ray did an excellent job pointing out the more questionable points in his arguments, especially the parts in which he makes educated guesses at George's lifestyle, writing style, and whatever other styles George has (maybe he should have commented on George's styling of his beard?). It was pretty amazing how many facts Shawn was able to glean from simply having GRRM come to his house one day. He seemed to know everything about George from a few hours of contact. What an amazing skill.

The simple fact is no one has all the information in this situation. It is just as likely that his ideas on what George does with his time are true as are mine. However I think we have more statistical data on our side showing how lazy he has been. But maybe I'm been biased? (I would take this point to mention I have a college degree that deals with statistical data, models, and such as that, but more on that next entry)

What makes me really mad is how people cannot understand why fans would be mad in the first place. People have even called us the "anti-fans," which I don't think describes us at all. Do these people just accept that status quo no matter what? Protesting we don't like the way we are treated as fans qualifies us as unruly citizens who have went overboard in their opinions?

This series really affects people, just as all great literature does. Everyone who reads this series passes it on to friends. People have even named their children after ASOIAF characters. The fact that this work is powerful to people world wide says something. I like to think the "anti-fans" are similarly affected.

I continue to feel if George would just give an update about ADWD things would quiet down. His ominous silence is worse than just coming out with the truth, no matter what it is. But the enablers would just counter that this would make all the anti-fans simply whine and want more. Well, I will agree that you can't please everybody, but think it would help with this situation.

In conclusion, Ray mentioned this in his article:

if I had a time machine and I could go back and NOT start reading this series, knowing how AFFC would turn out and how GRRM would act towards his fans, I would gladly save the money I spent on these books.

This is only point I disagree with him on. I thought about it, but decided I would not go back and make my self not read his books, even AFFC (which I enjoyed thoroughly to be honest). The pain it would cause to find out I would be continuously lied to, mistreated, and plain ignored is not greater than the enjoyment I have had out of reading, re-reading, sharing with friends, listening to in my car, browsing the internet, and everything else that came with the series has brought to me.

If he has decided to stop writing books for the ASOIAF series, I think he owes it to his fans (yes, I said it, he owes us) to let us know. That way we can all move on.

Except if he did that, no one would be interested in buying any of the crap he continuously tries to sell us.

George's State of the Union

2008-12-24T17:26:07Z

I hope everyone has a happy hollidays. It's the time of year to be nice to everyone, so I'll try my hardest to be nice to George today.

It's almost time for, what I would like to call, George's annual state of the union address. Or rather, his single update on A Dance With Dragons for the year.

For those who don't know, the real state of the union address is the annual speech given by the president of the United States that lets everyone know America is, humbly, the best country in the world. People measure how many times the crowd applauds, who stands while applauding, who doesn't, and a myriad of other things the media blows out of proportion.

The past few years, George makes his annual update on A Dance With Dragons at about this time. He promises that he's working hard, gives a 'progress' report, then starts plugging his other products and his favorite author's books.

His previous reports were on 1/4/2006, 4/6/2006, 7/11/06, 2/15/2007, and 1/1/2008. If you want to see his previous reports, go to this thread on cinemablend to check them out. I posted this link before, but wanted to post it again so you can take a quick look.

As you can see from the dates, he has basically gone to one update a year, and he's due up again. I see one of the following things happening this time:

He announces the completion of A Dance With Dragons (and there is much rejoicing)
He announces he is still hard at work, and that A Dance With Dragons should be done soon (we know the word 'soon' has no meaning in this context)
He does not give us an update

Number 1 has a few more possibilities with it, in my opinion. I still refuse to think that it has taken this long to produce the second half of the book. I will venture to guess he has been writing chapters of future books, to see if he likes the way his series is going. After writing parts of the future two books with detailed outlines, partial chapters, etc., he can get a good feeling about the series and hopefully speed up the writing process of the next two books.

Therefore, when he announces the completion of ADWD, he can also announce a his progress on future books. We will have to take this with a grain of salt, however, as he claimed he was half done with this book in the first place. We all know how that one turned out.

It is possible it's taken him this long just to write the second half, and will start on book 6 here in a few months.

Number 2 also has several possibilities with it. As I said above, I refuse to think he has gone so long without creating any novels (and all his edited works do not count).

Reader steady_01 suggests that George has taken a pen name, and has been writing other books using that name. I think this idea has some real merit to it. It really isn't that hard for a writer to create a pen name, and the only person that would know about it would be his editor. I did some searching but couldn't find any hints to this though. I admit it's not the type of research I know how to do, but surely if someone found out they would post some information about it.

George may also still be trying to honestly complete A Dance With Dragons, and just hasn't been able to figure out how to end it (or to keep all the Starks from dieing). But I'm sure you can guess my opinion of that being true however, and certainly don't expect a set date he'll have to book completed.

Maybe George is burnt out on high fantasy. It seems to me his interests have long been in the science fiction genre, and maybe he wants to move on from the series that has dominated his life for about 10 years. He'll probably lead us on a string as long as he can about ADWD while working on whatever he wants in the meantime.

Number 3 doesn't seem to have much chance of happening to me. I think most of even his 'loyal' readers will be wanting an update around new years. He'll feel obligated to give a little nugget of information, hinting cleverly at a future release date (Oh, and inform you of all the post-Christmas deals!). But just like the real state of the union, all the fans on Not A Blog will stand up and applaud whatever he happens to say.

Of course if George reads these blogs, he may wait a month or two to post his update just to spite me.

George may also be financially secure enough that he can spend the rest of his days painting pewter miniatures and visiting Scottish castles. It's that's what he wants to do with the rest of his days, that's fine with me. It's a free country after all. I would, however, appreciate him telling us so that we can all move on.

I'm going to try my first Poll. I'm not too sure how many responses I will get with it, as a lot of my readers like using anonymous names, so just leave a comment with your thoughts. I am interested to see what other people think he is up to:

View Poll: The Update

Defying the Laws of Demand

2008-12-23T17:41:05Z

Apparently there is high demand in the slumping worldwide economy for wildling miniatures, as George has a huge entry about them. They even made an Alfyn Crowkiller miniature, a character that was only mentioned in passing before getting killed. Order while supplies last.

Also, George is making fun of his size in his own blog entries:

Brandon Jacobs returned in a big way, Derrick Ward was amazing, and the O-line were opening holes I could have run through.

Too easy George, too easy. You have to think he's prodding us to post these entries.

And now to the point, here's some quick analysis for everyone continuing from last week. I'll start by quoting one of George's old news entries (not from his blog, from the actual news):

As of this writing, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS consists of some twenty-two finished chapters totalling 542 manuscript pages, plus another 100 to 150 pages of partial chapters, early drafts, scenes, and fragments. Some of that material will need to be revised, and of course much more remains to be written. My hope is to bring the book in at around 1200 to 1300 pages...

-George R.R. Martin, January 24, 2006

Im going to head back to my archive of George's blog entries for my second quote to his post on June 30, 2006:

...yes, I am still working on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, and yes, I still hope to deliver it this fall, or by the end of the year at the latest.

You can see from the two quotes I posted, relatively close in time frame, that George outlines his progress and sets a basic amount of time he thinks would be reasonable to finish the book. If you were always wondering why everyone was saying the book was half done, this is where they got the original information.

In my analysis last week, I was only guessing the number of words that would make up an ADWD from other sources. Now you can see the number of pages George himself has said would constitute a completed work, only in pages this time.

You can do your own math, or I can tell you that means:

[ 1300 Total Pages Needed - 542 Completed ] / [ 1300 Pages ] = 58% Unfinished (42% completed)

1300 - 542 = 758 Pages Unfinished

Once again I will find the rate he writes at if he, hypothetically, were to finish the book tomorrow:

758 Pages / 3 Years / [ 12 Months/Year ] = 21 Pages Per Month

Now if he had finished the book by year end 2006, as he said he thought he could easily do, his rate of writing would have been:

758 Pages / 12 Months = 63 Pages Per Month

This is a pace George thought he could easily write, as he said "by end of the year at the latest" in his blog entry. This means he thought he might be able to exceed that pace, but he hasn't even been accomplishing 20 pages per month. This is not even considering the 100-150 pages of partial chapters and outlines he had already completed.

I'm working on one more entry before the hollidays which I'll post tomorrow, dealing with what we can expect from George over the next few weeks, as well as some hypothetical thoughts.

The Velocity of Fantasy Writing Theorem

2008-12-19T16:08:53Z

We have questioned for years what George has been doing with his time and how slowly he writes.

Well, I hope to answer one of those questions today. Just as a warning I'm using lots of numbers and formulas. It brought me back to my college physics class...and made me think of my hot blonde lab partner....

Anyways, today I will attempt to deal with the slothenly pace at which GRRM writes, but in a creative way.

Right now you may be thinking, slothenly? Well, Urban dictionary says slothenly is a word, so it must be true. In fact, I want to place the only definition of slothenly I could find here:

A slow, dumb, lazy, unmotivated, uncaring, incompetent, unnecessary and replaceable human. Someone who's laziness of mind is manifested in both their physical form and the way they behave.

I cannot think of two sentences that better describe my sentiments (although maybe we should take out dumb. He did graduate from Northwestern with honors). In fact, I think that Eric Steinback, the supposed author of that definition, has helped me name my blog. The Slothenly Author. There's nothing like naming a blog that deals with made up deadlines and release dates after a made up word from a pop culture website.

To start with my analysis, I need to explain something about LiveJournal. The way LiveJournal works is when the author clicks to post a new entry, LJ records the time the author began the entry as time as the official time the entry was created. It is NOT the moment when you publish your entry. You can of course change this time manually, but I am going to assume that George does not do this.

Now, what I'm doing is finding days in which George made more than one entry in a close proximity of time. Then I'm taking the number of words in the first entry and dividing it by the amount of time between the first and second entry, which should give us a rough estimate of the rate that George works while blogging. Or if I were in my physics class, the velocity of writing! (seriously, had to be one of the best looking lab partners you could ask for)

For example, on December 7, 2008, George made entries at 5:26, 6:06, and 6:31 PM. For his first entry, he wrote 215 words. Dividing this by the time of the second entry minus the start of the first entry (40 minutes), we reach the rate of 5.37 words per minute. We repeat this for the second entry (reaching 12.08 words per minute), but cannot compute the rate of the third entry, as there is no way to estimate how long it took.

I realize that George probably doesn't sit down and write these entries one after another without pausing, and that he is likely doing other things at the same time as blogging. There are many other assumptions made by this study but let's try to ignore most of these. By taking an average of many samples, I hope to remove a bit of the problems inherent in my study, but it still won't be close to perfect.

All I hope to do is give a rough guess of how long it takes George to write his Blog entries, and from there we can estimate his pace for novel writing. I obviously don't think when he sits down he types at exactly the same velocity every time or anything like that. These numbers should be the lower end of the rate he actually types while blogging.

November 16, 2007 (3 Entries)
401 Words - 21 Minutes - 19.09 Words/Minute (W/Min)
158 Words - 12 Minutes - 13.16 W/Min
1279 Words - 1 hour 15 minutes - 17.05 W/Min
December 31, 2007 (1 Entry)
253 Words - 12 Minutes - 21 W/Min
February 5, 2008 (1 Entry Applicable)
2266 Words - 2 hours, 5 minutes 18.13 W/Min
February 17, 2008 (1 Entry)
128 Words - 6 Minutes - 21.33 W/Min
February 24th, 2008 (3 Entries Applicable)
372 Words - 29 Minutes - 12.83 W/Min
357 Words- 29 Minutes - 12.31 W/Min
485 Words - 44 Minutes (Images) 11.02 W/Min
March 17, 2008 (1 Entry)
117 Words - 28 Minutes (Images) 4.18 W/Min
April 13, 2008 (2 Entries)
423 Words - 18 Minutes - 23.5 W/Min
211 Words - 17 Minutes (Images) - 12.41 W/Min
August 14, 2008 (1 Entry)
435 Words - 23 Minutes - 18.91 W/Min
December 7, 2008 (2 Entry)
215 Words - 40 Minutes - 5.37 W/Min
302 Words- 25 Minutes - 12.08 W/Min

Note: I will make an allowance when he inserted images into his entries, as I assume this takes him some effort. I do not picture him as very technology-savvy

Averages:
Without Images: 194.76 / 12 = 16.23 W/Min
With Images: 222.37 / 15 = 14.83 W/Min
Images Only: 27.61 / 3 = 9.20 W/Min

500 words for the average entry / (15 W/Min) = 33 Minutes per entry
246 total entries * 33 Minutes/Entry = 8118 Minutes = 135 Hours spent writing his blog

Spreading this over 3 years comes out to only 45 hours per year (a solid weeks work), but considering that more than half of his entries have been in 2008, that comes out to a much larger number for the past year (I'd guess 65-70 hours).

I also want to point out this is just for writing his blog entries. Who knows how much time he has spent policing his comments section to make sure everyone is behaving, not to mention the 121 comments he has posted to his own entries and to respond to fans.

I know that writing a blog is much easier than writing a book, so making the comparison is not fair, but let's entertain the thought that he can write books as fast as blog. Then, we'll slow down the pace and see how much he could write. We will do all of this using the velocity of fantasy writing theorem:

Total Words = [Writing Velocity(W/Min)] * [Hours Per Day Writing] * [Days Per Week Writing] * [Vacation Time]

At 15 W/Min with: 6hour work days, 5 days a week, and 3 months vacation/holiday time; meaning 200 working days in a year. That sounds more than fair doesn't it?

15 W/Min * 60 Min/Hour * 6 Hours/Day * 200 Days/Year = 1,080,000 words per year

At 10 W/Min Writing Velocity
10 * 60 * 6 * 200 = 720,000 words per year

At 5 W/Min Writing Velocity

5 * 60 * 6 * 200 = 360,000 words per year

As I have said in a previous entry, if he had the book about 1/2 done as of 3 years ago, and I assume the book will be about 400,000 words. Lets see at what pace George would have working at if he finished the book tomorrow:

200,000 Words Needed = X * 60 Min/Hour * 6 Hours/Day * 200 Days/Year * 3 years
X = 0.93 Words/Min

At this pace, he would have written 330 words by the end of each day he found good enough to include in ADWD. This is less than his average length of a blog entry. In a whole day.

If he decided to scrap everything and started the book from the beginning 3 years ago and finished tomorrow, what would his Writing Velocity be? We can assume his Writing Velocity was actually negative for a while, as he would have started with a half finished book (200,000 words) and started over with a new book (0 words), and moving backwards would thus give a negative velocity. Over the entire 3 years his velocity of writing, starting from 0, would be:

400,000 Words Needed = X * 60 Min/Hour * 6 Hours/Day * 200 Days/Year * 3 years
X = 1.85 Words/Min

Obviously don't take these numbers literally. He surely writes more than 0.93 words per minute. Think of this as 0.93 words per minute that would actually be used for ADWD assuming he finishes the book tomorrow.

Or just think of this as food for thought that given such a liberal theoretical working schedule, GRRM has managed to accomplish so little and at such a slothenly pace. At least I had a good excuse for my slow working speed in Physics class. Blue eyes, blonde hair...

Battle of the Alamo, 2008

2008-12-18T04:16:18Z

I realized that I hadn't written an article in awhile, so I have an interesting one today. I've been pretty busy at work, so that's my excuse. Yesterday right after I finished up a huge report, my boss walks in and says, "KrKreuk, I talked to the client today and we need to get two more reports finished before new years."

First of all, this made me think I wish I didn't have deadlines like George. Second, damnit. Third, who wants to work overtime during the holidays? And I'm commision based, so I won't get overtime pay.

Enough complaining. My article today is, like I said, a little different. It's not the normal type of entry analyzing his past posts, laziness, or food. It does have to deal with George, though. It also deals with football, which we know he loves, and....college? (or university for my European readers)

Did you know that George got his undergrad and graduate degrees from Northwestern University in northen Chicago? It's a pretty prestigious school, and it's not exactly a secret as it's on his website (the one he never updates except to guide fans to his merchandise).

I know on Finish the Book, George people have been discussing George 'borrowing' from history. I'm not here to start that argument again, but I did find something right next to his university that he put into the books:

(Yes, I enjoy photoshop too much, and check google maps for White Harbor if you don't believe me)

Looks like George got his education near White Harbor. We know that White Harbor is the main port of the north, so if he studied with Lord Manderly that might be where George learned to try and make as much money as possible. And that is definitely where he would have learned to eat. I mean the dude couldn't sit a horse and apparently would rupture eels if you stabbed him. Anyways, I thought that was at least interesting.

But that is not the main part of this entry. You see, George and my life are about to be connected.

Football, George RR Martin, and KrKreuk all collide on December 29th, 2008.

Northwestern University and the University of Missouri play American Football (again for my Euros) against each other in the Alamo Bowl on that night. I graduated from the University of Missouri, so you can only imagine how excited this makes me as Missouri are 13 point favorites to win. There is a high likelihood that I will have reason to celebrate at George's misery. He has never made a blog entry about Northwestern as far as I know, but I would like to think he would be a bit dismayed. Especially if the Giants and Jets both choke over the next few weeks. (If Pennington beats the Jets and eliminates them from the playoffs...I can only imagine the depression George will go through)

Of course, Missouri has blown several games this year when they were preseason 'fashionable favorites' to win the BCS. So it's possible I will be the one sent into depression.

In closing, sorry if you are not a fan of college football. I tried to bring a little research into it to make it interesting for everyone. I have a few new projects in the works so look for those soon. And if this were Not A Blog, this would be the point in which all of you rant about how amazing Missouri is and start sucking up, while adding your own important insights to College Football.

Martin vs. Sanderson, IN THE OCTAGON

2008-12-13T19:18:36Z

As anyone that has read even one of my blog entries probably knows, George does not like to give updates on his progress for ADWD, and he is a little behind schedule in its release. Both of those are understatements.

Perhaps we have been overly harsh on poor old George, and he doesn't deserve this? I think it's only fair that we compare him with another author's website/blog. I'll choose someone who has a fantasy book that is just as anticipated, if not more, than George. How about Brandon Sanderson, the author chosen to finish Robert Jordan's last book? It should be a good comparison, so here are the similarities I see between them:

Both massively popular series
Both had a good chunk of the book already finished when they started working on their new novel
Both like to advertise their merchandise on their website
Both are in complex words with a host of characters

Now the differences:

GRRM is a much more established writer (ie, more money), although Wheel of Time is probably much more established than ASOIAF
GRRM has been working on this novel for 3 years, assuming when AFFC was done was the starting point for ADWD, Sanderson for a little over 1 year
Sanderson has regular progress reports and updates on his website
It is statistically and mathematically impossible to compare the Boss Mass Index (BMI) of George to Sanderson

As I have stated before, I think that it is completely normal for an author to what to make their fans aware of products being available for sale, after all, most writers went through years of hard times and like making money if they can. However, GRRM refuses to give us any news at all on his highly anticipated book, and has not done so for awhile.

Perhaps this is because George has already made enough money that he is not nearly as motivated as Sanderson, who needs to make a name for himself before he can enter the same ranks as 'the greats.' Sanderson has some well published books (which are pretty good too, I recommend checking them out), but is not nearly as famous.

Anyways, you can check out my other entries to see what George has been writing about recently, and you most likely already know, but the short of it is: football, wildcards, and getting fat.

Now let's take a look at Sanderson and his blog.

First, I want to point out that at the 2008 World Science Fiction Convention, it is reported that Jordan had completed 50,000 words of the book before he died. So when Sanderson took over last December, he had roughly 50k of the estimated 400k needed words completed already.

Getting up to speed, Sanderson had completed 300k words as of month ago, and recently is up 50k more (all this in the past year, by the way). He has updated the percentage complete regularly (it's on the left side of the page). He is planning on getting to 400k by the end of December, then likely to 600k - 700k by March or April next year, and have the book out by next December. Think about how much writing that is.

GRRM has been writing ADWD for 3 years, and this started as a "half complete book". If 400k is the longest Jordan book (and GRRM most likely wont have one longer), then he has had to write 200k words over the past 3 years, and that is overestimating half, if anything.

200k / 156 weeks = 1,280 words per week.
400k / 156 weeks = 2,560 words per week.

George has not even been able to reach those numbers, apparently, as the book is not yet complete. But George has been traveling, maybe that has taken up some time?

Sanderson also was on tour over the summer, as well as working on other projects at the same time as the new Wheel of Time novel. However, he states in his newest entry that while on books signing tours he still makes himself write at least 10k words a week. Let's repeat that one more time; 10,000 words a week. Minimum. Let's stretch that out over the past three years to see what GRRM could have accomplished at that rate:

3 years * 52 weeks in a year * 10,000 words per week = 1,560,000 words

That is probably more words than the remaining three books; A Dance With Dragons, The Winds of Winter, and A Dream of Spring, would have combined.

Yes, Jordan left notes and guidelines for this novel (and even wrote part of it before passing), but that doesn't make it necessarily easier, as Sanderson had to get into a new world and follow someone else's script. And George should have already had an outline for this whole book before it got split into half.

Honestly what professional writer types as slow as GRRM and expects to finish books, let alone stay in the writing business?

And Brandon, if you are a fan of fantasy writer criticism and happen to read this, I am sorry for bringing you into this but you just work too hard for the fantasy world. You can only blame yourself for that.

New Wild Cards Novel: Flush the Busted Dragons

2008-12-11T21:16:01Z

George has been writing hordes of Wild Card blog entries recently, and his newest one is no exception. This time he links an interview with him and the actual writers for the new books (and is back to disabling comments).

Now, I understand that he has always been a big fan of this series and that he is kind of spear-heading its return, but he is going a little bit overboard in my opinion. I do not think these books really appeal to the mainstream fantasy crowd, but he's shoving it down our throats anyways.

If you can't be bothered to read the whole interview, I don't blame you because it's pretty long. But I did read all of George's comments. I'll give you my very favorite quote here that is towards the very end of the article:

GRRM: I'm working on this fantasy series. A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, it's called. Four books published, and if I can even finish this fifth one, there will be two more after that.

This interview was posted December 10th, and it doesn't say when the actual interview took place, but honestly read that line again. If I can even finish the fifth one. Straight from the horses mouth, as they say.

All of this BS he's trying to pass on to us about how he's working diligently and getting close to finished sounds pretty hollow. Guess what else I found though! In regards to Busted Flush, I quote GRRM's blog on 12/31/07:

"BUSTED FLUSH has been delivered"

What?!? So he has been done editing that 'novel' for about a year now?!? That means that he has had nothing but this Vance collection to work on since then (oh yeah, and ADWD).

You really have to question what he has been doing with all of his time.

Wrap Up Dance? Again?

2008-12-10T16:37:17Z

This is a continuation from my previous entry, looking closer at a few of my favorites.

George's most recent blog entry, which has a lot of people really excited, makes mention of ADWD. Here is an excerpt:

Now all I need to do is wrap up WARRIORS and SUICIDE KINGS and... yes... A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, and maybe I'll be able to take a week off.

Let's take a moment to digest this information (im avoiding an easy fat joke here).

Now let's look at a blog entry from Oct 17, 2006:

There's nothing else on my schedule until February, however, so for the rest of the year I will be right here, shackled to the computer and pounding the keys. I have half a dozen different projects on my plate, but the big one is A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, and I am going to be pushing hard on that in the weeks and months to come, in hopes of wrapping it up by the end of the year.

Now do you see any similarities between his recent post and the one made over 2 years ago? I think I made it pretty easy, but here is what I gather:

He mentions working on multiple projects
He insists that he needs to 'wrap up' said projects

I think most of you can see the implications of these two entries by George. Using the same language in an entry two years ago as one just a few days ago is not a good sign. Notice he sets no deadline or mentions progress on his new entry, just that it will be 'wrapped up.' I checked on google and there is not time range for 'warpping it up.' He did make this promise a few months after his earlier post though on Dec. 5, 2006:

What I will no longer due, however, is announce any more dates by which I hope to finish and deliver the book.

So you have to be careful and pay close attention to exactly what people say, especially politicians and fantasy writers past their deadline! Now I would like to move to Mar 7, 2006:

(And no, I am NOT going to forget about A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. That's still my number one priority, and will remain so until it's done).

Does anyone actually believe this? I mean, maybe he's trying to convince himself, but I dont think anyone can legitimately argue that ADWD has been his number one priority for the past two and a half years. He has been working on so many projects, just look at this one entry alone on Nov. 5, 2006:

Right now I'm trying to finish A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, working on a breakdown of the contents and art required for THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE, editing the new Wild Cards book INSIDE STRAIGHT and writing my own story for same, beating out an outline for a comics project with John J. Miller, trying to stay on top of the various Ice & Fire spinoffs from Subterranean Press, Fantasy Flight Games, Testor's, DBPro, Avatar Comics, and several other licenses, dealing with the aftermath of the Byron Preiss bankruptcy auction, trying to extricate my RPG rights from the collapse of Guardians of Order, living through major home renovations.

He makes several other mentions since then of what he is currently working on, and almost grudgingly states that he is working on ADWD as well, like it's not his job. Ummm, if I had a cash cow I think I would postpone my other work.

Lastly, he mentions several times how angry he gets when people post off-topic responses, and how he loooves to ban people. Nevermind these are his fans, but not his 'good' fans. Here is an entry from Apr. 27, 2007:

those of you who don't want to read anything but DANCE WITH DRAGONS news should stay away.

Damn, guess I have to stop reading Not A Blog now that I've seen that.

EDIT: Ok I thought about it and one more entry really pisses me off:

Aug 13, 2007: I am, however, getting bloody sick of all the off-topic comments, and the trolls who use any LJ post of mine, regardless of subject, as another excuse to slam me about DANCE being late. I can't stop you from posting such comments, of course... but I can and will remove 'em, and ban the posters. LJ makes that pretty easy, I'm glad to say. And life is too short to deal with trolls.

I cant help but think that several of his most recent comments are trolls for Finish the Book, George and this site (In case you were wondering, trolls are posts that are meant to elicit responses from others and are usually off topic). His supposed hate for trolls is extremely hypocritical, as I cannot see any other logical explanation for his repeated Christmas merchandising campaign he is on except to piss us off, and causing us to post angry topics

A Dance With Updates

2008-12-10T15:55:25Z

Have you ever wondered how many times George has made updates about A Dance With Dragons? Well now you can! I was honestly surprised how many times he has mentioned ADWD, and he used to make real updates on what characters he's working on and similar facts.

First, he has made occasional updates on the news section of his website. These updates are dated 1/4/2006, 4/6/2006, 7/11/06, 2/15/2007, 1/1/2008. His newest update is located on his site, and I found an archive with all of his old updates at on cinemablend.

Around 2007, he decided to start moving his 'updates' to his Not A Blog. Below are every entry (I think) of him mentioning A Dance With Dragons. Not every mention is an update on his progress, but I thought it was still useful. Sometimes I also pasted a few sentences around the mention if I thought they were useful. I also bolded a few lines that I thought were amusing. Well, here goes:

(NOTE: I did not edit any of his writing, and I tried to keep all entries in context)

Dec 8, 2008: Now all I need to do is wrap up WARRIORS and SUICIDE KINGS and... yes... A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, and maybe I'll be able to take a week off.
Oct. 27, 2008: And no, they did NOT take my computers, so the hard drive where A DANCE WITH DRAGONS lives is still there, and safe, and I haven't lost any work.
Oct. 11, 2008: Purchasers will also acquire the rights to buy the same number of Subterranean's limited edition of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, somewhere down the road.
Oct. 9, 2008: In view of what's happening right now, however, I find a need to say a word or three, even if it means taking a few hours off from DANCE WITH DRAGONS, the Vance anthology, SUICIDE KINGS, the WARRIORS anthology, and all the other projects that I am juggling.
Sep. 19, 2008: I am perfectly aware that A DANCE WITH DRAGONS is late. There's no need to remind me, thanks, I have plenty of editors and agents and publishers to do that. And if you want to comment on other matters... including, but not limited to, the lateness of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, that's fine, just go do it on your own blogs.
Jun. 16, 2008: I will be talking about the series, reading a bit from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS (in English, alas, I don't speak Portugese), fielding questions, and signing your books.
Jun 9, 2008: Meanwhile, I'm still here, still holding down the fort, working on DANCE, on Vance, on WARRIORS, on WILD CARDS.
Apr 13, 2008: And be sure to stop by the Tor booth to learn more about our future plans for WILD CARDS, and the Bantam booth to pick up your free (FREE!) copy of SPECTRA PULSE with a never-before-seen preview chapter from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS...Actually it's not true that DANCE is all that I'll be doing. I'll also be editing the next Wild Cards books, SUICIDE KINGS, co-editing WARRIORS and SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH with Gardner Dozois, finishing the third Dunk & Egg novella, which is oh-so-close, and of course watching the NFL draft.
Mar. 17, 2008: DANCE gets covered. Here are the American and British covers for A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.
Mar. 17, 2008: The issue will include a new, never-before-seen chapter from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. (Only slightly abridged).
Mar. 15, 2008: Well, I finished a chapter of the DANCE this morning. Which ordinarily would not be occasion for comment, but this was a Bran chapter that I've been struggling with for something like six year
Mar. 5, 2008: ... I am pleased to be able to announce that they have just signed up artist Marc Fishman to illustrate their deluxe limited edition of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. If you'd like to get in the queue to snag a copy of the illustrated DANCE, it is never too late to drop by the SubPress website and place your order.
Jan. 27, 2008: It's been a busy few weeks for DANCE. I have been working on a Dany chapter and a Bran chapter. (The Bran chapters remain incredibly hard to write, for what it's worth, and this one is no different).
Jan. 1, 2008: I've sent a new sample chapter from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and an update on the current status of the book to my webmaster.
Dec 31, 2007: I had hoped to be able to finish A DANCE WITH DRAGONS during 2007. Still, the new year looms. I am not a big believer in New Year resolutions, but I do have some goals for 2008, both personal and professional, and the most urgent of those remains A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.
Nov. 16, 2007: And when I read the prologue of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, I liked it a lot better than the earlier version I read at a couple cons last summer.
Oct. 22, 2007: DANCE WITH DRAGONS? Yes, working on that too. Lately it's been Tyrion and more Tyrion.
Sep. 1, 2007: Yeah, yeah, I know. I made the logical, adult, sensible decision, and stayed home to work on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and my myriad other projects.
Aug. 29, 2007: Yes, yes, I'm still working on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.
Aug. 13, 2007: I am, however, getting bloody sick of all the off-topic comments, and the trolls who use any LJ post of mine, regardless of subject, as another excuse to slam me about DANCE being late. I can't stop you from posting such comments, of course... but I can and will remove 'em, and ban the posters. LJ makes that pretty easy, I'm glad to say. And life is too short to deal with trolls.
July 17, 2007: And I've been working on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS too. Just finished revising the prologue a few hours ago.
July, 11, 2007: I had a reading at the convention, and decided to read the newly-completed prologue from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.
June 28, 2007: And yeah, yeah, I know this post will probably infuriate those "fans" of mine who would prefer that I work on A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE all day, every day, to the exclusion of everything else... but I've grown used to that by now. Sorry, guys. I'm working on DANCE, as I've reported, but I have other projects too, and that's going to continue to be true for a long, long time.
June 25, 2007: It's been too long since I last posted here, but I have a good excuse. Parris has been off in Ireland since June 6, and I have been trying to take advantage of the (comparative) isolation to get some serious work done on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. I did manage to finish one especially troublesome chapter that I have been fussing and fretting over since before I split the two books, so that's good. Finished some other chapters too, and did some more revision, so I've been productive, but still... there's no way around it, DANCE is simply coming more slowly than me, my editors, or my readers would like. A year ago, it would never have dawned on me that DANCE would not be done by the time the Japanese worldcon rolled around, but that's looking like a very real possibility now.
May 29, 2007: Anyway, I'll be there this Thursday evening, in avatar form, doing a reading from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and doing a Q&A afterwards.
Apr. 27, 2007: I had a number of good days writing on DANCE after my last post. It felt great to have a solid streak of work like that. Unfortunately, the last two days have been less productive, at least for DANCE. and those of you who don't want to read anything but DANCE WITH DRAGONS news should stay away.
Apr 21, 2007: I had a good day's work on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS yesterday. I need more days like this. Lots more days like this. That's how DANCE will get done.
Jan 5, 2007: Lest anyone have a heart attack, let me hasten to add that this has NOT affected A DANCE WITH DRAGONS or any of my other work-in-progress.
Dec 11, 2006: When A FEAST FOR CROWS came out, I realized that something close to half the book had already been out there in one form or another -- website samples, readings, promotional giveaways, excerpts in magazines, and so on. That was too much. I am not going to do that with DANCE
Dec. 5, 2006: Bad news. Work. None of the projects I wrapped up was A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. Work has been going well, yes, but not especially on DANCE. I am not going to be able to finish it by the end of the year as I had hoped. All I can say is that I HAVE gotten several other obligations off my plate, that my contractor swears in blood that the home renovations will be finished soon so I can have my office back again, that I'm working on DANCE and I will continue to work on it. What I will no longer due, however, is announce any more dates by which I hope to finish and deliver the book.
Nov. 5, 2006: Right now I'm trying to finish A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, working on a breakdown of the contents and art required for THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE, editing the new Wild Cards book INSIDE STRAIGHT and writing my own story for same, beating out an outline for a comics project with John J. Miller, trying to stay on top of the various Ice & Fire spinoffs from Subterranean Press, Fantasy Flight Games, Testor's, DBPro, Avatar Comics, and several other licenses, dealing with the aftermath of the Byron Preiss bankruptcy auction, trying to extricate my RPG rights from the collapse of Guardians of Order, living through major home renovations. I do NOT have the time to take on PayPal and the U.S. Treasury as well.
Oct 17, 2006: There's nothing else on my schedule until February, however, so for the rest of the year I will be right here, shackled to the computer and pounding the keys. I have half a dozen different projects on my plate, but the big one is A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, and I am going to be pushing hard on that in the weeks and months to come, in hopes of wrapping it up by the end of the year.
Aug. 17, 2006: And to appease all those who come to my site mainly for updates about A DANCE WITH DRAGONS... sorry, guys, you're not going to like this news any more than I do, but the last month has been a washout as far as writing is concerned. I need to save most of my time and energy for A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and WILD CARDS and my myriad other publishing projects, old and new.
July 26, 2006: I'm home again and it is time to get going on the novel once more. I have less than a month until worldcon, and I would like to get a big chunk of DANCE done before I take off for Anaheim.
June 30, 2006: Let's see, I went to Marcon in Columbus, Ohio last month, did a few panels, read a chapter from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, had some drinks with some of my readers. All my emails are about A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. I made the mistake of saying on my Update page that I would update again in April, and I didn't. Meanwhile, for those who do read this page... yes, I am still working on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, and yes, I still hope to deliver it this fall, or by the end of the year at the latest.
May 13, 2006: Parris flew off to Ireland a few weeks ago for a well-deserved vacation, and left me here chained to the computer to work on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. Oh, and I suppose you want to know how the DANCE is coming? Work continues. I finished the revisions on the Jon Snow chapters that I was talking about last month, and moved on to Tyrion for a while, but just now I am working on a new viewpoint character, and a chapter set in steamy harbor of Old Volantis.
Mar. 28, 2006: I have finally been able to settle down and get back into A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. That's where most of my time and energy has gone of late. So -- A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, then THE WINDS OF WINTER, then A DREAM OF SPRING. Shouldn't take me long (hah).
Mar 7, 2006: (And no, I am NOT going to forget about A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. That's still my number one priority, and will remain so until it's done).
Feb 5, 2006: So another NFL season is now done, which means that Sunday becomes a work day for me once again. That should please everyone waiting for A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.
Jan 3, 2006: I have a big chunk of a new Dunk & Egg novella that I should be able to finish with a good solid week of work... and then I've got some dragons waiting for a dance. We'll see how all that goes.

Actual updates: 3/15/08, 1/27/08, 10/22/07, 7/17/07, 6/25/07, 4/27/07, 4/21/07, 5/13/06, 3/28/06