George R.R. Martin Claps Back at Frustrated Fans: “Some Of You Will Be Pissed By This”

George R.R. Martin has some rather candid pushback for fans who are frustrated by the lack of publication date for The Winds of Winter.

The author has been working on the A Song of Ice and Fire novel for at least 15 years.

By now, Martin has heard all the usual “finish the book, George” reactions, some of which are rather cruel (suggesting the author will perish before he finishes his Game of Thrones saga, which includes both Winds and a final novel, A Dream of Spring).

On Wednesday, the author discussed last week’s Hollywood Reporter news of an adult animated feature film adapting Howard Waldrop’s novella, A Dozen Tough Jobs. Martin will produce the project — a take on The Twelve Labors of Hercules — which will be penned by Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-Tep). The film follows Martin’s producing short films based on three other Waldrop tales.

Each time Martin announces a non-Winds project, however, some of the online reaction laments the fact that Winds isn’t yet finished. So Martin posted a strong pre-emptive statement along with the film news.

“I know, I know,” Martin wrote. “Some of you will just be pissed off by this, as you are by everything I announce here that is not about Westeros or THE WINDS OF WINTER. You have given up on me, or on the book. I will never finish WINDS, If I do, I will never finish A DREAM OF SPRING. If I do, it won’t be any good. I ought to get some other writer to pinch hit for me…I am going to die soon anyway, because I am so old. I lost all interest in A Song of Ice and Fire decades ago. I don’t give a shit about writing any longer, I just sit around and spend my money. I edit the Wild Cards books too, but you hate Wild Cards. You may hate everything else I have ever written, the Hugo-winners and Hugo-losers, “A Song for Lya” and DYING OF THE LIGHT, “Sandkings” and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST,  “This Tower of Ashes” and “The Stone City,” OLD MARS and OLD VENUS and ROGUES and WARRIORS and DANGEROUS WOMEN and all the other anthologies I edited with my friend Gardner Dozois. You don’t care about any of those, I know. You don’t care about anything but WINDS OF WINTER. You’ve told me so often enough.”

Continued Martin: “Thing is, I do care about them. And I care about Westeros and WINDS as well.  The Starks and Lannisters and Targaryens, Tyrion and Asha, Dany and Daenerys, the dragons and the direwolves, I care about them all.  More than you can ever imagine.”

Added Martin about the Waldrop adaptation, “I wish you all could share my excitement at the prospect of this movie.”

The irony is, of course, that we’re living in a time of more Thrones-related content than ever — at least on TV. HBO is working on a third season of House of the Dragon (which Martin previously had some blunt thoughts about as well) and the debut season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.