Opinion Express View | Game of Thrones: The wait is almost over

Has the health of any author troubled readers as much as the health of George R R Martin worries his fans? Back in 2014, in an interview, the then 65-year-old writer had famously made a rude gesture when asked if he would live long enough to finish A Song of Ice and Fire, his fantasy book series. And earlier this year, frustrated by the obsessive scrutiny of fans, he swore off giving updates about the sixth book in the series, The Winds of Winter, which he has been working on since 2010.

Martin has now announced that he is “three-quarters of the way done” with The Winds of Winter, but fans — as he knows better than anyone — are a tough lot. Much like a hard-to-please boss, who wants only results and not optimistic updates about work-in-progress, they aren’t happy to learn that a book they’ve been looking forward to for 12 years is still only 75 per cent done. Readers of the fantasy genre, in particular, have been scarred by the death of Robert Jordan, creator of The Wheel of Time series, after he wrote only 11 books out of the planned 14-book cycle (the remaining books were finished by Brandon Sanderson).

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But it’s hard not to sympathise with Martin. Writers, notorious procrastinators as they are, are almost always in a race against time anyway, to ensure that the worlds and characters that teem about in their head find a way onto the page. To be as prolific as, say, Barbara Cartland — who wrote 20-plus books a year on average — or Stephen King — who writes at least 2,000 words a day — is rare. Having his mortality brought up again and again can’t be pleasant for Martin. A little grace and understanding is due and it is well to remember, as Neil Gaiman once said when defending Martin to angry, demanding fans, that “writers and artists are not machines”.