GRRM, fandom culture, and the "Finish the book, George" mentality

Like most fans of good literature that are familiar with it, it seems, I am a tremendous fan of George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire." Much of my youth was spent reading books that were sequestered to the "Fantasy" aisle in the bookstore, of which I became quite familiar. Most was bad, some was good, but all of it, bad and good, was attached a label that was synonymous with "Young Adult." Much of it was rather puerile geek wish fulfillment trash, some of it was amusing but had the depth of crepe paper (Dragonlance and Eddings come to mind), some of it was shamelessly derivative trash (I still have some Dennis L. McKiernan books floating around in my house), but by and large, in retrospect, the label was not entirely inaccurate.

As years passed, I did the Robert Jordan thing, and gave up at around Book 11 (good god that man could simply not make choices in his writing - he was compelled to include EVERYTHING), before finally giving up on fantasy for some 5+ years, focusing on other forms of entertainment.

Then I found George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, which effectively rekindled my interest in the genre. This was what I'd been looking for those past several years, fantasy that wasn't about the fantastical; low fantasy, a gritty, realistic world that pulled from history on more than a whimsical basis, where good and evil were not so conveniently defined and where things were messy and happy endings were not a foregone conclusion. Some time around 2001 I picked up A Game of Thrones (in a fit of poetic karma, I picked up Wizard's First Rule in the same trip to the bookstore, having heard good things about it from a friend whose literary taste I no longer put any faith in whatsoever; for years I used as a signature quote "Testament to my fortitude: I made it 87 pages into Wizard's First Rule before I began to bleed profusely from the eyes).

I devoured that motherfucker and needed more. Books 2 and 3 of the series were out, though A Storm of Swords was not yet out in paperback, so I eagerly picked up the hardcover. The two novels were devoured in a matter of days, and as I closed the novel, tingling with anticipation at the beautiful - not cliffhanger, per se, but simple game-changer - of Merret Frey dangling from the noose as a pair of eyes we'd previously thought dead stared up at him. I immediately started a reread, and then another. I became active in the online community. I discovered that one of my best friends, Chris, separated now by several states, had picked up the books on his own accord and that we had each independently contrived the theory that Jon Snow was in fact not the bastard son of Eddard Stark but instead the son (perhaps legitimate) of Ned's sister Lyanna and her supposed captor and rapist (more likely consensual lover, possibly eloped-with husband) Rhaegar Targaryen. We discussed the minutiae of the books, went online and discussed it with the crowd at Westeros, and waited for the 4th book.

And waited. And waited.

When Martin announced in his not-a-blog that he was scrapping over a year's worth of work, abandoning the now-infamous five-year gap plan, and starting over from scratch, I was disappointed, but the quality of the first three novels left me with the good faith leaning that this guy knew what he was doing.

Finally, at last, the 4th book came out, in 2005; I picked it up immediately and devoured it. Like many, I found it something of a disappointment at first, but like many, over time it's truly grown on me. After the orgy of action and cataclysmic action surrounding the final 1/3 of volume 3, we were due something of an adagio interlude, and that's exactly what we got. It was setup for what's to come, particularly in Dorne, the Iron Islands, and King's Landing, and I realized after my first reread that it was beautifully done.

George wrote, now somewhat infamously, that he hoped that A Dance with Dragons, volume 5, would be released the next year. And as everyone familiar with the series now knows, five years later, we're still waiting.

Many other factors have no doubt contributed to the delay. The announcement, and GRRM's involvement with, the HBO series (still hoping for a greenlight on S1 in March) no doubt put a delay in the writing. His writing of additional Dunk and Egg stories, the prequel novellas set in Westeros, took another bite. Side projects, his editing of compilations, signed volumes, swords, and miniatures more frequently accompany updates to his Not-a-blog than does progress reports on Dance, and that has left for some antsy fans wondering if the book would ever be completed.

Sometimes that fandom gets way out of line, though, and it certainly has over at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist where his Exclusive Excerpt from "The Mystery Knight" brought the trolls of the woodwork and, well, lines were crossed.

I hate to be the one to drag out dead horses, and I'm far from the first to do so regarding this conversation, but the spot-on accuracy of Neil Gaiman's now-famous George R. R. Martin is not your bitch rant strikes truer than ever.

There are, really, two schools of thought when it comes to the creative process. One is that deadlines are to be met, no matter what, and that their importance is such that nothing else matters.

The other is that shit is done when it is done, it will be as good as possible, and that anyone waiting for it is just going to have to wait.

Followers of the first philosophy include basically any of the producers of garden-variety, stupid derivative crap of any medium in history. Pick a movie at random, and understand that chances are very high it was written on a very strict deadline by an overstressed writer with no emotional attachment to the project other than the paycheck it grants him. Pick that same movie again, and you'll see something of no particular creative note whatsoever that nobody remembers and nobody cares about but for a few actors with hopes of a single reel clip and a few executives that hope to scrounge a bit of profit.

Followers of the second philosophy include GRRM, Tolkien, most every major author whose name you actually know, James Cameron, and video game developers Blizzard, Bioware, and Valve, who have between them produced about 95% of the video games actually worth playing in the past two decades.

It's interesting to see, though, just how quickly fans can turn. In a way it is reminiscent of a stalker mentality, where an imbalanced positive obsession (at least in the mind of the stalker, who inevitably sees it as "love" of a sort) turns ugly at perceived "betrayal".

Maybe the obsession with Martin hasn't gotten that bad, but in some cases it seems close. People want to have their cake and eat it too; they want the next book to come out, but they want it to be as good as what's come before it, and so few of them fail to realize that those are contradictory desires. Good art takes time. If you want your books to come out like clockwork, you'd best stick with Harry Potter.

The book will be done when it's done. Acknowledgment of that fact does not make one a "sycophant" nor a "bootlicker" nor any of the infantile names we're getting called. It simply makes us people that have not fallen victim to the instant-gratification craze that if seen to its logical conclusion would deny us much of what is good entertainment to begin with.

Closing on Busto

So, the month of January ended poorly. Not poor as in, meh breakeven, but poor as in, I experienced an uninhibited freefall the likes of which I've never even imagined. Feb of '08 was bad. This was much, much worse. On top of that, I found out I owe $2400 on a car I thought was paid off (don't ask). When it rains it fucking pours. Dropped down to 50NL at the moment, trying to rebuild the tatters of my bankroll. Ugh.

One week

Not much going on this past week in teh pokers. Been playing a lot of CoH ... up to level 12 in 2v2 americans, and holding steady @level 10 in 1v1's. Getting better.

Had to get up at 6 this morning to drive Brian & Cam to the airport. Okay, I wasn't actually their ride there, but I was their car's ride back. Replaced my shovel for the driveway, so I can clear that out at some point, and finally went shopping post-Florida trip.

Rerolled a new character in Dragon Age, a city elf rogue. I think I'm gonna try a main group of rogue x2, tank, healer. Should be interesting.

Freeroll!

Cashed in the gold level freeroll, then got knocked out with TT against 67 on a 58J4 board. Knew I should have repopped him pre. Low skill tournament, really - very fast levels. Some jackass at my table was stalling from 210 players (180 spots paid); it was pretty sweet knocking him out in 182nd. Won't complain about $50 from a freeroll, though.

Played about 6 games of CoH today. Won all but the first, including a standard 4v4 where I had double anyone else's score (buncha noobs! nobody retreated anything!) and a 2v2 on Rails and Metal where my opponent whined about how I "spammed" rangers (I had 4 squads). Well, gee, the dude on my side built nothing but PG's with the first rifle upgrade and tank hunters, both of which upgraded rangers act as a hard counter to. Finally towards the end of the game he builds a single IST (yay for counters) and then sends it directly into my blob (d'oh!). It gets two shots off and gets raped by my 8 bazookas. Then he starts whining, to which I say "I'm sorry I was able to out-produce you", almost getting around to mentioning that I might not have spammed them if he had actually built an effective counter.

Time for Einherjar, and then my first limbus in quite some time.

Poker!

1400 hands in just over 2 hours, $615. Not a bad day's work.

Travel day

Woke up at 8am after 4 hours sleep, managed to get myself semi-conscious, and caught Doug on the way out, thanking him for hosting and feeding me for the past 18 days or so. Missed the girls, but they knew I was leaving and we'd said tentative farewells the previous night.

The day went pretty much as expected: two flights, a 90 minute layover in Memphis (stopped in a restaurant for a burger and a Sam Adams), an hour wait, a bus ride, picked up at the bus stop by Camille, dropped off at about 7:15 pm. Immediately logged in to Dynamis, which went very smoothly right up until the point where we got Brian's fragment with 3 minutes left in the run and realized, to our horror, that one of our attendees had gone AFK and couldn't pass, meaning the fragment was lost and Brian's relic will have to wait another week. Fucking stupid drop distribution system, but equally stupid of this particular member not to realize what he was risking.

Played 4 sit and go's, 3 @$30+3 and one @$24+2. Cashed in all three of the $30+3's, 1st 3rd 3rd, for a total profit of something like $90.

Went to bed, didn't get up 'til noon, not playing hardcore poker today.

Grrrr

Stupid ghetto ass cab driver service can't drive down as far south as Johnson's Creek to pick me up at the bus stop there. "We can't leave Watertown." It's a 10 minute drive people. Luckily Camille was susceptible to bribery, and will be picking me up tomorrow. She thought she was picking me up at the airport at first, so after I told her "oh, no, I only need you to drive 10 minutes, not 90" she felt like she was getting a deal.

I didn't like asking her, particularly since Brian had said he didn't want me to (or more specifically, that he wasn't going to obligate her to do so, which I suppose makes a bit of a difference), but she was more than happy to, so I don't feel too bad. That is, after all, what friends do for one another.

Not much last night. Played some CoD-MW2, discovering that the Capture the Flag games are substantially more brutal than the Domination games - they require more teamwork, and are less forgiving of stupid deaths - and got spanked pretty good. Tricia's dad and mother-in-law announced a surprise visit roughly 16 hours in advance, which stressed the fuck out of Tricia. Lots of cleanup, vacuuming, etc. They're here now, and Trish is feigning enthusiasm with the best of them. I think they wanted to see Chris more than anything, and Chris is at school, with double dance recital afterward, meaning they'll likely get to see her for all of 20 minutes before she collapses tonight.

No poker today, probably gonna start a game of Civ 4, maybe log into FF, play some MW2 tonight after the girls have gone to bed. Jocelyn is showing off for the grandparents and is bouncing off the walls so she'll likely collapse early.

The good news is that this vacation has shifted my sleep schedule back a couple of hours, and I've been staying up pretty routinely until 3 in the morning, which is good because hopefully once I get back up to Wisconsin I can stay up after events and play some poker, where there are more fish at the tables than there are at my more regular 11 in the morning times.