With all this talk about The Winds of Winter this past week, and the reddit fueled rumors of a possibly release date, an exchange from last month has surfaced on Los Siete Reinos in the last day from a forum exchange where author Brandon Sanderson was apparently asked point blank by fans that if the unthinkable were to happen to George R.R. Martin (and considering the way 2016 has gone from Bowie to Rickman to Prince to Wilder, that would be the worst capper of all), would Sanderson consider stepping in to finish the tale.
For those who might find this a bizarre question for fans to be asking, a bit of explanation. Before A Song of Ice and Fire was the biggest thing in multi-tome fantasy, there was Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. Much like Martin, Jordan originally set out to write a trilogy, but “the tale grew in the telling.” By 2005, Jordan was up to Book 11, with little sign of a conclusion. In 2006, he was diagnosed with cardiac amyloidosis, and he passed away about 18 months later. In the intervening time he worked with Sanderson (who was already known for his own multi-tomed epic, the Mistborn series) on the final three novels, including giving him his outline, his already finished chapters and all of his notes, and the final three installments were published starting in 2009, through 2013 as “co-authored by Sanderson.”
Brandon Sanderson, via Wikimedia Commons
To also be clear, one of the reasons this did not come to light immediate after the conversation is that this was not a reddit AMA. Rather, Sanderson is a Reddit regular (he posts under the handle “Mistborn”, natch.) The conversation came out of a thread where fans in the ASOIAF reddit were despairing that TWOW would not be seen this year after all. The question, as put to Sanderson was if he thought, as a Mormon, he would be able to be as violent as Martin if he were asked to step in, if something were to happen to Martin, a la Jordan.
….the point is moot, as I wouldn’t say yes to finishing ASOIAF, if asked. (And I don’t think they’d ask me.) I’d respectfully decline. I wouldn’t be right for the job for many reasons. I wouldn’t want to put in the content that the series has, and part of that is due to my religious faith, part of it is just who I am. I don’t shy away from difficult material, but I prefer not to get explicit.
He then gets philosophical on how Martin writes a fundamentally pessimistic view of humanity, where his is not, and compares it to asking Spielberg to come in and finish a Tarantino movie. It’s not a bad answer to what is actually quite an awkward question. (Lord knows that Martin finds these questions about his health ever since Jordan passed away to be tacky. Imagine having to face him as a peer after being asked to answer this.) But for those who continue to fret that 2016 will take one more artist too soon, consider this an avenue closed.
Via http://winteriscoming.net/2016/09/07/brandon-sanderson-says-never-consider-finishing-winds-winter-something-happen/
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