A Song of Ice and Fire writer George R.R. Martin sat down with Late Show host Stephen Colbert to discuss the difference between Game of Thrones‘ Iron Throne and the much larger one in his novel, the colourful dragons in House of the Dragon, and his thoughts on the pessimistic outlook modern fantasy and science fiction appears to have adopted.
Significantly, he also gave an update on his progress writing The Winds of Winter, the highly anticipated sixth novel in his high fantasy series.
“I am making progress with The Winds of Winter, but it’s still not done yet,” said Martin, who is probably very tired of being asked for updates yet still manages to handle it with good humour and grace.
“I think it’s going to be a very big book. The biggest books so far were the third volume, Storm of Swords, and the fifth volume, Dance with Dragons. Those were both about 1,500 pages. This one’s gonna be bigger than either of that, and I think I’m about three quarters of the way done. I’m done with some of the characters. The characters all interweave, so I’ve actually finished with a couple of the characters, I’ve got their whole story, but not others. So I have to finish all that weaving. But it’s still going to take me a while.”
“And I do know one thing for certain: we’re going to deliver it, and it’s gonna be published, and the next day I will get the first tweet that says, ‘Where’s A Dream of Spring?‘”
Martin also discussed his work writing the fictional in-game history for FromSoftware’s widely lauded video game Elden Ring. Unfortunately it seems he hasn’t had the opportunity to enjoy playing it himself.
“I have not played it because people seem to want this Winds of Winter book,” said Martin, noting he has an “addictive personality.”
“I did play video games a long, long time ago. I played games like Railroad Tycoon, and Master of Orion, and Homeworld, and I would get sucked into it. Weeks, months would go by and I’d be sitting in my red flannel bathrobe just playing, ‘One more game, one more game!’ I can’t, I gotta go cold turkey on this.”
