So there I am driving home from work when all of a sudden a pickup truck down the street ahead of me screeches to a halt and starts backing up!
My first instinct was to do nothing. This would be the THIRD time in FOUR months that somebody has backed into my invisible piece-of-shit car. I might as well pick up another insurance check out of the deal.
But then two thoughts hit me at once...
So I honked my horn. They screeched to a halt again (one car-length from my bumper) then pulled forward into a parking spot so I could pass.
And I bet you a million dollars they were cussing me out for daring to honk at them, even though I saved THEM from hitting ME.
The dumbasses.
I tell you, the only thing keeping me from wanting to be abducted by aliens right now so I can leave this shithole planet behind is this...
I read the first book of George R. R. Martin's epic "Song of Ice and Fire" series, A Game of Thrones, because of a glowing employee recommendation at Powell's City of Books. I liked it well enough that I bought the follow-up, A Clash of Kings when it came out a few months later. A couple years after that, A Storm of Swords came out. It was supposed to be the last book of a trilogy, but Martin decided he wanted to keep going. I then gave up because it took FIVE years for the fourth book, A Feast for Crows to come out... and frickin' SIX years after that for the fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, to come out (this past July).
The reason I gave up was because the last thing I want is to get all invested in the series only to have George R. R. Martin up and die before he finally finishes the story (presumably with book seven)...
Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin — ©2011 HBO/Helen Sloan
But thennnnnnn... HBO unleashed an Original Series based upon the books that has been getting rave reviews and awards. Whenever I travel, I always try to catch it when my hotel has HBO. I've seen roughly half of the ten episodes...
Love it.
I was thinking I'd watch the rest of the episodes when the DVD set was released, but HBO isn't releasing it until frickin' MARCH (and it's priced like EIGHTY DOLLARS or something) so I went ahead and ordered HBO. Now I've been watching it via On Demand, and am pretty amazed at how faithful they are to the book (or what I remember of it).
But now I am back to worrying over whether George R. R. Martin will die before the HBO series can be concluded. Even worse is the thought that Martin will complete the books in a timely manner, but HBO will cancel the series before they've adapted all of them.
The dumbasses.
I love comments! However, all comments are moderated, and won't appear until approved. Are you an abusive troll with nothing to contribute? Don't bother. Selling something? Don't bother. Spam linking? Don't bother.
PLEASE NOTE: My comment-spam protection requires JavaScript... if you have it turned off or are using a mobile device without JavaScript, commenting won't work. Sorry.
Atom Entries Feed Comments Feed
I love the HBO version of Game of Thrones. I don’t have HBO, so I “resorted” to finding them online. But I’ll definitely be buying it when it comes out on Blu-Ray.
Glad you didn’t get hit! It’s not just you. I pulled onto a road that was open but still under construction and a road worker in a pickup truck hit the gas IN REVERSE in my (proper) lane. Why that seemed like a good idea to him I do not know.
I hit the brakes; thought, “Wow, this is it,” and blew my horn. He was going so fast, in reverse! Fortunately he stopped a couple feet from me, but clearly he wasn’t watching where he was going. Actually, as I recall, he was dropping something out his window onto the road, marking some kind of line? He wasn’t looking behind at all while approaching the side street I came from and a curve in the road! While driving at least 40 mph! In Reverse! ARgh!
I think you have bad car Karma. It happened to me with my beloved Mini and I had to sell it.
I’d rather think that the person who nearly backed into you felt horrible that they didn’t see you and relieved that you beeped the horn. I certainly would have been.
I think that having the series being made on HBO has motivated Martin to finish the books faster. I would guess that HBO isn’t going to end the show anytime soon because it got really good ratings, and I think I read yesterday that they are filming two seasons back to back or something.
There’s been a LOT of shows that debuted to fantastic ratings… only to eventually dwindle down and be canceled. Granted, HBO is a network who has been historically more faithful to keeping shows around for future profit potential, but even they won’t keep a show that has such a low viewership they’re losing money.
As for G.R.R. Martin… I worry that the television show will actually delay things further. With his history as a screenwriter for television, he’s been VERY involved with the show, which leaves him less time to write. This is especially worrisome when you consider he’s got a bunch of other projects going on.
The “back-to-back” seasons 3 & 4 rumor (if proven true) will undoubtedly be an adaptation of Book Three alone, since it’s so massive. If aired in separate years, that gets us through 2014. Anything can happen that far out. 🙂
I’m sorry Dave, but you worry too damned much. Yes, the series might not be completed before the author’s death. Heck, you might not be able to finish the series before your untimely death. Odds are neither will happen and even if the odds were against your reading spree coming to a conclusion, would the disappointment in not being able to finish the series outweigh the enjoyment you got from what you did read?
If so, then I recommend you don’t ever start a series that the author hasn’t finished and don’t do anything but read the whole series once you’ve started.
Perspective……we all need some sometime.
I’ve read (and am reading) dozens of series of books. This is speaking specifically to the Songs of Ice and Fire “trilogy.”
The perspective here is that G.R.R. Martin leaves his books with cliffhangers and waits a long, long, long, long, time to write another one. It’s not like authors in other series who manage to wrap up a story enough to have a satisfactory conclusion, yet leave some threads for future installments…. they’re CLIFFHANGERS. As enjoyable as the books may be to read, yes, it would take away from the enjoyment if they went unfinished. So yeah, I probably WILL wait until the final four books are completed before reading them because I don’t want to be setting myself up for disappointment. But who knows… maybe the HBO series will compel me to re-think this, I dunno.
That’s how I feel about Nana. It’s the only manga I still care about, and of course it’s unfinished, which means the anime is unfinished, and in the back of my mind I’m always worrying Ai Yazawa will die before she finishes it. I wish I’d never started reading it.
At least Stephen King finished the Dark Tower series.
These are the things that motivate me to finish my shit and simultaneously keep me up at night.
I’m pretty sure my old boss told me about the Song of Fire and Ice book and TV series. I got him hooked on the Shannara series (Terry Brooks), and if I remember correctly, he said the George R.R. Martin books are even better. At some point, I’m going to have to read these.
I need that guy on my Movember team next year! Damn!