Shamble faster!

You know, I was finally over the hump. More than half way through these books and now this happens. Yeah, according to to George R. R. Martin's publisher, there might be eight books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Goddamn eight books.

The eighth and final book is expected by 2363 and will presumably
be written by a holodeck simulation of George R. R. Martin.

Dragon Ball Z's plot moved
faster than these books. 

And yes, you heard me: I'm still only on book 4. The fifth book, A Dance With Dragons, came out like three years ago and is, at this very moment sitting on my shelf, unread and staring at with it's accusing eyes...its, uh, accusing book eyes. Look, it's not the best analogy, but the point is that the slow paced slog that was A Feast for Crows was something I read nine years ago. I can't be expected to remember who gouged who's eyes out or who's secretly screwing whose twin, can I?

The knowledge that the author's now going to vamp for another three books before finally letting the ice-zombies feast on whatever likable characters actually make it to book 8 is not making me want to get caught up.

You know, if a certain unstoppable army of undead horror would pick up the pace a little,
maybe we wouldn't have to wait three more books to see what happens.

Technically it's an imaginary
land full of murder and magic
birds, so let's be reasonable here.

This isn't the first time the specter of Octology has been raised, but I think we were all kind of hoping that was just a rumor. And it might have been if it weren't for Martin's editor Anne Groell. Yup, it's all her fault. The author was planning a trilogy, or maybe a quartet but she decided to poke the bear, the bearded, train conductor-behatted bear. Behold:

"He predicted four books. I said Seven Books for Seven Kingdoms. Then he went to six. I said ... Well, you get it...Only as I learned when editing THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE...there are technically eight kingdoms..."

-Editor Ann Groell

on why we'll never have closure