In light of the inimitable George R.R. Martin's admittedly NOT releasing the long-awaited sixth installment to his masterpiece A Song of Ice and Fire in 2018, but instead releasing a sort of spin off series (Fire and Blood, a fake history of the Targaryen regime), fans are, well, disappointed. Some have even gone so far as to compile a list of all the times the author has "lied" to us fans, equating the author's estimation of the book's completion with iron-clad factoid written in stone. Can I just say that, artists do not owe you anything? Writers in particular. Art is sacred, art is living. Inspiration comes and goes. And people have lives! Any time George so much as tweets about something not related to TWOW, so-called fans cringe and whine and moan that he is "not working on the book". We should be honored that he shares ANYTHING with us. The fact that GRRM takes so long to release new books should be a BREATH OF FRESH AIR AND GIVE US ALL HOPE FOR THE ARTS AND THE PURITY OF ARTISTS’ INTENTIONS! In a world of regurgitating ghost-written garbage for the sake of sales..... GRRM is the last unicorn of literature. All this, coming from me, a person who is on the verge of losing friends IRL because she is so obsessed with this series, and cannot stop asking questions, and A Dance with Dragons ended in such chaos?! All those loose ends?!? All of a sudden we have an evil third act villain who will probably murder one of Dany's beloved dragons?!? What about Jon Snow and Ghost?!? How can he possibly tie it all up in two books?!!!? Etcetera, you get the point. Thank you for listening, and I wish you all the best of luck during this longest of long nights without the Winds of Winter....