Complaining about Martin's infuriatingly slow pace of writing is not entirely fair. Martin, a former English teacher whose career in letters reaches back to the early 1970's (he was nominated for the Hugo Award when he was just 25), should not be confused with someone who simply takes forever in-between novels. Since 2011, the last time Martin wrote an official title in the Song of Fire and Ice heptalogy, he has written three novellas, a quote book, a short story collection, a young adult novel, and two reference books, a prodigious output for one author. Martin is hardly just sitting back and enjoying the gigantic payday that came from HBO; he's been hard at work, creating an enviable amount of content. But he still hasn't finished the final books in the series.
I'm not going to speculate as to why Martin continues to find himself on so many detours, not really embracing the final two books of his series that so many of his fans want to see an ending for; that's between he and a life coach to figure out. But my question here is what does an artist owe their audience? Has George RR Martin made a covenant with his fans that they have earned the right to see an end to this series?
Obviously there's no legal ramifications for Martin, but I do think there's an inherent obligation for an author to, as long as he or she is physically able, finish a book series. Martin is hardly in a situation where Bantam won't put the book out (literally every publishing house in the industry would happily take their place, regardless of the delays), so it isn't that he can't find an editor or publisher (as might be the case for another series), and there is, in my opinion, a moral obligation for a writer to finish a series. Martin has had fans invest in his world, making him obscenely wealthy, to the point where he can afford to just stop writing if he really wanted to and be fine, but in return they have earned an ending to his story.
Martin isn't alone in taking too long to finish a book series. Patrick Rothfuss hasn't finished a book in his Kingkiller Chronicles since 2011, and while he isn't as old as Martin, this is an absurdly long time to make fans wait. Diana Gabaldon hasn't published an Outlander book in five years and counting. Melanie Rawn might take the cake here-she wrote an entire series of five books while leaving a different trilogy unfinished for 22+ years (she still claims she'll finally finish the series).
The reality is for these authors, though, that while they may finish the series, it doesn't turn out that way. While every author will probably leave behind an unfinished novel (some of the most famous include The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens and The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald), at least in those cases you haven't already started the story. Look at an author like Robert Jordan, who kept expanding his Wheel of Time to the point where he died before the final three books in his epic tale were complete (Brandon Sanderson finished the series). Frank Herbert's Dune, Stieg Larson's Millennium, and Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are some of the more famous series to not be completed by the original author, but there are countless others.
Which is all to say that Martin should not assume he has the entirety of time to finish, and while he might feel he owes a grand ending to his series, he owes the ending more. Just like an author needs to know when to let things go and move on with the story (cough JK Rowling cough), an author also should put in the time to finish what they started.
And I say this as someone who started an eight-part book series 18 years ago (unpublished), and haven't written a new book in the series in 16 years despite most of the manuscript for the third novel sitting on a shelf in my library closet. So George, if you take this advice, I promise to do so as well. :)
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