Stephen Colbert skewers Game of Thrones author over Winds of Winter
One thing that we’ve come to know about Colbert over the years is that he is a huge fantasy fan — in particular when it comes to The Lord of the Rings. In the interview below, you can see Colbert bring up Tolkien and his work on occasion while also having a number of other fun conversations with Martin along the way — including one where he chides him (playfully) for not getting more work done on his latest main novel The Winds of Winter. Martin was on the show to promote his new work Fire & Blood, which is actually set hundreds of years before the A Song of Ice and Fire saga actually begins. While in the process of that, Colbert reminded him that he was supposed to be finishing Winds of Winter and that his new book was, effectively, a “700-page detour.” The two had a good laugh about it, and Martin then said that he probably should get back home to work.
While the interview is funny, it does go back to some of the frustrations that many have had over Martin’s latest book not being released yet. With that being said, though, we do understand where some of his own mindset may be. If doing Fire & Blood helped to reinvigorate him and to escape from some of the pressure that he had doing some of his other work, it is absolutely something worthy of celebration. It could be rather helpful to some more of his main work coming up at some point down the road.
Of course, it’s been clear for a while now that Game of Thrones was going to finish its run long before Martin did with his books — the only thing that we can say to diehard book readers here is that more than likely, Martin’s story will go off on a few different tangents and won’t end exactly the same as the show does … though we have to think that there will also be some similarities. It’ll probably have the same amount of connectivity that Game of Thrones seasons 4 and 5 had to some of the books, as they ended up drifting in some of their own directions. (We do think that the books will get so much deeper into the stories, given that the final season of Game of Thrones, set to premiere in 2019, is only going to have six episodes. These episodes will be some of the longest that the series has ever had, but that only really works for so much. There are likely still hundreds of pages of completely new material coming in the books.)
More so than anything else, the big appeal of this interview is just watching two big fantasy geeks having a great conversation — something that we appreciate as a fantasy geek on this end.
What do you think about Colbert’s interview with Martin? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments. (Photo: CBS.)