It’s George’s world; we just live in it.
Almost a million of us, in Canada alone. Eight and a half million across North America, twice that worldwide, in 20 different languages. A record 300,000 in first-day sales.
And it isn’t just A Dance With Dragons, the latest instalment of George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series “A Song of Ice and Fire.” Nor the four that preceded it, nor the two that are to follow . . .
It’s the hit HBO TV adaptation Game of Thrones (named for the first book), returning for a second season April 1, with the first season released on DVD this week. It’s the ultimate pop-culture benediction: a Simpsons parody of its Emmy-winning title sequence. It’s computer games and role-playing games and comic books and conventions and, soon, a new calendar and a cookbook . . . and this week in Toronto an up close and personal exhibit of costumes and artifacts from the series, opening Friday at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
On Monday night, TIFF, Martin’s publisher Random House and HBO Canada’s parent company, Astral, are bringing Martin himself to town for an already sold-out live event at the Lightbox.
“It’s a natural fit,” says Lightbox artistic director Noah Cowan.
“TIFF already has a great partnership with Random House — they’re a partner on our Books on Film series — so when the opportunity came up to bring George R.R. Martin to Toronto, we decided to team up with them to offer an onstage conversation for the public.
“In terms of the exhibition, organized by HBO Canada, it was also a natural fit. Astral is a longtime supporter of the festival; they’ve been our Opening Night sponsor for several years. Since we opened TIFF Bell Lightbox, we’ve offered several exhibitions in our main floor gallery, including shows on Tim Burton and Grace Kelly. So we’re very excited about having the Game of Thrones exhibition in that space over March Break.
“Game of Thrones has legions of fans and this exhibition gives them a look behind the scenes at the art and craftsmanship that bring this hit series to life.”
No one saw all this coming — least of all Martin, creator and proprietary overlord of the “Ice and Fire” kingdoms, from Westeros to Essos and beyond.
Not bad for a scruffy sci-fi geek who, back in the ’80s, cranked out TV scripts for the maudlin genre series Beauty and the Beast and the cheaply Canadian-produced Twilight Zone remake.
The last thing Martin expected was that the bestselling novels would a) be bestsellers, and b) chart the circuitous route that would ultimately lead him back to TV, where he had always been told his epic ideas were inherently unfilmable. (He has since, of course, proved them wrong; this interview took place just as the HBO series’ first season wrapped.)
“Every time I turned in a first draft, it was always, ‘George, this is great, but it’s too long and it’s too expensive,’” he says. “‘If we had five times our budget, maybe we could do it, but we don’t, so get to work cutting.’ And I would cut and trim and combine characters and eventually, by the fifth or sixth draft, I would have something they could actually produce.”
And so he gave up, putting television behind him.
“After a decade or so, I was sick of it. I wanted to kind of spread my wings, and I sat down and said, ‘I’m going back to prose. I don’t have to worry about a budget. I don’t have to worry about it being producible. I’m going to have hundreds of characters in giant battles and magnificent castles, and they’ll never make this in television or film, but I don’t have to worry about it, ’cause I’m just working in prose.’”
No one was ever happier to be proven wrong, even though the popularity of the books and of the series adaptation — which credits him as producer — are such that they have started to conflict.
“When the first novel came out, no one was waiting for it,” Martin allows. “I wasn’t getting any emails as I now get every day about ‘Where is the next novel?’ and ‘Could you please hurry up?’ and ‘Why are you going to Los Angeles when you should be home working on the novel?’
“So yes, the situation has changed somewhat. Then again, that’s every novelist’s dream. I mean, the vast majority of novelists in this country, be they science-fiction novelists or mystery novelists or mainstream novelists, labour on their books for years, and no one cares whether they turn it in or not, and then they’re published to total obscurity.
“My problems are very nice problems to have, and I appreciate them and the fans, the readers.”
He’ll get his chance to voice that appreciation when he visits the Lightbox Monday night, where he will apparently read from his next book-in-progress, The Winds of Winter. The next day he will appear at Indigo at Bay and Bloor to sign some of his already published books.
With the first event long sold out and the second a guaranteed massive mob scene, the chances of you getting anywhere near the man are nil to non-existent.
You can, however, take some consolation from the fact that, once he does leave town, he’ll be getting right back to work on Book 6.
“I’ve never been able to write away from my own place,” Martin admits. “Some writers can. I can’t.
“When I’m not travelling, when I’m at home, I pretty much work seven days a week. I don’t crank out a certain number of pages. I sit down and I look at the work I did yesterday, and I usually wind up revising that for a certain period of time because I hate some of the stuff I did yesterday. And then I get into new material.
“Some days I have good days and I get a lot of pages done. Some days I work all day and maybe I’m a paragraph further on.
“I’m a slow writer. I’m a slow writer and these are huge books, so it takes a long time. But it seems to work for me and I’m probably too old to change at this point.”
“Ice and Fire” fans have had to learn to be patient. Last time, it was six and a half years between books. Fortunately, in the meantime, there are the comics and conventions, the cookbook and calendar, the Game of Thrones series and its satellite exhibit . . .
It’s George’s world and welcome to it.
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