0:00:00.442,0:00:07.294
[applause]

0:00:07.294,0:00:09.294
EVE EWING:[br]For those of you who don't know

0:00:09.294,0:00:11.012
my name is Eve Louise Ewing.

0:00:11.012,0:00:13.845
I'm the person on the stage who is[br]not George R. R. Martin.

0:00:13.845,0:00:15.415
[applause]

0:00:15.415,0:00:19.015
George R. R. Martin:[br]The winner of the 21st century award.

0:00:19.015,0:00:20.465
EVE:[br]Yes, very recent winner of the 21st

0:00:20.465,0:00:22.150
century award. Thank you.

0:00:22.150,0:00:26.569
[applause]

0:00:26.569,0:00:28.870
GEORGE:[br]I think I could be a contender for

0:00:28.870,0:00:30.286
the 13th century award.

0:00:30.286,0:00:31.353
[laughs]

0:00:31.353,0:00:33.762
EVE:[br]Well this stage, this is a very beautiful

0:00:33.762,0:00:37.273
setup, that also gives me a strangely[br]ominous feeling that something terrible

0:00:37.273,0:00:39.274
is about to happen.

0:00:39.274,0:00:40.478
[laughs]

0:00:40.478,0:00:42.375
Hopefully that's not the case.

0:00:42.375,0:00:45.358
It is such a tremendous honor to sit[br]down with you, I"m really grateful

0:00:45.358,0:00:46.810
that you're here.

0:00:46.810,0:00:50.852
I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions,[br]for about an hour.

0:00:50.852,0:00:53.077
They'll mostly be about writing,[br]generally.

0:00:53.077,0:00:54.459
GEORGE:[br]Very good.

0:00:54.459,0:00:56.464
EVE:[br]Then I'll ask you some fan

0:00:56.464,0:00:57.763
submitted questions.

0:00:57.763,0:01:01.098
We won't have an open audience Q&A[br]this evening but many people were

0:01:01.098,0:01:04.417
gracious enough to submit their questions[br]through the Chicago Humanities Festival.

0:01:04.417,0:01:08.135
GEROGE:[br]Sounds good to me.

0:01:08.135,0:01:10.819
EVE:[br]Okay great let's get into it.

0:01:10.819,0:01:14.387
'A Song of Ice and Fire' has emerged[br]as the work for which you are

0:01:14.387,0:01:18.560
most widely known, and you've made[br]an indelible mark on popular culture

0:01:18.560,0:01:20.759
but you have had a capacious career.

0:01:20.759,0:01:23.635
Beginning as a professional writer in[br]1970,

0:01:23.635,0:01:26.096
and since then you've produced a wildly[br]diverse body of work,

0:01:26.096,0:01:28.775
I could take all night listing your

0:01:28.775,0:01:30.175
projects,

0:01:30.175,0:01:33.814
but I'm going to throw a few out there[br]for folks that are not familiar.

0:01:33.814,0:01:37.210
You're early novels 'Dying of the Light',[br]'Fever Dream', you wrote for a

0:01:37.210,0:01:39.496
1980's reboot of 'The Twilight Zone',

0:01:39.496,0:01:41.697
wrote for the TV adaptation of[br]'Beauty and the Beast' .

0:01:41.697,0:01:45.069
The landmark, somewhat bizarre,[br]surrealist show 'Max Headroom',

0:01:45.069,0:01:50.917
short story collections like 'Sand Kings',[br]'Portraits of His Children', I could go

0:01:50.917,0:01:52.386
on and on.

0:01:52.386,0:01:56.188
Does it ever bother you that so many[br]people want to talk to you primarily

0:01:56.188,0:01:59.125
about 'A Song of Ice and Fire'?

0:01:59.125,0:02:03.272
GEORGE:[br]It's a little surreal sometimes,

0:02:03.272,0:02:08.340
I understand of course that[br]'A Song of Ice and Fire'

0:02:08.340,0:02:11.779
and 'Game of Thrones' are vastly[br]more popular than anything else

0:02:11.779,0:02:13.793
I've ever done.

0:02:13.793,0:02:19.294
But it does startle me sometimes that[br]some people think it's the only thing

0:02:19.294,0:02:20.648
I've ever done.

0:02:20.648,0:02:28.415
I sometimes even read in articles online,[br]how I began in 1996 with 'Game of Thrones'.

0:02:28.415,0:02:32.368
As I said, my first story appeared in[br]1971.

0:02:32.368,0:02:38.355
So I had 25 years of publishing[br]50 short stories, and novels,

0:02:38.355,0:02:41.570
and short story collections,[br]editing anthologies,

0:02:41.570,0:02:45.487
winning various Hugo and Nebula awards,

0:02:45.487,0:02:48.356
and losing a lot more Hugo and Nebula [br]awards.

0:02:48.356,0:02:49.821
[laughter]

0:02:49.821,0:02:53.709
There was a lot there, and it's not like[br]it's secret or anything or it was written

0:02:53.709,0:02:58.077
under a pseudonym, it's all perfectly[br]accessible if you google my name.

0:02:58.077,0:02:59.876
[laughter]

0:02:59.876,0:03:03.143
None the less, an amazing number of[br]people seem ignorant to it.

0:03:03.143,0:03:07.330
I should mention, on the things you listed[br]there, that I did do two projects for

0:03:07.330,0:03:12.781
'Max Headroom' but neither one was ever[br]filmed, sadly.

0:03:12.781,0:03:17.667
I wrote the 'Max Headroom' Christmas show,[br]which was actually in pre-production

0:03:17.667,0:03:19.385
when the show was cancelled.

0:03:19.385,0:03:23.155
We were not able to film that,[br]which broke my heart,

0:03:23.155,0:03:25.804
because it was a really fun episode.

0:03:25.804,0:03:29.320
We recently did a 'Max Headroom' reunion at[br]my little theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

0:03:29.320,0:03:33.105
We did a staged reading of it,[br]Matt Frewer actually came in for it.

0:03:33.105,0:03:34.941
He performed with some local actors.

0:03:34.941,0:03:40.410
It was great to finally see that after[br]like 30 years, it being acted out.

0:03:40.410,0:03:42.676
Even if only, by voices.

0:03:42.676,0:03:44.296
EVE:[br]Did you film it?

0:03:44.296,0:03:47.009
GEORGE:[br]Did we? I don't know.

0:03:47.009,0:03:48.944
We might have taped it.

0:03:48.944,0:03:50.829
EVE:[br]No one here seems to know either.

0:03:50.829,0:03:51.779
[laughter]

0:03:51.779,0:03:53.580
GEORGE:[br]We might have taped it, ya.

0:03:53.580,0:03:58.949
Max was an amazing show,[br]advanced for its time.

0:03:58.949,0:04:00.234
EVE:[br]Oh, absolutely.

0:04:00.234,0:04:01.934
GEORGE:[br]The young people here probably

0:04:01.934,0:04:04.352
don't even know what 'Max Headroom'[br]was.

0:04:04.352,0:04:06.685
EVE:[br]Only old people like me know.

0:04:06.685,0:04:09.237
GEORGE:[br]It was based on a TV movie that had

0:04:09.237,0:04:11.320
been done in England.

0:04:11.320,0:04:15.545
It takes place 23 minutes into the future,[br]something like that.

0:04:15.545,0:04:23.224
It was a show about television,[br]and artificial computer host Max Headroom

0:04:23.224,0:04:25.410
who was the host of his own show.

0:04:25.410,0:04:28.596
He was actually a personality[br]that lived in a computer.

0:04:28.596,0:04:32.310
Of course we didn't actually have[br]any computers capable of doing that,

0:04:32.310,0:04:38.414
in the early 90's when the show was on[br]so Max Headroom was acted by

0:04:38.414,0:04:41.649
Matt Frewer in extensive make up.

0:04:41.649,0:04:45.052
A lot of people thought that he was[br]a real computer host.

0:04:45.052,0:04:49.251
It would be great to revive it,[br]but the shows are still a lot of fun.

0:04:49.251,0:04:52.389
EVE:[br]It's a classic, I think it's a little bit

0:04:52.389,0:04:56.053
in the uncanny valley of creepiness,[br]the kind of make up look that is

0:04:56.053,0:04:59.638
supposed to look like a computer.

0:04:59.638,0:05:01.307
GEORGE:[br]Yes, yes definitely.

0:05:01.307,0:05:04.591
EVE:[br]I'm sure that the success of

0:05:04.591,0:05:07.626
'A Song of Ice and Fire' has probably[br]contributed, for some people who know

0:05:07.626,0:05:10.600
how to use the google machine,[br]to access your back list.

0:05:10.600,0:05:14.631
Are there particular earlier works of[br]yours that you really want to

0:05:14.631,0:05:17.128
shout out, that you wish people[br]would read more?

0:05:17.128,0:05:22.664
GEORGE:[br]Like anybody else I have favorite stories

0:05:22.664,0:05:25.048
and less favorite stories.

0:05:25.048,0:05:29.267
When I broke in I wrote mostly[br]short stories.

0:05:29.267,0:05:34.035
I published my first story in 1971,[br]in Galaxy magazine, "The Hero".

0:05:34.035,0:05:40.289
Over the next few years I published[br]thirty, forty, fifty short stories,

0:05:40.289,0:05:42.889
in the science fiction magazines[br]of the day.

0:05:42.889,0:05:50.662
I didn't attempt my first novel[br]until 1976, I wrote it and it

0:05:50.662,0:05:52.659
came out in 1977.

0:05:52.659,0:05:55.225
So I had six years of just publishing[br]short stories.

0:05:55.225,0:05:58.777
Probably my best known work before[br]'A Song of Ice and Fire' was

0:05:58.777,0:06:01.061
a short story called 'Sand Kings'.

0:06:01.061,0:06:04.513
It appeared in Omni,[br]it won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards.

0:06:04.513,0:06:09.216
That one is soon to be a[br]major motion picture I hope,

0:06:09.216,0:06:11.317
or possibly a minor motion picture.

0:06:11.317,0:06:15.101
I don't know, but it will be a [br]motion picture we think, anyways,

0:06:15.101,0:06:16.768
so that's cool.

0:06:16.768,0:06:21.121
We have 'Fever Dream', my historical[br]horror novels

0:06:21.121,0:06:24.372
set on the Mississippi river in 1857.

0:06:24.372,0:06:26.406
EVE:[br]And there are vampires.

0:06:26.406,0:06:28.723
GEORGE:[br]Ya, vampires and steam boats.

0:06:28.723,0:06:33.612
That was a novel that I was particularly[br]fond of.

0:06:33.612,0:06:37.593
And my 'Wild Card' series, which is[br]actually the series I've been working on

0:06:37.593,0:06:39.876
longer than anything else.

0:06:39.876,0:06:42.448
I'm mostly the editor on that,[br]though I write for it too.

0:06:42.448,0:06:46.765
It's a super hero world,[br]not really super heroes.

0:06:46.765,0:06:50.965
People with super powers,[br]they don't necessarily become heroes.

0:06:50.965,0:06:54.883
It's unconventional in that it's[br]a realistic look at an alternate

0:06:54.883,0:06:59.302
world in which an alien virus[br]gives some people super powers.

0:06:59.302,0:07:04.991
When pitching 'Wild Cards'[br]I have to say why it is not a conventional

0:07:04.991,0:07:07.639
super hero template.

0:07:07.639,0:07:14.791
I say what would happen in a real world [br]if all of you who are here tonight,

0:07:14.791,0:07:17.559
suddenly had a super power?

0:07:17.559,0:07:21.011
Some of you could run really fast,[br]some of you could throw lighting bolts,

0:07:21.011,0:07:25.630
some of you were really strong,[br]some of you could walk through walls.

0:07:25.630,0:07:28.879
Entirely arbitrarily, 'Wild Cards'.

0:07:28.879,0:07:32.230
How would it change your life,[br]how would it change the world,

0:07:32.230,0:07:33.865
what would you do?

0:07:33.865,0:07:35.399
I ask people that.

0:07:35.399,0:07:39.867
You know, all the years I've been asking[br]people that no one has ever answered,

0:07:39.867,0:07:43.219
I would buy a spandex costume[br]and fight crime.

0:07:43.219,0:07:46.354
[laughter]

0:07:46.354,0:07:50.310
Which means that there is something[br]wrong with the conventional comic book

0:07:50.310,0:07:54.275
trouple.

0:07:54.275,0:07:57.756
'Wild Cards' is an examination of that,[br]but it's also a lot of fun.

0:07:57.756,0:07:59.375
EVE:[br]Speaking of comics,

0:07:59.375,0:08:02.025
you've said that as you became a reader[br]in your early life,

0:08:02.025,0:08:04.877
comics were a really important escape[br]for you, from the stiffling

0:08:04.877,0:08:08.448
1950's literary world of Dick and Jane,[br]who are very boring people.

0:08:08.448,0:08:13.066
You've said that Stan Lee was one of your[br]greatest literary influences.

0:08:13.066,0:08:15.047
As a Marvel Comics writer I'm[br]contractually obligated to ask

0:08:15.047,0:08:18.464
you about that.

0:08:18.464,0:08:21.283
Are there lessons from comics as a[br]medium that you take into

0:08:21.283,0:08:23.183
your other writing?

0:08:23.183,0:08:27.669
GEORGE:[br]Yes, I think.

0:08:27.669,0:08:32.454
It would be very nice to say that my[br]great literary influences were

0:08:32.454,0:08:39.273
F. Scott Fitzgerald and Charles Dickens[br]and other respected literary figures,

0:08:39.273,0:08:41.207
and Tolkien of course.

0:08:41.207,0:08:44.597
I admire those three writers all [br]enormously, but,

0:08:44.597,0:08:48.877
Stan Lee was probably more influential[br]than any of them.

0:08:48.877,0:08:51.929
The first published words of mine[br]ever to appear were my letter

0:08:51.929,0:08:54.479
in Fantastic Four #20.

0:08:54.479,0:08:58.613
Which was critiquing, if you could call it[br]a critique, Fantastic Four #17.

0:08:58.613,0:09:02.668
My critique consisted of saying,[br]move over Shakespeare,

0:09:02.668,0:09:05.000
Stan Lee has arrived.

0:09:05.000,0:09:06.935
[laughter[

0:09:06.935,0:09:10.001
You've gotta wonder why Stan[br]chose to publish that letter.

0:09:10.001,0:09:16.955
I'd read comic books since I[br]was a little kid,

0:09:16.955,0:09:20.472
the funny animal comics,[br]Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck,

0:09:20.472,0:09:23.441
Archie, all of that stuff.

0:09:23.441,0:09:27.259
Super heroes, especially the DC [br]super heroes,

0:09:27.259,0:09:31.712
Super Man, Bat Man, The Flash, [br]all of that.

0:09:31.712,0:09:35.943
I had read all of those.

0:09:35.943,0:09:40.147
The minute Marvel came on the scene,[br]I think my interest in comics had

0:09:40.147,0:09:45.248
actually been waning, the DC comics[br]of the time were stiffling,

0:09:45.248,0:09:52.485
they were perfectly circular.

0:09:52.485,0:09:55.736
Super Man, he was Clark Kent he worked[br]for the Daily Planet.

0:09:55.736,0:09:59.370
Perry White was the editor,[br]Jimmy Olson was his best friend.

0:09:59.370,0:10:03.055
Lois Lane was his girlfriend.

0:10:03.055,0:10:05.763
Something would happen, aliens would[br]invade or there would be

0:10:05.763,0:10:08.825
a villain or something, and Super Man [br]would have an adventure.

0:10:08.825,0:10:11.775
It would go circular,[br]it would end right where it began.

0:10:11.775,0:10:15.160
Everything would be back in place,[br]nothing really ever happened in

0:10:15.160,0:10:16.776
a Super Man comic.

0:10:16.776,0:10:19.375
Which I realized after reading about[br]100 or so of them.

0:10:19.375,0:10:23.462
You could read them in any order,[br]they had their template and

0:10:23.462,0:10:25.613
nothing was ever gonna happen.

0:10:25.613,0:10:30.033
Jimmy Olson might become a giant[br]turtle man in the course of the adventure

0:10:30.033,0:10:33.924
but by the end of the adventure[br]he would be back to being Jimmy Olson.

0:10:33.924,0:10:36.468
There was no permanent changes.

0:10:36.468,0:10:41.190
Then Stan Lee came along with Marvel,[br]and the characters were fighting in the

0:10:41.190,0:10:44.825
Fantastic Four, the Thing didn't like[br]being the Thing.

0:10:44.825,0:10:47.890
He was constantly fighting with[br]Johnny Storm.

0:10:47.890,0:10:51.724
They didn't have secret identities,[br]their identities were out there.

0:10:51.724,0:10:53.790
Then Spider-Man came along.

0:10:53.790,0:10:59.841
Spider-Man, he didn't have his Lois Lane,[br]he had a series of girlfriends.

0:10:59.841,0:11:03.977
Liz Allen at first, who he had the [br]hots for but she preferred to

0:11:03.977,0:11:05.531
bully Flash Thompson.

0:11:05.531,0:11:07.530
He couldn't get anywhere with her.

0:11:07.530,0:11:10.047
Then he took up with an older woman,[br]Betty Brandt, who was

0:11:10.047,0:11:11.999
J. Jonah's secretary.

0:11:11.999,0:11:14.082
He had that relationship for a while.

0:11:14.082,0:11:15.732
Then he took up with Gwen Stacy.

0:11:15.732,0:11:17.371
EVE:[br]That didn't work out.

0:11:17.371,0:11:18.873
[laughter]

0:11:18.873,0:11:20.286
GEORGE:[br]She died, ya.

0:11:20.286,0:11:22.753
That was traumatic, be she actually died!

0:11:22.753,0:11:28.088
DC never killed Lois Lane,[br]or even Jimmy Olson.

0:11:28.088,0:11:30.623
Although you might have wanted to.

0:11:30.623,0:11:33.140
Nothing ever happened in the DC comics.

0:11:33.140,0:11:35.024
A lot was happening in Marvel.

0:11:35.024,0:11:39.040
You didn't know who was safe,[br]you didn't know what would actually happen.

0:11:39.040,0:11:41.226
Time actually passed.

0:11:41.226,0:11:44.927
Believe it or not,[br]looking at the old dotard you see in hat

0:11:44.927,0:11:47.778
before you,[br]I went to high school with Peter Parker.

0:11:47.778,0:11:51.494
We were both in high school when[br]I started reading Spider-Man comics.

0:11:51.494,0:11:54.982
Just about the same time we both[br]graduated high school and

0:11:54.982,0:11:56.582
went to college.

0:11:56.582,0:12:00.667
I went to North Western, I'm in a [br]different city, I'm making new friends,

0:12:00.667,0:12:04.702
I've got a room mate that I didn't[br]know before, taking new classes.

0:12:04.702,0:12:06.920
It's adjusting to a new whole new world.

0:12:06.920,0:12:09.238
Peter Parker went through the same stuff.

0:12:09.238,0:12:11.838
He went to college, he didn't go[br]as far away from home,

0:12:11.838,0:12:14.306
but he did have to move out of the[br]house with Aunt May.

0:12:14.306,0:12:17.441
Things happened and that was[br]amazing.

0:12:17.441,0:12:22.259
Another one of my comic books[br]letters, I published a number of letters

0:12:22.259,0:12:24.810
was a letter to the Avengers.

0:12:24.810,0:12:31.396
Which again, was published,[br]it was about Avengers #9,

0:12:31.396,0:12:33.980
which is when they introduced Wonder Man.

0:12:33.980,0:12:36.781
I'm not sure any of you remember[br]that issue, you were probably

0:12:36.781,0:12:38.413
a little too young.

0:12:38.413,0:12:40.833
You probably don't even remember[br]Wonder Man.

0:12:40.833,0:12:44.504
Wonder Man came in and he joined[br]the Avengers, he was a brand new hero,

0:12:44.504,0:12:50.920
he really wasn't a hero, he was a spy[br]who was set to join the Avengers

0:12:50.920,0:12:53.454
to destroy them from within.

0:12:53.454,0:12:57.371
He was only playing a hero,[br]he was actually gonna destroy

0:12:57.371,0:12:58.905
them from within.

0:12:58.905,0:13:02.716
Then he became friendly with them[br]and he couldn't bring himself

0:13:02.716,0:13:04.527
to destroy them from within.

0:13:04.527,0:13:08.142
He betrayed his masters and they killed him,

0:13:08.142,0:13:11.444
So he died in the same issue he[br]was introduced in.

0:13:11.444,0:13:18.997
I loved this of course, so I wrote[br]a long letter about how great this was.

0:13:18.997,0:13:23.382
I look back now and my whole career was[br]based on Avengers #9.

0:13:23.382,0:13:26.134
[laughter]

0:13:26.134,0:13:29.650
Introducing these grey characters who[br]have divided loyalties who are

0:13:29.650,0:13:31.786
not what they seem.

0:13:31.786,0:13:34.705
EVE:[br]And were a little traumatized.

0:13:34.705,0:13:37.554
GEORGE:[br]and then killing them unexpectedly.

0:13:37.554,0:13:40.642
Now of course it was comics so they[br]brought Wonder Man back eventually.

0:13:40.642,0:13:45.978
That's the big flaw with comics,[br]and I try never to bring anyone back.

0:13:45.978,0:13:48.009
Or if I do, they're really screwed up.

0:13:48.009,0:13:52.144
EVE:[br]What I'm really hearing you

0:13:52.144,0:13:54.947
talk about here is the idea of stakes.

0:13:54.947,0:13:58.862
Your readers have to believe that[br]the stakes are really high,

0:13:58.862,0:14:01.396
that somebody really might get murdered.

0:14:01.396,0:14:05.259
I read this interview with you where you[br]talk about reading Lord of the Rings,

0:14:05.259,0:14:08.257
and of course people frequently compare[br]you to Tolkien,

0:14:08.257,0:14:09.928
and feeling betrayed,

0:14:09.941,0:14:11.962
OK if you haven't read Lord of the Rings[br]you've had many decades so this is your

0:14:11.962,0:14:14.031
spoiler alert, OK.

0:14:14.031,0:14:17.949
That after they throw the ring in to the[br]fires of Mordor and it's destroyed

0:14:17.949,0:14:21.431
that they come back to the shire[br]and the shire is getting sacked,

0:14:21.431,0:14:23.632
the scouring of the shire,

0:14:23.632,0:14:27.051
and you talk about feeling betrayed,[br]that the story didn't have a happy ending.

0:14:27.051,0:14:32.219
Now you've gone on where basically[br]all your writing, you've become famous for

0:14:32.219,0:14:35.205
writing iterations of [br]the scouring of the shire.

0:14:35.205,0:14:38.956
It seems like part of what you're taking[br]on is keeping the stakes high.

0:14:38.956,0:14:42.974
GEORGE:[br]Yes, I do believe that.

0:14:42.974,0:14:48.226
I read Lord of the Rings when it [br]was first published in the United States.

0:14:48.226,0:14:51.177
Actually, the illegal pirated edition.

0:14:51.177,0:14:59.445
They were amazing books,[br]I couldn't get enough of them.

0:14:59.445,0:15:03.548
I was only like 13 years old,[br]or something like that.

0:15:03.548,0:15:10.652
When the ring went into the volcano,[br]I said, well this is the end of the story,

0:15:10.652,0:15:13.251
why is there so much more?

0:15:13.251,0:15:16.918
Then I hit the scouring of the shire[br]and I realized it wasn't the unequivocal

0:15:16.918,0:15:21.303
happy ending, yay, the heroes have won,[br]that I thought it would be.

0:15:21.303,0:15:24.605
I really didn't understand it[br]as a 13 year old.

0:15:24.605,0:15:27.771
Of course, I reread Lord of the Rings[br]every few years.

0:15:27.771,0:15:31.759
I've come to not only understand it[br]but I have a deep appreciation of it.

0:15:31.759,0:15:34.544
Peter Jackson's movies are brilliant[br]I think.

0:15:34.544,0:15:40.645
They're as good an adaptation of Lord[br]of the Rings that you could possibly get.

0:15:40.645,0:15:45.796
But I do miss the scouring of the shire,[br]which he doesn't include.

0:15:45.796,0:15:52.383
It's an important part of the book,[br]it says something important.

0:15:52.383,0:15:55.349
I took that to heart.

0:15:55.349,0:15:58.934
The other thing about reading Tolkien,[br]of course is, like Wonder Man,

0:15:58.934,0:16:00.888
it had a similar effect,

0:16:00.888,0:16:04.838
In Fellowship when Gandalf dies,[br]what the hell?

0:16:04.838,0:16:09.108
Gandalf died? you can't kill Gandalf.

0:16:09.108,0:16:13.607
He's the head guy, he knows everything[br]that's going on.

0:16:13.607,0:16:18.343
The other characters seemed like kids[br]compared to Gandalf.

0:16:18.343,0:16:23.413
The four hobbits and the squire guys,[br]and I don't trust Boromir.

0:16:23.413,0:16:29.048
Now Tolkien later brought him back.

0:16:29.048,0:16:32.298
EVE:[br]He brought him back as like Gandalf 2.0.

0:16:32.298,0:16:35.096
GEORGE:[br]I know, I didn't like Gandalf the White,

0:16:35.096,0:16:38.216
I prefer Gandalf the Grey,[br]I've always preferred grey characters to

0:16:38.216,0:16:40.501
white characters.

0:16:40.501,0:16:43.953
If Professor Tolkien was here we[br]could argue about whether Gandalf

0:16:43.953,0:16:45.804
should have come back or not.

0:16:45.804,0:16:50.524
It had an enormous effect on me,[br]killing Gandalf.

0:16:50.524,0:16:54.938
Killing Gandalf also sets up, [br]in the second book when he kills Frodo.

0:16:54.938,0:16:58.109
Oh my god, he killed Frodo,[br]Frodo was supposed to be the hero

0:16:58.109,0:17:00.810
he was the ring bearer,[br]now Sam is the ring bearer?

0:17:00.810,0:17:02.577
How is this gonna work out?

0:17:02.577,0:17:07.412
All of these things had an enormous effect[br]on a young me and,

0:17:07.412,0:17:09.280
they did raise the stakes.

0:17:09.280,0:17:11.745
The minute you kill Gandalf,[br]anybody can die.

0:17:11.745,0:17:14.629
Then you're looking at the members of[br]the fellowship and saying,

0:17:14.629,0:17:17.164
who are you going to kill next?

0:17:17.164,0:17:19.867
We got several extra hobbits, they could go.

0:17:19.867,0:17:21.524
[laughter]

0:17:21.524,0:17:23.468
EVE:[br]Mary and Pippen, they get a little

0:17:23.468,0:17:25.702
indistinguishable after a while.

0:17:25.702,0:17:27.822
GEORGE:[br]He didn't kill them,

0:17:27.822,0:17:29.952
but I was afraid he would, so,[br]that's the whole point

0:17:29.952,0:17:33.406
To have the reader on the each[br]of their seat.

0:17:33.406,0:17:37.189
To not know what's going to happen.

0:17:37.189,0:17:43.776
That's something I try to do in my books.

0:17:43.776,0:17:47.978
Especially in the scary parts, [br]or the battles,

0:17:47.978,0:17:53.795
If you're really going into a battle,[br]you would be afraid before hand.

0:17:53.795,0:17:59.263
You would have this deep visceral fear,[br]are you going to survive the battle?

0:17:59.263,0:18:03.682
Nobody knows.

0:18:03.682,0:18:06.968
I want that experience for the reader,[br]I want the reader to not just

0:18:06.968,0:18:09.437
read the book but to live the book.

0:18:09.437,0:18:14.172
To almost be afraid to turn the next page,

0:18:14.172,0:18:17.490
when suddenly the hero is surrounded[br]by six big guys with axes.

0:18:17.490,0:18:20.974
You shouldn't fee, oh, it's Conan,[br]he's gonna get out of it.

0:18:20.974,0:18:22.958
Six guys with axes, nothing.

0:18:22.958,0:18:26.459
You should be terrified that these six[br]guys with axes are going to

0:18:26.459,0:18:28.043
hack you apart.

0:18:28.043,0:18:31.244
I guarantee you if you leave this[br]wonderful place tonight and are

0:18:31.244,0:18:34.829
confronted with six guys with axes[br]you'll be scared.

0:18:34.829,0:18:39.840
We'll read about you in the Tribune[br]tomorrow.

0:18:39.840,0:18:42.299
How your hacked up body was found.

0:18:42.299,0:18:44.349
[laughter]

0:18:44.349,0:18:45.732
EVE:[br]Alright, OK.

0:18:45.732,0:18:50.452
So, you mention the Wild Card series[br]which you have been editing for basically

0:18:50.452,0:18:53.852
as long as I have been alive.

0:18:53.852,0:18:57.870
It's a really cool concept,[br]not only for the reasons you mentioned

0:18:57.870,0:19:01.642
about really engaging with whatever the [br]real stakes of super powers are,

0:19:01.642,0:19:04.690
but also because it's a shared universe,[br]and you've collaborated on these

0:19:04.690,0:19:08.525
edited stories written by over 50 authors,[br]working collaboratively.

0:19:08.525,0:19:11.693
You've also edited multiple anthologies.

0:19:11.693,0:19:14.694
My personal opinion which you may[br]agree or disagree with,

0:19:14.694,0:19:19.712
is that a good editor is actually[br]a much rarer thing than a good writer.

0:19:19.712,0:19:23.660
I was wondering if you could talk a little[br]bit about your identity as an editor,

0:19:23.660,0:19:26.762
and how it may differ from your identity[br]as a writer.

0:19:26.762,0:19:29.631
GEORGE:[br]I don't know if ts a rarer thing,

0:19:29.631,0:19:35.686
but in the anthologies that I have done,[br]anthologies like Dangerous Women,

0:19:35.686,0:19:40.353
Warriors, Rouges, I had the great pleasure[br]of working with Gardener,

0:19:40.353,0:19:46.522
who unfortunately passed away last year.

0:19:46.522,0:19:51.623
Gardener was one of the greatest editors[br]in the entire history of science fiction.

0:19:51.623,0:19:56.560
He won the Hugo award for best editor[br]sixteen times.

0:19:56.560,0:19:59.059
Which is pretty amazing.

0:19:59.059,0:20:02.595
Working with him was on those books [br]was increidble.

0:20:02.595,0:20:06.579
I have edited other things, Wild Cards is[br]a unique challenge because it is

0:20:06.579,0:20:09.097
a shared world.

0:20:09.097,0:20:13.733
When you're editing an ordinary anthology,[br]not that any anthology is ordinary,

0:20:13.733,0:20:18.401
when you're editing a more conventional[br]anthology you're just buying good stories

0:20:18.401,0:20:22.903
and they may have a theme,[br]the theme is unicorns,

0:20:22.903,0:20:28.106
so you invite people to send you[br]unicorn stories.

0:20:28.106,0:20:30.824
But all you're looking at is if its[br]a good story, is it a bad story,

0:20:30.824,0:20:34.908
can it be improved, if it has flaws,[br]how do you fix it?

0:20:34.908,0:20:41.027
With a shared world you still have that,[br]but also your stories have to fit together.

0:20:41.027,0:20:43.577
They are all essentially parts of a whole.

0:20:43.577,0:20:46.880
They can't have contradictions,[br]they can't have duplications.

0:20:46.880,0:20:51.547
So a lot more rewriting is required,[br]a lot more working together and

0:20:51.547,0:20:53.397
a lot more editing.

0:20:53.397,0:20:59.409
The Wild Cards are a very challenging[br]series to edit, but I enjoyed doing that.

0:20:59.409,0:21:02.718
I actually sort of got into editing almost[br]by accident.

0:21:02.718,0:21:08.653
My first published book was actually[br]a book I edited not a book I wrote.

0:21:08.653,0:21:15.556
At beginning of my career in 1973,[br]I was nominated for the John W. Campbell

0:21:15.556,0:21:20.009
award for the best new writer in [br]Science Fiction.

0:21:20.009,0:21:24.343
That was a brand new award given[br]for the first time in 1973.

0:21:24.343,0:21:26.510
Campbell had just died in 1971.

0:21:26.510,0:21:29.210
I lost that award, it was the first of[br]many awards that I've lost over the years

0:21:29.210,0:21:31.778
in the field.

0:21:31.778,0:21:35.097
I was nominated, and it is a great honor[br]to be nominated, the nominators

0:21:35.097,0:21:40.148
picked me as one of the six best new [br]writers that entered Science Fiction

0:21:40.148,0:21:42.230
in the last two years.

0:21:42.230,0:21:46.701
At the time there was an anthology[br]called the Hugo Winners,

0:21:46.701,0:21:51.185
and there was an anthology called[br]the Nebula Award's Book,

0:21:51.185,0:21:53.487
but I wasn't nominated for them yet.

0:21:53.487,0:21:57.923
There was no anthology for the [br]Campbell award nominees.

0:21:57.923,0:22:01.375
I thought there should be because it would[br]a guaranteed sale for me.

0:22:01.375,0:22:06.609
After I lost that very same convention,[br]I went to some of the editors and said,

0:22:06.609,0:22:10.995
why don't you have a Campbell award[br]anthology just like you have the

0:22:10.995,0:22:13.078
Hugo and Nebula anthologies?

0:22:13.078,0:22:17.978
I thought somebody famous would do it[br]and I could sell them a story,

0:22:17.978,0:22:20.229
it would be a guaranteed sale for me.

0:22:20.229,0:22:22.848
Instead they said, oh good idea you do it.

0:22:22.848,0:22:26.582
So suddenly I found myself editing a book,[br]I didn't know anything about editing books

0:22:26.582,0:22:33.102
I learned on the fly, and I did six[br]volumes of the series that would be

0:22:33.102,0:22:36.653
called the New Voices, ultimately.

0:22:36.653,0:22:42.874
That was my introduction to editing,[br]entirely by circumstance.

0:22:42.874,0:22:46.373
Watch out if you suggest anything to[br]someone they might say, hey you do it.

0:22:46.373,0:22:54.976
Suddenly you'll find yourself working with[br]some people.

0:22:54.976,0:22:57.895
EVE:[br]Speaking of editing, we live in a world

0:22:57.895,0:23:00.347
that sort of fetishizes brevity, [br]and short things,

0:23:00.347,0:23:03.763
what do you see as the virtue of [br]continuing to write very long works

0:23:03.763,0:23:09.199
in that world, and how do you negotiate[br]that editorially?

0:23:09.199,0:23:16.902
GEORGE:[br]I do not share fetishation of brevity.

0:23:16.902,0:23:20.104
I am in the anti brevity camp.

0:23:20.104,0:23:22.356
[laughter]

0:23:22.356,0:23:27.456
My stories throughout my career have [br]been getting longer and longer,

0:23:27.456,0:23:30.259
like I said when I began in the 70's[br]I wrote mostly short stories.

0:23:30.259,0:23:33.658
At a certain point my short stories[br]were getting longer, they were

0:23:33.658,0:23:35.459
now novelettes.

0:23:35.459,0:23:38.594
When I won my first Hugo it was for [br]a novella.

0:23:38.594,0:23:41.413
So each of these is a longer category,[br]than the other,

0:23:41.413,0:23:46.231
then eventually six seven years into my[br]career I started writing novels.

0:23:46.231,0:23:52.065
They were relatively short novels,[br]at some point for sanity I found myself

0:23:52.065,0:23:56.784
writing Game of Thrones and it just[br]kept getting longer and longer and longer

0:23:56.784,0:24:06.171
I like it I think the length gives it a[br]richness, gives it a texture.

0:24:06.171,0:24:13.457
You can create world building,[br]you can create an immersive world,

0:24:13.457,0:24:16.977
and immersive universe,[br]the readers will lose themselves in.

0:24:16.977,0:24:23.395
For the length of the novel and perhaps[br]for many novels beyond that, many works.

0:24:23.395,0:24:26.579
I like that.

0:24:26.579,0:24:33.566
Yesterday when we attended the[br]award ceremony, they were flashing

0:24:33.566,0:24:40.018
quotations about writing on the walls[br]of the site where the awards were being

0:24:40.018,0:24:43.069
presented.

0:24:43.069,0:24:46.787
One of them was a quote that I wrote[br]for a book called On Fantasy,

0:24:46.787,0:24:51.539
it was about when I die they can keep[br]their heaven I'd rather go to Middle Earth.

0:24:51.539,0:24:55.290
Tolkien was the first really great world[br]builder.

0:24:55.290,0:25:02.060
He created Middle Earth in such detail,[br]that it seems like a real place to me.

0:25:02.060,0:25:06.978
I know Middle Earth much more than I know[br]many real places.

0:25:06.978,0:25:09.363
What do I know about Uruguay?

0:25:09.363,0:25:12.613
I know a lot more about middle earth than[br]I do about Uruguay.

0:25:12.613,0:25:18.566
I can describe it's scenic wonders and the[br]customs of its people.

0:25:18.566,0:25:21.484
The roads that go from there to there.

0:25:21.484,0:25:25.534
The Kings who ruled in past ages.

0:25:25.534,0:25:28.253
EVE:[br]And the languages and the geography

0:25:28.253,0:25:30.589
GEORGE:[br]It's an amazing place, I've tried to do

0:25:30.589,0:25:33.754
the same with Westeros.

0:25:33.754,0:25:37.573
That's one of the things that I think[br]is important about writing Fantasy,

0:25:37.573,0:25:39.325
Epic Fantasy.

0:25:39.325,0:25:42.293
There are many different types of[br]fantasy of course.

0:25:42.293,0:25:48.144
If any of you are aspiring writers,[br]or ever took fiction courses

0:25:48.144,0:25:51.762
or studied fiction in high school[br]or college or something like that

0:25:51.762,0:25:55.280
they used to at least in my day,[br]talk about the elements of fiction.

0:25:55.280,0:25:59.513
Plot, theme, character, etc. etc.

0:25:59.513,0:26:03.733
One of the elements of fiction was setting.

0:26:03.733,0:26:07.901
In most mainstream fiction, [br]contemporary fiction,

0:26:07.901,0:26:10.119
setting gets short shrift.

0:26:10.119,0:26:14.871
OK, it's in Chicago, OK it's in[br]New York City,

0:26:14.871,0:26:19.256
or even, it's in Victorian England, [br]we know all about that,

0:26:19.256,0:26:24.659
but the greatest fantasy to my mind[br]is distinguished by its settings.

0:26:24.659,0:26:28.612
The setting almost becomes a character,[br]Middle Earth becomes a real place,

0:26:28.612,0:26:33.893
it becomes a character,[br]the Shire, Rivendale, Ministereth,

0:26:33.893,0:26:37.611
Mordor, each of these is very[br]vivid and real, and I've tried

0:26:37.611,0:26:41.582
to do the same with my own Westeros.

0:26:41.582,0:26:45.998
Create a setting that was almost a[br]character in it's own right.

0:26:45.998,0:26:48.451
EVE:[br]Did you notice that one of those

0:26:48.451,0:26:52.001
quotations on the wall was said by[br]you, but was attributed to me?

0:26:52.001,0:26:53.836
GEORGE:[br]I did notice that.

0:26:53.836,0:26:55.170
[laughter]

0:26:55.170,0:26:56.687
Hey!

0:26:56.687,0:26:58.971
EVE:[br]I thought that was very strange.

0:26:58.971,0:27:01.171
GEORGE:[br]What a coincidence, Eve said exactly

0:27:01.171,0:27:02.339
the same thing.

0:27:02.339,0:27:04.257
EVE:[br]I did not say that.

0:27:04.257,0:27:06.823
I complained to someone but no [br]change was made,

0:27:06.823,0:27:08.725
so I want you to know that I'm glad[br]you noticed that, I thought

0:27:08.725,0:27:16.744
it was very bizarre.

0:27:16.744,0:27:20.477
GEORGE:[br]There was also a typo in one of

0:27:20.477,0:27:22.029
my other ones.

0:27:22.029,0:27:25.912
There was one where I said that because[br]I'm a reader I have lived a thousand lives,

0:27:25.912,0:27:27.581
loved a thousand loves.

0:27:27.581,0:27:29.731
They changes the loves to lives.

0:27:29.731,0:27:32.449
So it was I've lived a thousand lives[br]and loved a thousand lives.

0:27:32.449,0:27:35.117
Which is sort of repetitious.

0:27:35.117,0:27:36.917
EVE:[br]We had a lovely time

0:27:36.917,0:27:40.285
we're very grateful,[br]it was a wonderful event.

0:27:40.285,0:27:42.643
GEORGE:[br]The awards were handsome, and we got to

0:27:42.643,0:27:47.637
meet the mayor and there were 82[br]authors on stage.

0:27:47.637,0:27:52.140
Amazing authors I wish all their books[br]had been on sale.

0:27:52.140,0:27:55.591
I would have gone home with a big stack[br]of them.

0:27:55.591,0:27:58.443
EVE:[br]So yesterday you were interviewed

0:27:58.443,0:28:00.226
by Scott Simon from NPR.

0:28:00.226,0:28:04.710
I thought you were very game in talking[br]about what its like to have so many people

0:28:04.710,0:28:06.613
waiting for your books.

0:28:06.613,0:28:10.581
I have an ongoing fascination with the[br]rhetoric people use,

0:28:10.581,0:28:13.366
because sometimes it seems to veer[br]out of the realm of fandom

0:28:13.366,0:28:15.950
and into the realm of entitlement.

0:28:15.950,0:28:20.834
In a way that seems to forget that you[br]are a human person who is trying to

0:28:20.834,0:28:23.636
make art which is a very difficult [br]and unpleasant thing.

0:28:23.636,0:28:26.887
What are your thoughts on that,[br]do you think that people fundamentally

0:28:26.887,0:28:30.254
misunderstand something about what[br]writing is or about what this whole

0:28:30.254,0:28:32.971
business is?

0:28:32.971,0:28:36.056
GEORGE:[br]Well, yes, I think that some of them do.

0:28:36.056,0:28:37.556
Certainly.

0:28:37.556,0:28:46.511
Some of them don't seem to understand[br]that writers are different from eachother.

0:28:46.511,0:28:50.661
They will point out to me some other[br]writer and say, in the time you've been

0:28:50.661,0:28:54.110
working on Winds of Winter he's published[br]seven novels.

0:28:54.110,0:28:56.230
Indeed there are writers who do that.

0:28:56.230,0:28:59.214
There are writers you can practically[br]set your watch by.

0:28:59.214,0:29:01.714
They publish a novel a year,[br]boom, boom, boom.

0:29:01.714,0:29:05.084
That's great, I wish I could do that,[br]but I can't, I never could.

0:29:05.084,0:29:09.133
There are a couple of novels I wrote[br]throughout my career that took me

0:29:09.133,0:29:14.102
a year to write but they were like[br]a fifth the size of the novels

0:29:14.102,0:29:15.934
I'm writing now.

0:29:15.934,0:29:20.756
So that's not going to happen.

0:29:20.756,0:29:25.858
I can't help but think,[br]I don't want all the wonderful young

0:29:25.858,0:29:31.109
people I see in the audience to start[br]taking aim at me and throw things here

0:29:31.109,0:29:34.244
EVE:[br]Well we have all these apples.

0:29:34.244,0:29:35.978
[laughter[

0:29:35.978,0:29:38.162
GEORGE:[br]I do think there is an aspect of

0:29:38.162,0:29:42.130
generational change about this,[br]I think the older readers

0:29:42.130,0:29:46.499
baby boomers like me, or maybe even[br]generation X'ers are used to

0:29:46.499,0:29:48.299
waiting for things.

0:29:48.299,0:29:52.746
The internet has created a generation[br]that is used to instant gratification.

0:29:52.746,0:29:58.002
Instead of answers, they want what they[br]want and they want it now.

0:29:58.002,0:30:00.885
I think the internet kind of[br]creates that mindset.

0:30:00.885,0:30:05.056
The old days when I needed to learn[br]something I would have to go to the

0:30:05.056,0:30:10.141
library and find a book on it,[br]find another book on it just to

0:30:10.141,0:30:12.525
double check that it was right.

0:30:12.525,0:30:18.778
Now if I want to know anything I wip[br]up google and boom,

0:30:18.778,0:30:22.112
there's the answer in two minutes,[br]20 seconds actually.

0:30:22.112,0:30:25.531
Depending how fast your internet speed is.

0:30:25.531,0:30:30.716
It creates a different set of expectations

0:30:30.716,0:30:40.468
There are many things the internet does,[br]but it hasn't helped me write faster.

0:30:40.468,0:30:45.889
So there it is.

0:30:45.889,0:30:53.823
I try to keep it into proportion,[br]it is sometimes annoying to me that

0:30:53.823,0:30:57.409
there is so many voices that just want[br]Winds of Winter, and choose to remind

0:30:57.409,0:31:00.627
me every opportunity.

0:31:00.627,0:31:04.529
I know perfectly well that if any of you[br]go home tonight and go on Twitter

0:31:04.529,0:31:07.961
"I was just at the Chicago Symphony[br]Listening to George R. R. Martin"

0:31:07.961,0:31:11.114
within the first three responses to your[br]tweet someone will say well,

0:31:11.114,0:31:13.548
"where's Winds of Winter?".

0:31:13.548,0:31:15.465
Why isn't he writing it?

0:31:15.465,0:31:19.502
I mean go home try it, see if it doesn't[br]work that way.

0:31:19.502,0:31:28.437
On the other hand,[br]I think for the vast majority of writers

0:31:28.437,0:31:33.357
including some really good writers,[br]like I said we had 80 writers on the

0:31:33.357,0:31:37.490
stage yesterday at the Carl Sandberg awards

0:31:37.490,0:31:40.192
Many distinguished writers who [br]have written novels and

0:31:40.192,0:31:43.626
works of non-fiction, terrific stuff.

0:31:43.626,0:31:48.246
You probably would never have heard of[br]many of them,

0:31:48.246,0:31:52.279
their books probably sell relatively[br]few copies.

0:31:52.279,0:31:56.331
For the vast majority of writers including[br]me, for much of my career,

0:31:56.331,0:32:02.135
the big question is obscurity,[br]how do you get yourself noticed amongst

0:32:02.135,0:32:05.969
all the books out there.

0:32:05.969,0:32:09.353
I try not to be ungrateful about the fact [br]that I have millions of people

0:32:09.353,0:32:12.054
eagerly awaiting my next book.

0:32:12.054,0:32:15.906
It certainly beats having no one give[br]a damn about when my next book

0:32:15.906,0:32:18.141
is coming out.

0:32:18.141,0:32:23.159
Which is the fate of most writers,[br]that's what they struggle with.

0:32:23.159,0:32:26.326
You have to keep all of these things[br]into proportion.

0:32:26.326,0:32:35.164
With Game of Thrones achieving best[br]seller status, the books actually not

0:32:35.164,0:32:38.965
Games of Thrones, Game of Thrones was[br]not a best seller when it first came out.

0:32:38.965,0:32:40.882
EVE:[br]Was it 'Song of Swords'?

0:32:40.882,0:32:43.251
GEORGE:[br]It was the second book 'Clash of Kings'

0:32:43.251,0:32:46.351
hit the New York Times list for [br]one week at 13 then it vanished.

0:32:46.351,0:32:49.936
The third book 'Storm of Swords' debuted[br]a little higher and lasted

0:32:49.936,0:32:53.853
a little longer, it wasn't until the[br]fourth book 'Feast for Crows' that

0:32:53.853,0:32:56.688
I hit number one on the Times list.

0:32:56.688,0:33:03.623
Then the show hit, and the books were[br]already number one New York Times

0:33:03.623,0:33:08.042
best sellers but the show made[br]everyone crazy about them.

0:33:08.042,0:33:12.795
It also made me famous to a degree[br]that I had never anticipated in my life

0:33:12.795,0:33:14.212
being famous.

0:33:14.212,0:33:17.046
This happened to me when I was in my 60's.

0:33:17.046,0:33:22.931
It's changed my life in ways that I don't[br]necessarily love, but there

0:33:22.931,0:33:25.681
are things about it that are great.

0:33:25.681,0:33:28.251
Probably more good things than bad things.

0:33:28.251,0:33:30.133
It certainly was a change.

0:33:30.133,0:33:32.817
I'm glad it happened to me,[br]strange as it seems,

0:33:32.817,0:33:35.001
when I was in my 60's.

0:33:35.001,0:33:38.570
It's given me an understanding of why[br]people like Lindsay Lohan and

0:33:38.570,0:33:40.772
Justin Bieber go crazy.

0:33:40.772,0:33:42.823
[laughter]

0:33:42.823,0:33:49.241
To be a sixteen year old kid and suddenly[br]have that level of fame and attention

0:33:49.241,0:33:54.692
and loss of privacy and thousands of[br]people commenting on every shirt that

0:33:54.692,0:34:00.262
you wear or every word that you say,[br]I don't know how any sixteen year old

0:34:00.262,0:34:04.747
could possibly handle that.

0:34:04.747,0:34:11.798
I at least have had many long years[br]of life on earth before I

0:34:11.798,0:34:15.850
descended into the strange world of[br]celebrity.

0:34:15.850,0:34:17.651
EVE:[br]And a lot of opportunity to make your

0:34:17.651,0:34:22.187
make your work on your own terms and not[br]kind of be accessing your success.

0:34:22.187,0:34:27.105
So there is a cultural critique [br]Doreen St. Felix

0:34:27.105,0:34:30.739
who referred to Gwendolyn Brooks work,[br]you may remember from your time in Chicago

0:34:30.739,0:34:33.708
as being a citizen poet.

0:34:33.708,0:34:37.126
I think that in Santa Fe where you have[br]lived for many many years, you could

0:34:37.126,0:34:42.429
be seen as a really active citizen author,[br]you own the Jean Cocteau Cinema,

0:34:42.429,0:34:46.296
which you bought and had restored as an[br]eclectic movie house after it had

0:34:46.296,0:34:48.163
been shut down.

0:34:48.163,0:34:51.199
You've been a huge supporter of the[br]Wild Spirits wolf sanctuary.

0:34:51.199,0:34:55.967
Of course you are a co-conspirator[br]in MeowWolf and their many installations

0:34:55.967,0:34:57.817
and incredible works.

0:34:57.817,0:35:02.220
Do you see this kind of community work as[br]part of who you are as a writer

0:35:02.220,0:35:05.136
or is it that you're a writer and you do [br]this other stuff?

0:35:05.136,0:35:07.705
Do you see part of your job as[br]building community in this way?

0:35:07.705,0:35:10.705
GEORGE:[br]I think i'll go with I'm a writer

0:35:10.705,0:35:13.040
and I do all this other stuff.

0:35:13.040,0:35:21.993
I do believe in the concept of giving [br]back, I've been very fortunate.

0:35:21.993,0:35:27.095
There are a lot of things that go into[br]being successful in any chosen career.

0:35:27.095,0:35:30.130
But that's certainly true of a writer,[br]you have to have talent,

0:35:30.130,0:35:33.181
you have to persist,[br]and you have to have luck.

0:35:33.181,0:35:36.683
There are some great great books[br]out there and great writers who

0:35:36.683,0:35:40.684
have never achieved a large audience[br]who have never made that much money,

0:35:40.684,0:35:43.869
who have faced a lot of struggles.

0:35:43.869,0:35:49.053
I've been very lucky and I'm cognizant [br]of that.

0:35:49.053,0:35:52.455
Not to say I haven't worked hard, I have.

0:35:52.455,0:35:54.455
Luck is part of it.

0:35:54.455,0:35:58.174
Robert A. Heinlen, the first Science Fiction[br]book that I ever read was

0:35:58.174,0:36:00.625
'Have Space Suit--Will Travel'[br]by Robert A. Heinlen,

0:36:00.625,0:36:03.093
and he was my favorite author[br]for many years.

0:36:03.093,0:36:06.695
He was probably the greatest[br]Science Fiction author of his day.

0:36:06.695,0:36:09.679
They called him the dean of[br]Science Fiction at one point.

0:36:09.679,0:36:15.714
Heinlen famously said "you can never[br]pay back the people who helped you

0:36:15.714,0:36:20.199
when you were starting out,[br]so you have to pay forward."

0:36:20.199,0:36:26.684
I've always taken that principal to mind,[br]I've tried to pay forward both inside

0:36:26.684,0:36:28.552
and outside of the genre.

0:36:28.552,0:36:34.772
Doing things like supporting Wild Spirit,[br]reviving the Jean Cocteau, and within

0:36:34.772,0:36:41.292
the field trying to blurp good books[br]by young writers who are just starting out

0:36:41.292,0:36:44.759
to get their books a little attention.

0:36:44.759,0:36:49.545
Helping writers workshops like Clarien and[br]Clarien West and Odyssey.

0:36:49.545,0:36:56.564
Sponsoring scholarships and all that,[br]that's a method of giving back and I think

0:36:56.564,0:37:01.063
there is an obligation on people[br]to do that, to engage in their communities.

0:37:01.063,0:37:05.400
I have two communities that I live in,[br]Santa Fe, New Mexico community,

0:37:05.400,0:37:10.829
where I make my home and also[br]the world Science Fiction and Fantasy

0:37:10.829,0:37:15.901
which I have been apart of since 1971[br]when I attended my fist convention.

0:37:15.901,0:37:21.505
I still go to world World Con every year[br]and attend the Hugo Awards, those are

0:37:21.505,0:37:26.792
my people and it almost feels like family [br]to me so I try to give in both of those

0:37:26.792,0:37:28.584
communities.

0:37:28.584,0:37:31.808
EVE:[br]You travel exstensively,

0:37:31.808,0:37:34.228
you just came back from Ireland,[br]you're not going home for

0:37:34.228,0:37:38.912
a couple more weeks after being here,[br]but you also have said you really struggle

0:37:38.912,0:37:42.398
to write on planes, hotels, basically[br]anywhere that is not your home office.

0:37:42.398,0:37:47.533
That you need several uninterrupted days[br]to get into your groove.

0:37:47.533,0:37:51.467
How do you balance the part of being a[br]writer that is the writing,

0:37:51.467,0:37:55.785
with the part that is the profession,[br]coming to events like this,

0:37:55.785,0:37:59.035
knowing that it's gonna drain some[br]of the actual production.

0:37:59.035,0:38:01.854
GEORGE:[br]Well, that's a good question.

0:38:01.854,0:38:04.339
How do I balance them?[br]Badly I think.

0:38:04.339,0:38:15.927
My relationship with travel is an[br]interesting one, that I should probably

0:38:15.927,0:38:19.344
talk about with a therapist rather[br]than you people.

0:38:19.344,0:38:21.731
EVE:[br]No on'es listening we are just here

0:38:21.731,0:38:23.430
with our freinds.

0:38:23.430,0:38:26.449
GEORGE:[br]I was born and raised in Bayonne, New Jersey.

0:38:26.449,0:38:30.616
Which is a blue collar industrial city[br]right across the bay from New York City.

0:38:30.616,0:38:36.619
My father was a long shore man,[br]although he went through long periods

0:38:36.619,0:38:39.236
where he was unemployed.

0:38:39.236,0:38:42.988
My mother was a house wife when[br]I was young and later got a factory job

0:38:42.988,0:38:45.572
when factories were in Bayonne.

0:38:45.572,0:38:48.458
We never had much money, we lived[br]in a federal housing project.

0:38:48.458,0:38:53.409
We did not own a car, we never went[br]anywhere.

0:38:53.409,0:38:57.644
I lived on 1st street, my school was on[br]5th street, five blocks that was my world.

0:38:57.644,0:39:04.479
Bayonne was a peninsula and living on 1st[br]street was the Kilvon Cull

0:39:04.479,0:39:09.615
which is a deep water channel that[br]connected Newark bay and New York bay.

0:39:09.615,0:39:14.116
I would see these great ships, oil tankers[br]and freighters, things like that going by

0:39:14.116,0:39:17.268
day and night with all the flags of[br]the world on them.

0:39:17.268,0:39:21.252
Sweden, Liberia, China, so forth.

0:39:21.252,0:39:25.071
I had an encyclopedia where I could[br]look up every flag I saw.

0:39:25.071,0:39:31.822
There was this urge in me to get away[br]from the five blocks where my life was lived.

0:39:31.822,0:39:35.806
Occasionally we would go to New York City[br]to eat.

0:39:35.806,0:39:43.894
We never really traveled even like some[br]of the other people in the neighborhood did.

0:39:43.894,0:39:46.728
They would go to the Jersey Shore during[br]summer.

0:39:46.728,0:39:49.779
They would rent a cabin in the mountains,[br]we never did any of that we just stayed

0:39:49.779,0:39:51.564
home and worked.

0:39:51.564,0:39:54.114
So Travel has always been enticing to me.

0:39:54.114,0:39:59.200
As I became more and more successful.

0:39:59.200,0:40:01.334
First of all I went to North Western,[br]that was the first time

0:40:01.334,0:40:04.868
I ever left New Jersey.

0:40:04.868,0:40:09.452
The Midwest and Chicago and Evanston [br]that was a whole new world to me.

0:40:09.452,0:40:13.922
Later when I became successful I started[br]going to Science Fiction magazines,

0:40:13.922,0:40:18.891
in far flung places like Boston[br]and Washington DC and all that.

0:40:18.891,0:40:23.676
Every city was an adventure for me,[br]eventually in 1981 I traveled to England.

0:40:23.676,0:40:27.294
I left the country for the first time.

0:40:27.294,0:40:37.348
As I became more successful, [br]first within Science Fiction and later

0:40:37.348,0:40:41.500
in the larger world when the books[br]became best sellers and a hit

0:40:41.500,0:40:45.368
I started getting more and more[br]invitations to travel to places,

0:40:45.368,0:40:47.536
all expenses paid invitations.

0:40:47.536,0:40:52.119
Oh, they want to fly me to Vancouver,[br]that's cool, I'll say yes.

0:40:52.119,0:40:57.720
Oh look here's one where I can go to[br]Scotland, I can go to France,

0:40:57.720,0:40:59.954
I can go to Italy.

0:40:59.954,0:41:02.206
Honestly, I said yes too much.

0:41:02.206,0:41:07.877
I had a great time it was wonderful,[br]it enriched my life I learned a lot,

0:41:07.877,0:41:11.694
I made friends from all over the world,[br]but I said yes too much.

0:41:11.694,0:41:16.315
Now I have a staff that I've instructed[br]to try to say no as much as possible,

0:41:16.315,0:41:20.115
I have one of my assistants I call the [br]Vice President in charge of saying no.

0:41:20.115,0:41:22.151
[laughter]

0:41:22.151,0:41:29.917
Sometimes I over rule her, I have my[br]publicist here sitting in the second row

0:41:29.917,0:41:34.803
trying hide who tells me to say no [br]to everything because I should be staying

0:41:34.803,0:41:36.636
home and writing.

0:41:36.636,0:41:40.088
If I listened to him I wouldn't be here.

0:41:40.088,0:41:42.589
[luaghter]

0:41:42.589,0:41:49.310
I can't help it, I wanted to be here,[br]I wanted to come back to Chicago,

0:41:49.310,0:41:52.811
I wanted to, you know the[br]Carl Sandberg award was an amazing honor.

0:41:52.811,0:41:54.895
I wanted to be with you guys tonight.

0:41:54.895,0:42:00.763
It's true I've got to, and I'm really[br]trying, I'm saying no more and more,

0:42:00.763,0:42:04.265
I've said no to three things this week.

0:42:04.265,0:42:06.616
The invitations just keep pouring in.

0:42:06.616,0:42:12.902
Travel doesn't have quite the allure [br]it previously did when I never went anywhere

0:42:12.902,0:42:16.086
so now they offer me money instead.

0:42:16.086,0:42:19.719
I'm saying no to that too,[br]I'm being good people.

0:42:19.719,0:42:20.835
[applause]

0:42:20.835,0:42:27.257
[laughter]

0:42:27.257,0:42:31.775
The one thing I never say no to is the[br]World Science Fiction convention, World Con.

0:42:31.775,0:42:36.643
Which I went to for the first time in 1971,[br]I go to that every year.

0:42:36.643,0:42:39.444
So that's why I was in Ireland last month,[br]for the World Con.

0:42:39.444,0:42:44.079
There is a lot of conventions on the[br]Science Fiction calendar, some of them

0:42:44.079,0:42:48.031
are better than others, all of them are[br]fun to some degree.

0:42:48.031,0:42:53.083
But World Con is the oldest of them,[br]it's where the Hugo awards are given.

0:42:53.083,0:42:57.551
It's where I see friends that I only see[br]once a year.

0:42:57.551,0:43:03.887
The Science Fiction fandom is like forever,[br]you go in there an meet people

0:43:03.887,0:43:07.038
who will be part of your life for the next[br]fifty years.

0:43:07.038,0:43:10.040
You may only see them once a year at[br]World Con but it's still great and

0:43:10.040,0:43:12.224
important to see them.

0:43:12.224,0:43:15.108
So that one I'll probably never say no to,[br]but I try to say no to a lot of the others.

0:43:15.108,0:43:18.176
At lest until 'Winds of Winter' is[br]finished, then you'll see me popping

0:43:18.176,0:43:20.777
around and popping up places.

0:43:20.777,0:43:23.095
EVE:[br]We're really grateful you said yes to us.

0:43:23.095,0:43:26.230
I know it's also cause you wanted to go to[br]Greek town and have some gyros,

0:43:26.230,0:43:28.247
which we talked about earlier.

0:43:28.247,0:43:31.448
GEORGE:[br]OPA!

0:43:31.448,0:43:34.165
EVE:[br]A lot of writers who have their work

0:43:34.165,0:43:38.068
adapted to film or television are not[br]really involved, they kind of hand it over,

0:43:38.068,0:43:43.168
sometimes that can create a distant or[br]adversarial relationship with the adaptation.

0:43:43.168,0:43:47.255
You are not like that, you've been a[br]producer on Game of Thrones and you've

0:43:47.255,0:43:49.837
also written scripts for some of the most [br]iconic episodes, and I want to shout out

0:43:49.837,0:43:51.890
a few of them

0:43:51.890,0:43:56.509
You wrote "The Pointy End" which has this[br]amazing scene where Syrio Forel protects

0:43:56.509,0:43:59.885
Arya as she escapes and her life[br]is never the same.

0:43:59.885,0:44:05.153
Again this is a spoiler heavy zone,[br]so exits behind you if you need to leave.

0:44:05.153,0:44:12.237
You wrote that episode, that I love.

0:44:12.237,0:44:16.156
"Black Water" and incredibly epic battle,[br]that I think rivals Ministereth for

0:44:16.156,0:44:17.756
great on screen battles.

0:44:17.756,0:44:20.457
Where Tyrion proves himself to be a[br]capable military strategist.

0:44:20.457,0:44:22.958
We get lots of sweet dragon fire exploding.

0:44:22.958,0:44:25.926
"The Lion and the Rose" where we bid,[br]for some of us, a very gleeful farewell

0:44:25.926,0:44:28.009
to Jofrey.

0:44:28.009,0:44:32.479
We realize that we can see a minor die on[br]TV and we're somehow still happy about it.

0:44:32.479,0:44:34.831
[laughter]

0:44:34.831,0:44:47.867
At the same time, you're heavily involved[br]in the show, but you're still writing

0:44:47.867,0:44:52.319
this series and you reserve the right to[br]do what you want there autonomously

0:44:52.319,0:44:55.404
not based on peoples responses to the[br]TV series.

0:44:55.404,0:44:58.504
This is a long way of asking,[br]how do you see the relationship between

0:44:58.504,0:45:03.073
TV Westeros and fiction Westeros,[br]and how are you operating in both of

0:45:03.073,0:45:06.508
these worlds?

0:45:06.508,0:45:09.260
GEORGE:[br]Well, how many children did

0:45:09.260,0:45:11.227
Scarlet O'hara have?

0:45:11.227,0:45:13.476
EVE:[br]I'm the wrong one to ask that.

0:45:13.476,0:45:17.979
GEORGE:[br]She had three in Margaret Mitchell's novel.

0:45:17.979,0:45:20.179
She had one in the movie.

0:45:20.179,0:45:23.713
So how many children did she have?

0:45:23.713,0:45:26.066
I mean which is "right"?

0:45:26.066,0:45:30.316
The actual answer to that is a trick [br]question of course.

0:45:30.316,0:45:33.152
It is that Scarlet O'hara had no children[br]because she is a fictional character

0:45:33.152,0:45:34.867
and never existed.

0:45:34.867,0:45:36.604
[laughter]

0:45:36.604,0:45:40.739
It's two different mediums and two[br]different ways of telling the same story,

0:45:40.739,0:45:42.855
or at least a similar story.

0:45:42.855,0:45:50.924
That's true whenever you adapt any work[br]from books to television or movies,

0:45:50.924,0:45:53.809
or even a radio play for that matter.

0:45:53.809,0:45:58.313
You have to make choices as to what [br]you leave in what you take out,

0:45:58.313,0:46:02.180
there are issues that a television[br]producer or screen writer has that

0:46:02.180,0:46:04.731
a novelist does not have.

0:46:04.731,0:46:09.432
You have to worry about the budget,[br]you have to worry about the running time,

0:46:09.432,0:46:15.151
you have actors who have contracts that [br]have to be serviced.

0:46:15.151,0:46:20.836
I could have a character like Theon Greyjoy[br]or Varis, disappear for entire books

0:46:20.836,0:46:28.257
and not be mentioned at all,[br]or perhaps be presumed dead,

0:46:28.257,0:46:32.391
they're off and you don't know what[br]they're doing.

0:46:32.391,0:46:36.926
You can't do that with a TV show,[br]the actors are under contract,

0:46:36.926,0:46:40.144
you're not gonna pay an actor for an[br]entire season and not have them

0:46:40.144,0:46:42.913
appear on screen.

0:46:42.913,0:46:48.432
Television and film have things at their [br]disposal that the novelist does not have.

0:46:48.432,0:46:52.948
They can have a score like the wonderful[br]music we were hearing by Ramin Djawadi.

0:46:52.948,0:46:57.901
Our Emmy winning composer,[br]that reinforces the show.

0:46:57.901,0:47:00.819
We've got marvelous special effects [br]and all that.

0:47:00.819,0:47:05.539
The novelist also has tools that the [br]screen writer and the director don't have.

0:47:05.539,0:47:12.540
You can use an unreliable narrator, he has[br]the wonderful strength which I use very

0:47:12.540,0:47:16.592
heavily in 'A Song of Ice and Fire' of [br]point of view.

0:47:16.592,0:47:20.309
The camera is completely objective,[br]it has no point of view.

0:47:20.309,0:47:22.795
The camera is showing you what happened.

0:47:22.795,0:47:27.481
When I write a scene from the view point[br]of Sansa I'm filtering everything through

0:47:27.481,0:47:29.196
Sansa's perceptions.

0:47:29.196,0:47:32.199
Sansa is only seeing what she is looking[br]at, if there is something behind her

0:47:32.199,0:47:34.365
she doesn't see it.

0:47:34.365,0:47:38.351
It's more difficult to write when you're[br]doing it with a camera.

0:47:38.351,0:47:44.754
So all of these things necessitate making[br]changes, making a different approach

0:47:44.754,0:47:50.672
That's what the process of adaptation[br]is about.

0:47:50.672,0:47:56.991
Then its up to the readers and the viewers[br]to decide which they like better.

0:47:56.991,0:47:59.007
They're both works of art.

0:47:59.007,0:48:03.509
Margaret Mitchell's novel is there, it can[br]be read, you can go see the 1939 movie,

0:48:03.509,0:48:12.613
if you take into account inflation and all[br]that it's still the highest grossing movie

0:48:12.613,0:48:15.146
of all time.

0:48:15.146,0:48:18.964
You can determine which you like better[br]and argue about how many children

0:48:18.964,0:48:22.031
she should have had.

0:48:22.031,0:48:26.950
There it is, its two different works[br]of art, related but not identical.

0:48:26.950,0:48:29.418
EVE:[br]Almost like alternate universe versions

0:48:29.418,0:48:31.870
of eachother.

0:48:31.870,0:48:35.305
Initially when people started showing [br]interest in the series for television

0:48:35.305,0:48:40.640
you felt that the scale of it might be[br]beyond what could be represented on film.

0:48:40.640,0:48:44.124
Especially because of part of what you[br]just mentioned, the scope of your many

0:48:44.124,0:48:46.890
characters, the world, the complexity of[br]the plot.

0:48:46.890,0:48:49.127
What do you think was the X factor?

0:48:49.127,0:48:52.027
Is there something that changed or [br]something that made it work

0:48:52.027,0:48:55.361
despite those challenges of the medium?

0:48:55.361,0:49:02.664
GEORGE:[br]I think HBO was of the X factor,

0:49:02.664,0:49:07.917
HBO was willing to let us make an adult[br]fantasy.

0:49:07.917,0:49:15.969
Fantasy books had been dominating the[br]best seller list for decades but,

0:49:15.969,0:49:19.921
whenever fantasy was done for TV for[br]Game of Thrones, they put it on at 8 o'clock

0:49:19.921,0:49:22.257
7 central.

0:49:22.257,0:49:26.590
It was in the family hour because the[br]people running television thought Fantasy

0:49:26.590,0:49:32.261
dragons and swords and stuff was something[br]silly, that it was for children.

0:49:32.261,0:49:37.546
HBO had enough faith to redefine at least[br]in terms of television, redefine the

0:49:37.546,0:49:40.113
fantasy genre.

0:49:40.113,0:49:42.947
That doesn't surprise me because you look[br]at what they did previously,

0:49:42.947,0:49:47.414
Deadwood, whole new take on westerns,[br]Sopranos, completely different take on

0:49:47.414,0:49:49.667
the gangster story.

0:49:49.667,0:49:55.468
HBO was in the business of redefining [br]genres and inverting troupes and

0:49:55.468,0:49:58.752
turning them on their heads,[br]and they did it with Fantasy.

0:49:58.752,0:50:04.122
David Benioff and Dan Weiss the[br]show runners did an amazing job

0:50:04.122,0:50:06.842
and they assembled a great team.

0:50:06.842,0:50:12.392
Game of Thrones has won, at this point,[br]more Emmy's than any other show in the

0:50:12.392,0:50:16.977
history of television, prime time show[br]anway.

0:50:16.977,0:50:25.247
What's interesting about it is many many[br]many of those Emmy's are what they call

0:50:25.247,0:50:29.664
in Hollywood below the line,[br]they're for things like music, costuming,

0:50:29.664,0:50:37.134
casting, stunt work, all of these things, [br]special effects.

0:50:37.134,0:50:40.152
All of these things are necessary to do a [br]good thing.

0:50:40.152,0:50:43.920
A novelist doesn't have to worry about [br]that, I can just write what the

0:50:43.920,0:50:47.204
costumes are, I don't have to worry[br]about that.

0:50:47.204,0:50:51.557
The show runner has to put together a [br]team of people who can do it.

0:50:51.557,0:50:55.925
In the case of Game of Thrones with [br]extraordinary passion and skill to

0:50:55.925,0:51:01.194
produce something that is really [br]memorable and oustanding.

0:51:01.194,0:51:05.329
David Benioff and Dan Weiss did that,[br]they put together one of the greatest

0:51:05.329,0:51:10.314
production teams and casts and crews[br]in the entire history of television, I think.

0:51:10.314,0:51:12.949
EVE:[br]There are so many of those things that you

0:51:12.949,0:51:15.482
just mentioned that I could shout out[br]but the costuming in particular,

0:51:15.482,0:51:18.834
I'm thinking of Daenerys obviously[br]in the kind of progression of costuming

0:51:18.834,0:51:24.254
of the course of their personal[br]development as a character.

0:51:24.254,0:51:32.840
GEORGE:[br]Everything plays a role, all it takes is

0:51:32.840,0:51:40.011
one person to screw up and you know[br]you're watching the first episode of some

0:51:40.011,0:51:45.028
new fantasy show and it seems to be[br]promising and the dialogue is good,

0:51:45.028,0:51:50.997
and maybe the special effects are good, [br]and then you spot a zipper,

0:51:50.997,0:51:54.331
and suddenly your suspension of disbelief[br]is out the window.

0:51:54.331,0:51:57.699
And you say "What the hell?" ya know?

0:51:57.699,0:52:00.049
They've lost you.

0:52:00.049,0:52:02.284
You have to get everything right.

0:52:02.284,0:52:07.753
Being a show runner of a major television[br]show is really a difficult achievement.

0:52:07.753,0:52:11.471
EVE:[br]You've mentioned in other interviews that

0:52:11.471,0:52:15.471
and early TV influence for your was[br]of course Star Trek and in that time

0:52:15.471,0:52:21.307
Gene Roddenberry's universe was more [br]diverse than some of the universes we see

0:52:21.307,0:52:23.275
on contemporary television.

0:52:23.275,0:52:28.077
I know you're also producing an adaptation[br]of Nnedi Okorafor's "Who Fears Death?"

0:52:28.077,0:52:31.578
which is exciting for many many reasons[br]but one of them I think is that people

0:52:31.578,0:52:35.780
seem to have an increasing hunger for[br]sci-fi and fantasy and speculative fiction

0:52:35.780,0:52:38.380
that reflects the diversity of our world.

0:52:38.380,0:52:42.883
Is that something that's important to you[br]or something you're thinking about?

0:52:42.883,0:52:50.270
GEORGE:[br]I think we have to move in that direction.

0:52:50.270,0:52:59.654
I also think science fiction has always[br]done better the society in general,

0:52:59.654,0:53:02.941
not that its perfect by any means.

0:53:02.941,0:53:08.693
The science fiction I like best is, [br]there's a lot of kinds of science fiction,

0:53:08.693,0:53:10.811
and fantasy.

0:53:10.811,0:53:17.679
Besides epic fantasy there is urban[br]fantasy, there's dark fantasy, there's

0:53:17.679,0:53:22.581
fairy tales, there's cyber punk in [br]science fiction, there's space opera.

0:53:22.581,0:53:26.415
There are many many kinds of things.

0:53:26.415,0:53:29.800
The sort of science fiction that I grew[br]up on, that I love most of all,

0:53:29.800,0:53:34.187
was the stuff that was set out among[br]the stars.

0:53:34.187,0:53:39.938
Where we go to alien planets 100 years[br]in the future, 500 years in the future,

0:53:39.938,0:53:46.823
and meet aliens, strange life forms,[br]distant suns, it just appealed to me.

0:53:46.823,0:53:51.410
Maybe it was cause of that travel thing,[br]I liked the exotic flavors and to see

0:53:51.410,0:53:55.144
sights never seen before, to go places[br]no one had ever gone before.

0:53:55.144,0:53:59.045
What I didn't realize though when I was[br]reading, and I realized it as an adult

0:53:59.045,0:54:07.614
many decades later, is that the we that [br]was going out in those star ships in the

0:54:07.614,0:54:11.966
science fiction that I read in the 50's[br]and 60's, they weren't Americans.

0:54:11.966,0:54:15.985
They weren't Chinese or Brazilian or French.

0:54:15.985,0:54:19.989
They were earth men, or earthlings,[br]or Terrans.

0:54:19.989,0:54:21.754
Those were the terms that were made.

0:54:21.754,0:54:26.989
If we were gonna meet the Octopus people [br]of the third planet of Vega it would be

0:54:26.989,0:54:31.758
Terrans meeting them and we would be [br]part of the solar alliance or the united

0:54:31.758,0:54:35.267
planets or something like that.

0:54:35.267,0:54:41.628
Some of the authors of the time made a[br]deliberate effort at diversity, maybe they

0:54:41.628,0:54:47.720
didn't entirely succeed but you look at [br]someone like Paul Anderson and he would

0:54:47.720,0:54:52.715
have Scotsman and Irishmen but also[br]Polynesians and Brazilians.

0:54:52.715,0:54:58.661
Elspreg D'camp wrote a whole series in[br]which Brazil was the dominate power of

0:54:58.661,0:55:05.738
23rd century Earth.

0:55:05.738,0:55:08.389
So that message was always there, it was[br]there in the pulp magazines and the early

0:55:08.389,0:55:10.188
science fiction.

0:55:10.188,0:55:13.407
Gene Roddenberry brought it to television.

0:55:13.407,0:55:22.561
The original Star Trek had some good[br]episodes, and it had some really bad

0:55:22.561,0:55:26.995
episodes but it was very exciting to see[br]it at the time.

0:55:26.995,0:55:36.551
Roddenberry was immensely courageous if[br]nothing else, maybe he wasn't the greatest

0:55:36.551,0:55:40.500
writer to come down the pike or the [br]greatest show runner but you look back

0:55:40.500,0:55:47.583
at the show that came out in 1767,[br]he put a black woman on the bridge

0:55:47.583,0:55:55.317
as communications engineer, he put[br]an Asian as helms man.

0:55:55.317,0:56:01.438
He put a Russian, at the height of the [br]cold war, on the bridge.

0:56:01.438,0:56:06.672
He was selling the idea that his[br]federation, Earth has put aside all of its

0:56:06.672,0:56:11.575
differences and we'd all come together[br]as a single people.

0:56:11.575,0:56:17.211
Maybe, most shocking of all was Spock.

0:56:17.211,0:56:23.228
You think of Spock as a Vulcan, he wasn't[br]a Vulcan, he was a half-breed,

0:56:23.228,0:56:26.478
he was half Vulcan and he was half[br]human.

0:56:26.478,0:56:33.816
He had green blood and two hearts,[br]a Vulcan father and a human mother,

0:56:33.816,0:56:38.400
if you're a hard science fiction writer[br]this makes no fucking sense, we're not

0:56:38.400,0:56:42.368
going to actually be able to interbreed[br]with the Octopus people of Vega,

0:56:42.368,0:56:50.273
it doesn't work that way, any more than we[br]can impregnate wombats here on earth.

0:56:50.273,0:56:52.457
[laughter]

0:56:52.457,0:57:00.892
None the less, whats striking about Spock[br]when this came out in 1967 is the fact

0:57:00.892,0:57:06.095
that at the time he was doing this[br]miscegenation was still against the law

0:57:06.095,0:57:09.563
in half the states of the United States.

0:57:09.563,0:57:14.964
This was before Loving vs. Virginia which[br]was the famous case recently dramatized

0:57:14.964,0:57:20.567
in a movie, that established that a white[br]man could actually marry a black woman.

0:57:20.567,0:57:26.752
That was against the law, interracial[br]marriage, having children with people of

0:57:26.752,0:57:31.855
another race, and he's having half breed[br]Vulcans.

0:57:31.855,0:57:36.922
It was enormously progressive at the time.

0:57:36.922,0:57:41.042
I didn't really noticed it because I had[br]been reading about that stuff for

0:57:41.042,0:57:46.411
a long time but looking back on it now[br]and realizing books that sell 3,000 copies

0:57:46.411,0:57:54.181
are one thing but a television show[br]that reaches 20 30 million people

0:57:54.181,0:57:56.715
really influences us.

0:57:56.715,0:57:59.348
They really reflect us.

0:57:59.348,0:58:06.068
Now, in science fiction and fantasy we are[br]seeing a great up swell of diverse voices.

0:58:06.068,0:58:14.154
By many different sorts of people,[br]different skin colors, different religions,

0:58:14.154,0:58:20.221
different sexual orientations,[br]they're producing their own takes on this.

0:58:20.221,0:58:24.808
As with any other groups some of them are[br]good some of them are not so good,

0:58:24.808,0:58:29.093
but I think it's a healthy sign for the[br]genre.

0:58:29.093,0:58:33.544
I do hope that there's still room for[br]some old white guys like me.

0:58:33.544,0:58:38.564
EVE:[br]You can stay there is room at the table.

0:58:38.564,0:58:40.931
GEORGE:[br]Good.

0:58:40.931,0:58:43.265
EVE:[br]There's only two seats here so we'll

0:58:43.265,0:58:44.715
see how it goes.

0:58:44.715,0:58:46.049
[laughter]

0:58:46.049,0:58:47.880
EVE:[br]I'm going to ask you one or two more

0:58:47.880,0:58:50.669
questions and then I'll go to these fan[br]questions.

0:58:50.669,0:58:51.754
GEORGE:[br]Great.

0:58:51.754,0:58:53.901
EVE:[br]I think my final question will be this,

0:58:53.901,0:58:58.538
you are a very frequently and many times[br]interviewed person,

0:58:58.538,0:59:01.035
you've been interviewed a lot.

0:59:01.035,0:59:05.244
What is the interview question that [br]wish people would ask, and what is

0:59:05.244,0:59:09.049
the one that you do not like,[br]or that you loath the most with

0:59:09.049,0:59:13.917
apologies to those who have previously [br]asked this question including me if

0:59:13.917,0:59:17.432
I'm one of the people, it's not personal[br]it's just that I'm asking.

0:59:17.432,0:59:21.240
So a question you wish people would ask,[br]and a question you hate the most.

0:59:21.240,0:59:29.619
GEORGE:[br]Obviously these days the question I hate

0:59:29.619,0:59:33.175
the most is when will 'Winds of Winter'[br]be out.

0:59:33.175,0:59:34.854
[laughter]

0:59:34.854,0:59:37.988
Because I have no good answer for that.

0:59:37.988,0:59:41.044
When the day comes that 'Winds of Winter'[br]is done and I can say, and I can when

0:59:41.044,0:59:43.874
asked that question, October.

0:59:43.874,0:59:46.230
That will a happier time for me.

0:59:46.230,0:59:51.128
It's no fun to be asked repeatedly[br]the same question over and over again,

0:59:51.128,0:59:53.513
and you don't have a good answer for it.

0:59:53.513,0:59:57.765
There are a lot of questions, I won't say[br]I hate them but I've been asked them so

0:59:57.765,1:00:03.336
often that it gets a little tiresome.

1:00:03.336,1:00:08.001
It also shows that however much the person[br]may be a huge fan of mine they've

1:00:08.001,1:00:13.259
never actually gone online and looked[br]at any of the 137 other interviews of me

1:00:13.259,1:00:15.471
that you can find on youtube.

1:00:15.471,1:00:19.444
Which is your favorite character, which[br]character do you like to write the most,

1:00:19.444,1:00:22.581
which character do you like to write the[br]least?

1:00:22.581,1:00:27.408
Ya know I've been answering that question[br]since 1996.

1:00:27.408,1:00:33.100
There are a number of questions that fall[br]in that category.

1:00:33.100,1:00:42.014
As to a question that I want to be asked,[br]that's harder,

1:00:42.014,1:00:44.019
I don't think I have one question.

1:00:44.019,1:00:49.968
I do like the fact that in your questions[br]you've discussed some things other than

1:00:49.968,1:00:56.007
Game of Thrones, I love Game of Thrones,[br]I love 'Song of Ice and Fire' but I do

1:00:56.007,1:01:02.021
have a long history of writing other[br]things and I'm very happy and proud

1:01:02.021,1:01:04.374
of those things too.

1:01:04.374,1:01:09.745
It's fun to discuss things that I haven't[br]been asked about before.

1:01:09.745,1:01:17.227
To talk about Fever Dream or Armageddon[br]Rag or the Wild Card series,

1:01:17.227,1:01:23.697
or Dying of the Light, or any of my[br]short stories that I've written

1:01:23.697,1:01:25.637
over the years.

1:01:25.637,1:01:28.949
EVE:[br]Good, I'm glad that if you hated one of

1:01:28.949,1:01:32.503
my questions you're keeping it to yourself[br]for the time being.

1:01:32.503,1:01:34.133
[laughter]

1:01:34.133,1:01:35.567
It's very polite of you.

1:01:35.567,1:01:39.440
OK so I'm gonna ask you some fan questions,[br]for which I can only moderately vouch

1:01:39.440,1:01:43.086
for the quality, after having had asked[br]you that last question.

1:01:43.086,1:01:44.404
GEORGE:[br]Should I be afraid?

1:01:44.404,1:01:46.020
EVE:[br]No I think these are all fine,

1:01:46.020,1:01:48.190
I'm going to take my glasses off.

1:01:48.190,1:01:52.355
OK so, Brendan B. Fish, I presume not[br]his real name on Twitter asks,

1:01:52.355,1:01:56.879
"Speaking personally, do you believe that [br]Robert, Ned, and Jon Aron were justified

1:01:56.879,1:02:01.082
in their rebellion against the Mad King,[br]if it were you would you have stayed loyal

1:02:01.082,1:02:03.665
to the Targaryens?"

1:02:03.665,1:02:08.521
People in the audience are freaked out [br]by this question for some reason.

1:02:08.521,1:02:10.836
[laughter]

1:02:10.836,1:02:14.166
GEORGE:[br]I don't think I would have stayed loyal to

1:02:14.166,1:02:16.520
the mad king.

1:02:16.520,1:02:18.450
Do I think I would justify it?

1:02:18.450,1:02:20.134
Ya, yes and no.

1:02:20.134,1:02:24.636
I don't like to provide easy answers to [br]that, I like to make the reader wrestle

1:02:24.636,1:02:30.054
with the question and think about it.

1:02:30.054,1:02:38.615
Because some of these questions never are[br]easy when we encounter them in real life.

1:02:38.615,1:02:45.799
It's been interesting coming back here to[br]Chicago,

1:02:45.799,1:02:53.147
because I spent ten years in Chicago and[br]the Chicago area,

1:02:53.147,1:02:58.950
I was at North Western from 1966 to 1971,[br]up in Evanston.

1:02:58.950,1:03:03.669
Then I was in Chicago from 71 to 76.

1:03:03.669,1:03:11.725
If you look at that era, particularly [br]the early part of that era, the 60's.

1:03:11.725,1:03:16.354
It was sometimes known in the history[br]books, for you young people who have read

1:03:16.354,1:03:19.507
about it in history as the turbulent 60's.

1:03:19.507,1:03:23.567
There was an altercation going down in[br]Vietnam that some of us didn't like,

1:03:23.567,1:03:29.811
there were a lot of protests and[br]demonstrations, people in the streets

1:03:29.811,1:03:34.280
by the tens of thousands by the hundreds[br]of thousands in some cases.

1:03:34.280,1:03:40.552
I look back on that era now and ya know,[br]I ask myself that question,

1:03:40.552,1:03:45.901
were the protests justified, did we do the[br]right thing, did we do the wrong thing,

1:03:45.901,1:03:49.285
should we have gone further?

1:03:49.285,1:03:55.909
I was very much a clean for Gene guy,[br]I still believed in the American system

1:03:55.909,1:04:00.823
and elections and let's elect Gene McCarthy

1:04:00.823,1:04:03.141
and put an end to the Vietnam war,

1:04:03.141,1:04:05.695
and there were more radical people who[br]wanted to destroy the state

1:04:05.695,1:04:08.844
and tear it all down and rebuild it.

1:04:08.844,1:04:14.662
When I look at all the things that[br]happened, I don't know,

1:04:14.662,1:04:17.893
it was a confused time and its still[br]a confusing time when you

1:04:17.893,1:04:20.698
look back at history.

1:04:20.698,1:04:23.550
Maybe 100 years from now when everybody[br]who participated are dead,

1:04:23.550,1:04:26.337
we'll be able to sort it out[br]and find the answers.

1:04:26.337,1:04:30.407
Is violence ever justified to oppose[br]evil in the world, if so,

1:04:30.407,1:04:34.486
to what extent is violence justified?

1:04:34.486,1:04:38.394
These are the questions that Ned[br]and Robert had to deal with.

1:04:38.394,1:04:44.191
There was no doubt that the mad king [br]was mad.

1:04:44.191,1:04:49.927
He was paranoid and violent[br]and he was abusing his power.

1:04:49.927,1:04:53.243
Westeros has no magna carta or [br]anything like that.

1:04:53.243,1:04:57.483
There was no way to handle this within[br]the rule of law.

1:04:57.483,1:05:03.218
Was what they did justified?

1:05:03.218,1:05:10.953
Especially when you consider that it was [br]triggered by a personal grievance.

1:05:10.953,1:05:16.503
The execution of Ned's father and brother,[br]was really a thing that radicalized,

1:05:16.503,1:05:21.275
as we would have said in the 60's,[br]Ned and put him in opposition to it.

1:05:21.275,1:05:26.341
Robert was just broiling for a fight,[br]and didn't like the fact that he lost

1:05:26.341,1:05:29.455
his girlfriend.

1:05:29.455,1:05:34.474
The personal informs the political.

1:05:34.474,1:05:43.283
As a reader I like the writers who ask[br]questions and get you to think.

1:05:43.283,1:05:45.786
I try to do that as a writer.

1:05:45.786,1:05:49.648
I don't necessarily like the writers who [br]give answers.

1:05:49.648,1:05:54.420
Often I don't agree with the answers [br]they seem wrong to me in some cases,

1:05:54.420,1:05:57.383
or they seem overly simplistic.

1:05:57.383,1:06:01.102
Questioning is important.

1:06:01.102,1:06:07.740
Theodore Sturgeon, who was one of the[br]great great science fiction writers

1:06:07.740,1:06:11.992
of the golden age, a real individualist,[br]and free thinker, I think.

1:06:11.992,1:06:17.375
He had a slogan which was called[br]"Ask the next question",

1:06:17.375,1:06:22.977
and he wore it, he had a medallion [br]that he wore with a big Q with

1:06:22.977,1:06:26.496
an arrow through it that stood for[br]"Ask the next question.",

1:06:26.496,1:06:31.096
I always admired Sturgeon and his[br]views on that.

1:06:31.096,1:06:32.368
EVE:[br]Your answer about not giving answers

1:06:32.368,1:06:35.473
was a very good answer.

1:06:35.473,1:06:36.523
[laughter]

1:06:36.523,1:06:37.717
GEORGE:[br]Thank you!

1:06:37.717,1:06:40.388
EVE:[br]Leah Rachel Von Essen writes to the

1:06:40.388,1:06:41.860
humanities festival,

1:06:41.860,1:06:46.470
"I'm inspired by Sansa's character," [br]She wrote books only, in parenthesis.

1:06:46.470,1:06:51.058
"I'm inspired by Sansa's character[br]and the way she her soft skills

1:06:51.058,1:06:54.938
aren't denigrated even as Arya is[br]the more classic strength warrior,

1:06:54.938,1:06:57.531
do you think they parallel each other[br]and how does their relationship

1:06:57.531,1:07:03.093
mirror the dynamics of real life sibling[br]relationships?"

1:07:03.093,1:07:07.165
GEORGE:[br]Well I hope that they are both realistic

1:07:07.165,1:07:10.352
characters in some sense.

1:07:10.352,1:07:14.368
I've known people who are like both [br]of them

1:07:14.368,1:07:20.804
and in some sense I'm like both[br]of them.

1:07:20.804,1:07:27.685
We're talking about two of my women[br]characters, girls in that case.

1:07:27.685,1:07:33.629
I've been asked about writing the girls,[br]and women in my books.

1:07:33.629,1:07:38.272
I have the advantage in [br]'A Song of Ice and Fire',

1:07:38.272,1:07:45.800
is that I have a lot of women.

1:07:45.800,1:07:49.001
Therefore, I can do a lot of different[br]women characters.

1:07:49.001,1:07:52.585
In an interview that I did in Canada[br]a number of years ago,

1:07:52.585,1:07:58.538
the host asked me how do I write[br]women characters and I said well,

1:07:58.538,1:08:03.873
I had this revolutionary idea,[br]I act as if women were people.

1:08:03.873,1:08:05.557
[laughter]

1:08:05.557,1:08:09.559
[applause]

1:08:09.559,1:08:10.993
That's my feeling.

1:08:10.993,1:08:14.345
If you have a book and you only have[br]one woman character,

1:08:14.345,1:08:18.361
sometimes there is not room for any[br]more because you're writing a short story.

1:08:18.361,1:08:24.933
Or a novel that only has three or[br]four main characters.

1:08:24.933,1:08:29.417
People sometimes take it as oh that's[br]his opinion of women or something,

1:08:29.417,1:08:31.935
because this character has these flaws.

1:08:31.935,1:08:34.951
But you have an advantage when you[br]have twenty women characters

1:08:34.951,1:08:40.454
that you can show the variety of people,[br]some of them are noble, some of them

1:08:40.454,1:08:44.589
are selfish, some of them are smart,[br]some of them are stupid,

1:08:44.589,1:08:52.726
I think that's true of all groups,[br]men, women, straight people, gay people,

1:08:52.726,1:08:54.843
whatever color.

1:08:54.843,1:09:02.113
They come in all varieties and even[br]the individuals have good and evil

1:09:02.113,1:09:04.946
within them.

1:09:04.946,1:09:13.067
I think that's realistic, and I think[br]we're all grey.

1:09:13.067,1:09:16.920
We all have good and bad in us,[br]we've all done good things

1:09:16.920,1:09:21.305
and we've all done bad things.

1:09:21.305,1:09:28.425
Real history is full of stories about[br]people who did something wonderful on

1:09:28.425,1:09:33.225
Tuesday and something horrible on[br]Thursday, same person.

1:09:33.225,1:09:36.528
There is a wonderful writer who passed[br]away a few years ago,

1:09:36.528,1:09:39.646
not a science fiction writer but,[br]Pat Conroy,

1:09:39.646,1:09:42.096
have any of you ever read Pat Conroy?

1:09:42.096,1:09:43.530
[applause]

1:09:43.530,1:09:47.815
Terrific writer, one of the great writers[br]I think of the 20th century.

1:09:47.815,1:09:53.267
A lot of his books were made into movies,[br]"The Great Santini", "The Water is Wide"

1:09:53.267,1:09:57.583
which was made into the movie "Conrack",[br]based on his own experiences teaching

1:09:57.583,1:10:00.070
the words of discipline.

1:10:00.070,1:10:04.205
Probably the best known books of his is[br]"The Prince of Tides",

1:10:04.205,1:10:11.040
I remember that book, that book has a [br]character in it who is an absolutely

1:10:11.040,1:10:16.876
abusive father, he terrorized his children[br]he abuses them both verbally

1:10:16.876,1:10:18.975
and physically.

1:10:18.975,1:10:24.296
He's horrible to his wife,[br]he's really a despicable, horrible person.

1:10:24.296,1:10:28.597
But there are flashbacks within that to[br]World War II,

1:10:28.597,1:10:33.732
about an American aviator flying a mission[br]over Nazi Germany who was shot down

1:10:33.732,1:10:38.918
he parachutes out to safety but now[br]he's in the middle of Nazi Germany

1:10:38.918,1:10:40.950
and he has to get all the way back[br]to the lines.

1:10:40.950,1:10:47.454
He makes his way through the German[br]lines, hiding in haystacks, and

1:10:47.454,1:10:51.789
occasionally meeting Germans who try to[br]turn him in, and then other Germans who

1:10:51.789,1:10:54.174
are kind to him and hide him.

1:10:54.174,1:10:58.509
It's an interesting secondary story line.

1:10:58.509,1:11:01.692
It's the same character, and you realize[br]as you read this,

1:11:01.692,1:11:05.028
you're reading this story about this[br]brave American aviator trying make his way

1:11:05.028,1:11:08.697
through the Nazi's and to get back to the [br]lines and you're really rooting for him

1:11:08.697,1:11:12.281
and you're identifying with him [br]and you think he's great,

1:11:12.281,1:11:17.450
and then you get to the present day[br]and he's this horrible wretched person,

1:11:17.450,1:11:22.250
based on Conrad's own father,[br]who was mistreating his family.

1:11:22.250,1:11:25.452
I loved that, I loved that depth[br]of character there.

1:11:25.452,1:11:30.371
It was amazing, the fact that Conrad [br]did it so greatly.

1:11:30.371,1:11:34.805
That's some of my views on characters.

1:11:34.805,1:11:41.476
Arya and Sansa, indeed many of my [br]characters, are complicated people.

1:11:41.476,1:11:46.061
I try to show all of the complexities.

1:11:46.061,1:11:50.729
I don't want it to be just one note.

1:11:50.729,1:11:56.864
Arya is certainly more popular than Sansa.

1:11:56.864,1:12:02.399
Sansa has her people who love her too,[br]of course we'll have to see when I

1:12:02.399,1:12:07.867
write the book, the end that I have[br]in mind for both of them.

1:12:07.867,1:12:12.287
EVE:[br]Wow, yes, it takes me back to the point

1:12:12.287,1:12:15.638
that you made earlier about length,[br]and one benefit is we can actually see

1:12:15.638,1:12:20.257
that character transformation,[br]even over the course of a single novel,

1:12:20.257,1:12:24.508
we can see this character begin in[br]one condition and end somewhere else.

1:12:24.508,1:12:29.976
Another question, this is from[br]Lucifer means light bringer,

1:12:29.976,1:12:34.011
which I also assume is not this persons[br]government name.

1:12:34.011,1:12:36.030
[laughter]

1:12:36.030,1:12:39.063
"You've created several notable in world,[br]mythical figures which seem to serve

1:12:39.063,1:12:42.703
as archetypes that other main characters[br]echo at times,

1:12:42.703,1:12:45.201
can you say a few words about your use[br]of myth and internal folk lore and

1:12:45.201,1:12:51.002
the way those things interact with the[br]main story and characters?"

1:12:51.002,1:12:53.454
GEORGE:[br]Ya I've had a lot of fun, it's part of the

1:12:53.454,1:12:55.672
world building process.

1:12:55.672,1:13:02.039
Every world, every culture has its[br]myths, has its legends, has its heroes.

1:13:02.039,1:13:08.193
I suspect everybody in this room,[br]even if you haven't read the books,

1:13:08.193,1:13:13.408
knows who Robin Hood was or [br]a little about him, or King Arthur.

1:13:13.408,1:13:17.612
Or maybe some of the American myths, [br]Paul Bunion.

1:13:17.612,1:13:20.064
EVE:[br]Or Spider-Man or Super Man.

1:13:20.064,1:13:23.697
GEORGE:[br]Right, right.

1:13:23.697,1:13:28.567
We refer to them occasionally,[br]we make references to them.

1:13:28.567,1:13:34.001
It's sometimes amazing to think of the [br]extent to which some of these

1:13:34.001,1:13:39.586
ancient myths and ancient characters[br]permeate our culture.

1:13:39.586,1:13:43.587
We watch football as somebody blows out[br]his Achilles tendon,

1:13:43.587,1:13:46.506
we're referring to a character from Homer.

1:13:46.506,1:13:50.974
If he existed at all he existed 3,000[br]years ago.

1:13:50.974,1:13:55.060
Ya know, and his only vulnerability[br]was his heel.

1:13:55.060,1:13:58.693
And because of that we're talking about[br]an injury to a football player.

1:13:58.693,1:14:00.611
It's amazing.

1:14:00.611,1:14:05.080
So, a mythical world,[br]obviously I can't reference Achilles,

1:14:05.080,1:14:10.948
or Paul Bunion or Spider-Man,[br]but has to have its own heroes,

1:14:10.948,1:14:13.867
and its own legends.

1:14:13.867,1:14:19.002
I try to put them in to give that flavor.

1:14:19.002,1:14:24.205
I had a lot of, I don't know how many of[br]you have read my latest Westeros book,

1:14:24.205,1:14:26.271
'Fire and Blood'.

1:14:26.271,1:14:28.855
[applause]

1:14:28.855,1:14:34.273
'Fire and Blood' was a little different[br]because it's not part of 'A Song of Ice and Fire'

1:14:34.273,1:14:38.008
It's a fake history book,[br]imaginary history.

1:14:38.008,1:14:42.660
About the first 150 years of the [br]Targaryen dynasty.

1:14:42.660,1:14:47.580
It's written in world, it's written by[br]archmaester Gyldyan at the citadel,

1:14:47.580,1:14:52.865
three hundred years after many of the[br]events which he is chronicaling.

1:14:52.865,1:14:58.132
So like a real historian, like someone[br]writing now about the American revolution,

1:14:58.132,1:15:01.384
well he wasn't there for the American [br]revolution he has to go back and look

1:15:01.384,1:15:03.904
at primary sources.

1:15:03.904,1:15:06.721
So did archmaester Gyldayn,[br]and what you find out when you do that

1:15:06.721,1:15:09.805
is that primary sources disagree.

1:15:09.805,1:15:13.723
They have different versions of events,[br]one person said it happened this way

1:15:13.723,1:15:17.059
another person says no that never [br]happened it happened this way.

1:15:17.059,1:15:21.175
Archmaester Gyldayn trying to be a good [br]historian is replicating all

1:15:21.175,1:15:23.393
of the different versions.

1:15:23.393,1:15:26.018
That was a lot of fun for me because[br]I could play with

1:15:26.018,1:15:28.245
the whole concept of history.

1:15:28.245,1:15:31.579
History being told by the winners,[br]history being cleaned up and

1:15:31.579,1:15:35.048
made politically correct, [br]or religiously correct,

1:15:35.048,1:15:38.415
and I could present different versions[br]of the various stories.

1:15:38.415,1:15:43.502
I enjoyed that and I think some[br]of my readers enjoyed that too.

1:15:43.502,1:15:48.253
Particularly the version of history told[br]by Mushroom the court fool.

1:15:48.253,1:15:54.106
Who always told everything in the most[br]sexual lascivious and shocking

1:15:54.106,1:15:56.855
way possible.

1:15:56.855,1:15:58.923
Usually with himself as the hero.

1:15:58.923,1:16:01.307
EVE:[br]And you have a history degree,

1:16:01.307,1:16:02.991
so that's helpful.

1:16:02.991,1:16:04.658
GEORGE:[br]Well not a history degree,

1:16:04.658,1:16:06.559
but a history minor.

1:16:06.559,1:16:08.243
I love history, I read a lot of it.

1:16:08.243,1:16:11.561
I'm not a historian by any means,[br]I'm just a history nerd.

1:16:11.561,1:16:15.246
EVE:[br]So I'm going to give our final question

1:16:15.246,1:16:19.247
to someone named Adam Prestigicomo,[br]who wants to know,

1:16:19.247,1:16:23.531
oh what up you're here,[br]did I say your last name kind of right?

1:16:23.531,1:16:26.716
Oh great, nailed it.

1:16:26.716,1:16:31.036
Our good friend Adam wants to know,[br]"what is something that makes you happy?"

1:16:31.036,1:16:32.936
[applause]

1:16:32.936,1:16:34.720
[laughter]

1:16:34.720,1:16:41.074
GEORGE:[br]There are a lot of things

1:16:41.074,1:16:44.277
that make me happy.

1:16:44.277,1:16:51.309
I love books, reading a good book [br]makes me happy.

1:16:51.552,1:16:55.717
I've been reading since I was a small kid[br]I still read veraciously.

1:16:55.717,1:16:59.659
I read a chapter or two from a book[br]almost every night.

1:16:59.659,1:17:03.094
Every once and a while I pick up[br]a book where I read that chapter or two

1:17:03.094,1:17:05.812
and then I have to read another chapter[br]and another chapter and another chapter.

1:17:05.812,1:17:08.725
I wind up staying up all night,[br]I love it when that happens.

1:17:08.725,1:17:11.892
I love good movies, I love good television.

1:17:11.892,1:17:15.778
The kinds that get their hooks into me[br]and I have to binge all on Netflix.

1:17:15.778,1:17:19.778
I actually kind of hate the concept of[br]binging but I find myself doing it anyway.

1:17:19.778,1:17:21.480
[laughter]

1:17:21.480,1:17:24.398
As my waste line will testify [br]I love good food.

1:17:24.398,1:17:29.400
Especially Greek food in Chicago, Opa Opa!

1:17:29.400,1:17:34.534
Great barbecue when I'm in Texas.

1:17:34.534,1:17:38.719
In New Mexico where I live,[br]I moved to New Mexico in 1979 and I can

1:17:38.719,1:17:42.370
never leave because I became[br]addicted to green chille.

1:17:42.370,1:17:45.854
Which you can really on get in New Mexico.

1:17:45.854,1:17:49.423
Someone there knows the truth of what [br]I speak.

1:17:49.423,1:17:53.285
You'll probably all boo me for this but [br]of course pizza in New York.

1:17:53.285,1:17:58.894
EVE:[br]It is what it is.

1:17:58.894,1:18:04.063
GEORGE:[br]So I love all that.

1:18:04.063,1:18:10.899
And I love writing my own stories,[br]particularly I love finishing them.

1:18:10.899,1:18:15.567
[laughter]

1:18:15.567,1:18:18.452
I actually don't love, I mean people say[br]do I enjoy writing,

1:18:18.452,1:18:20.952
EVE:[br]No one likes writing.

1:18:20.952,1:18:22.920
GEORGE:[br]Writing is hard.

1:18:22.920,1:18:24.204
EVE:[br]Writing sucks.

1:18:24.204,1:18:25.270
[laughter]

1:18:25.270,1:18:27.037
GEORGE:[br]I'm constantly questioning myself every

1:18:27.037,1:18:29.254
sentence I put down I wonder whether[br]its good enough.

1:18:29.254,1:18:33.507
I reread what I wrote yesterday[br]and I hate it.

1:18:33.507,1:18:38.243
But when I actually finish a book, [br]the rush that comes through me,

1:18:38.243,1:18:41.177
it was easier to write short stories[br]cause then I would get that rush

1:18:41.177,1:18:47.596
every few weeks but now I get that rush[br]every eight years or something like that.

1:18:47.596,1:18:49.680
[laughter]

1:18:49.680,1:18:55.233
It's a great rush, and I'm hoping to[br]have it again in the relatively near future.

1:18:55.233,1:18:59.701
When I finish 'Winds of Winter',[br]I do know that the day after

1:18:59.701,1:19:04.835
'Winds of Winter' comes out I'll get[br]the first text saying,

1:19:04.835,1:19:08.469
when is 'Dream of Spring' coming out?

1:19:08.469,1:19:10.470
[laughter]

1:19:10.470,1:19:14.171
So, ya know, these pleasures are temporary.

1:19:14.171,1:19:17.958
There's a lot of things I love,[br]I love the people in my life.

1:19:17.958,1:19:19.842
I've been very fortunate.

1:19:19.842,1:19:24.142
I have my wonderful wife Paris [br]who unfortunately couldn't be with me

1:19:24.142,1:19:25.510
on this trip.

1:19:25.510,1:19:29.562
I have an amazing staff of minions[br]who serve me.

1:19:29.562,1:19:32.730
One of them, Sid is here with me tonight.

1:19:32.730,1:19:36.197
Four or five others are at home,[br]they try to keep my working,

1:19:36.197,1:19:39.067
and try to keep the distractions at bay.

1:19:39.067,1:19:42.567
I love my publishers David Munch,[br]who didn't want me to come here.

1:19:42.567,1:19:44.452
[laughter]

1:19:44.452,1:19:47.620
And my editor Anne Groll,[br]and my wonderful publishers.

1:19:47.620,1:19:52.387
There's a lot of things that make me happy,[br]thank you.

1:19:52.387,1:19:55.421
[applause]

1:19:55.421,1:20:02.691
EVE:[br]Well, George R. R. Martin,

1:20:02.691,1:20:10.811
it has made me very happy to have[br]the chance to speak with you

1:20:10.811,1:20:14.980
and I think I speak for a lot of people in[br]the audience who share that sentiment.

1:20:14.980,1:20:18.315
Please give one more round of applause[br]to George R. R. Martin.

1:20:18.315,1:20:29.800
[applause]