WEBVTT 00:00:00.442 --> 00:00:07.294 [applause] 00:00:07.294 --> 00:00:09.294 EVE EWING: For those of you who don't know 00:00:09.294 --> 00:00:11.012 my name is Eve Louise Ewing. 00:00:11.012 --> 00:00:13.845 I'm the person on the stage who is not George R. R. Martin. 00:00:13.845 --> 00:00:15.415 [applause] 00:00:15.415 --> 00:00:19.015 George R. R. Martin: The winner of the 21st century award. 00:00:19.015 --> 00:00:20.465 EVE: Yes, very recent winner of the 21st 00:00:20.465 --> 00:00:22.150 century award. Thank you. 00:00:22.150 --> 00:00:26.569 [applause] 00:00:26.569 --> 00:00:28.870 GEORGE: I think I could be a contender for 00:00:28.870 --> 00:00:30.286 the 13th century award. 00:00:30.286 --> 00:00:31.353 [laughs] 00:00:31.353 --> 00:00:33.762 EVE: Well this stage, this is a very beautiful 00:00:33.762 --> 00:00:37.273 setup, that also gives me a strangely ominous feeling that something terrible 00:00:37.273 --> 00:00:39.274 is about to happen. 00:00:39.274 --> 00:00:40.478 [laughs] 00:00:40.478 --> 00:00:42.375 Hopefully that's not the case. 00:00:42.375 --> 00:00:45.358 It is such a tremendous honor to sit down with you, I"m really grateful 00:00:45.358 --> 00:00:46.810 that you're here. 00:00:46.810 --> 00:00:50.852 I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions, for about an hour. 00:00:50.852 --> 00:00:53.077 They'll mostly be about writing, generally. 00:00:53.077 --> 00:00:54.459 GEORGE: Very good. 00:00:54.459 --> 00:00:56.464 EVE: Then I'll ask you some fan 00:00:56.464 --> 00:00:57.763 submitted questions. 00:00:57.763 --> 00:01:01.098 We won't have an open audience Q&A this evening but many people were 00:01:01.098 --> 00:01:04.417 gracious enough to submit their questions through the Chicago Humanities Festival. 00:01:04.417 --> 00:01:08.135 GEROGE: Sounds good to me. 00:01:08.135 --> 00:01:10.819 EVE: Okay great let's get into it. 00:01:10.819 --> 00:01:14.387 'A Song of Ice and Fire' has emerged as the work for which you are 00:01:14.387 --> 00:01:18.560 most widely known, and you've made an indelible mark on popular culture 00:01:18.560 --> 00:01:20.759 but you have had a capacious career. 00:01:20.759 --> 00:01:23.635 Beginning as a professional writer in 1970, 00:01:23.635 --> 00:01:26.096 and since then you've produced a wildly diverse body of work, 00:01:26.096 --> 00:01:28.775 I could take all night listing your 00:01:28.775 --> 00:01:30.175 projects, 00:01:30.175 --> 00:01:33.814 but I'm going to throw a few out there for folks that are not familiar. 00:01:33.814 --> 00:01:37.210 You're early novels 'Dying of the Light', 'Fever Dream', you wrote for a 00:01:37.210 --> 00:01:39.496 1980's reboot of 'The Twilight Zone', 00:01:39.496 --> 00:01:41.697 wrote for the TV adaptation of 'Beauty and the Beast' . 00:01:41.697 --> 00:01:45.069 The landmark, somewhat bizarre, surrealist show 'Max Headroom', 00:01:45.069 --> 00:01:50.917 short story collections like 'Sand Kings', 'Portraits of His Children', I could go 00:01:50.917 --> 00:01:52.386 on and on. 00:01:52.386 --> 00:01:56.188 Does it ever bother you that so many people want to talk to you primarily 00:01:56.188 --> 00:01:59.125 about 'A Song of Ice and Fire'? 00:01:59.125 --> 00:02:03.272 GEORGE: It's a little surreal sometimes, 00:02:03.272 --> 00:02:08.340 I understand of course that 'A Song of Ice and Fire' 00:02:08.340 --> 00:02:11.779 and 'Game of Thrones' are vastly more popular than anything else 00:02:11.779 --> 00:02:13.793 I've ever done. 00:02:13.793 --> 00:02:19.294 But it does startle me sometimes that some people think it's the only thing 00:02:19.294 --> 00:02:20.648 I've ever done. 00:02:20.648 --> 00:02:28.415 I sometimes even read in articles online, how I began in 1996 with 'Game of Thrones'. 00:02:28.415 --> 00:02:32.368 As I said, my first story appeared in 1971. 00:02:32.368 --> 00:02:38.355 So I had 25 years of publishing 50 short stories, and novels, 00:02:38.355 --> 00:02:41.570 and short story collections, editing anthologies, 00:02:41.570 --> 00:02:45.487 winning various Hugo and Nebula awards, 00:02:45.487 --> 00:02:48.356 and losing a lot more Hugo and Nebula awards. 00:02:48.356 --> 00:02:49.821 [laughter] 00:02:49.821 --> 00:02:53.709 There was a lot there, and it's not like it's secret or anything or it was written 00:02:53.709 --> 00:02:58.077 under a pseudonym, it's all perfectly accessible if you google my name. 00:02:58.077 --> 00:02:59.876 [laughter] 00:02:59.876 --> 00:03:03.143 None the less, an amazing number of people seem ignorant to it. 00:03:03.143 --> 00:03:07.330 I should mention, on the things you listed there, that I did do two projects for 00:03:07.330 --> 00:03:12.781 'Max Headroom' but neither one was ever filmed, sadly. 00:03:12.781 --> 00:03:17.667 I wrote the 'Max Headroom' Christmas show, which was actually in pre-production 00:03:17.667 --> 00:03:19.385 when the show was cancelled. 00:03:19.385 --> 00:03:23.155 We were not able to film that, which broke my heart, 00:03:23.155 --> 00:03:25.804 because it was a really fun episode. 00:03:25.804 --> 00:03:29.320 We recently did a 'Max Headroom' reunion at my little theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 00:03:29.320 --> 00:03:33.105 We did a staged reading of it, Matt Frewer actually came in for it. 00:03:33.105 --> 00:03:34.941 He performed with some local actors. 00:03:34.941 --> 00:03:40.410 It was great to finally see that after like 30 years, it being acted out. 00:03:40.410 --> 00:03:42.676 Even if only, by voices. 00:03:42.676 --> 00:03:44.296 EVE: Did you film it? 00:03:44.296 --> 00:03:47.009 GEORGE: Did we? I don't know. 00:03:47.009 --> 00:03:48.944 We might have taped it. 00:03:48.944 --> 00:03:50.829 EVE: No one here seems to know either. 00:03:50.829 --> 00:03:51.779 [laughter] 00:03:51.779 --> 00:03:53.580 GEORGE: We might have taped it, ya. 00:03:53.580 --> 00:03:58.949 Max was an amazing show, advanced for its time. 00:03:58.949 --> 00:04:00.234 EVE: Oh, absolutely. 00:04:00.234 --> 00:04:01.934 GEORGE: The young people here probably 00:04:01.934 --> 00:04:04.352 don't even know what 'Max Headroom' was. 00:04:04.352 --> 00:04:06.685 EVE: Only old people like me know. 00:04:06.685 --> 00:04:09.237 GEORGE: It was based on a TV movie that had 00:04:09.237 --> 00:04:11.320 been done in England. 00:04:11.320 --> 00:04:15.545 It takes place 23 minutes into the future, something like that. 00:04:15.545 --> 00:04:23.224 It was a show about television, and artificial computer host Max Headroom 00:04:23.224 --> 00:04:25.410 who was the host of his own show. 00:04:25.410 --> 00:04:28.596 He was actually a personality that lived in a computer. 00:04:28.596 --> 00:04:32.310 Of course we didn't actually have any computers capable of doing that, 00:04:32.310 --> 00:04:38.414 in the early 90's when the show was on so Max Headroom was acted by 00:04:38.414 --> 00:04:41.649 Matt Frewer in extensive make up. 00:04:41.649 --> 00:04:45.052 A lot of people thought that he was a real computer host. 00:04:45.052 --> 00:04:49.251 It would be great to revive it, but the shows are still a lot of fun. 00:04:49.251 --> 00:04:52.389 EVE: It's a classic, I think it's a little bit 00:04:52.389 --> 00:04:56.053 in the uncanny valley of creepiness, the kind of make up look that is 00:04:56.053 --> 00:04:59.638 supposed to look like a computer. 00:04:59.638 --> 00:05:01.307 GEORGE: Yes, yes definitely. 00:05:01.307 --> 00:05:04.591 EVE: I'm sure that the success of 00:05:04.591 --> 00:05:07.626 'A Song of Ice and Fire' has probably contributed, for some people who know 00:05:07.626 --> 00:05:10.600 how to use the google machine, to access your back list. 00:05:10.600 --> 00:05:14.631 Are there particular earlier works of yours that you really want to 00:05:14.631 --> 00:05:17.128 shout out, that you wish people would read more? 00:05:17.128 --> 00:05:22.664 GEORGE: Like anybody else I have favorite stories 00:05:22.664 --> 00:05:25.048 and less favorite stories. 00:05:25.048 --> 00:05:29.267 When I broke in I wrote mostly short stories. 00:05:29.267 --> 00:05:34.035 I published my first story in 1971, in Galaxy magazine, "The Hero". 00:05:34.035 --> 00:05:40.289 Over the next few years I published thirty, forty, fifty short stories, 00:05:40.289 --> 00:05:42.889 in the science fiction magazines of the day. 00:05:42.889 --> 00:05:50.662 I didn't attempt my first novel until 1976, I wrote it and it 00:05:50.662 --> 00:05:52.659 came out in 1977. 00:05:52.659 --> 00:05:55.225 So I had six years of just publishing short stories. 00:05:55.225 --> 00:05:58.777 Probably my best known work before 'A Song of Ice and Fire' was 00:05:58.777 --> 00:06:01.061 a short story called 'Sand Kings'. 00:06:01.061 --> 00:06:04.513 It appeared in Omni, it won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards. 00:06:04.513 --> 00:06:09.216 That one is soon to be a major motion picture I hope, 00:06:09.216 --> 00:06:11.317 or possibly a minor motion picture. 00:06:11.317 --> 00:06:15.101 I don't know, but it will be a motion picture we think, anyways, 00:06:15.101 --> 00:06:16.768 so that's cool. 00:06:16.768 --> 00:06:21.121 We have 'Fever Dream', my historical horror novels 00:06:21.121 --> 00:06:24.372 set on the Mississippi river in 1857. 00:06:24.372 --> 00:06:26.406 EVE: And there are vampires. 00:06:26.406 --> 00:06:28.723 GEORGE: Ya, vampires and steam boats. 00:06:28.723 --> 00:06:33.612 That was a novel that I was particularly fond of. 00:06:33.612 --> 00:06:37.593 And my 'Wild Card' series, which is actually the series I've been working on 00:06:37.593 --> 00:06:39.876 longer than anything else. 00:06:39.876 --> 00:06:42.448 I'm mostly the editor on that, though I write for it too. 00:06:42.448 --> 00:06:46.765 It's a super hero world, not really super heroes. 00:06:46.765 --> 00:06:50.965 People with super powers, they don't necessarily become heroes. 00:06:50.965 --> 00:06:54.883 It's unconventional in that it's a realistic look at an alternate 00:06:54.883 --> 00:06:59.302 world in which an alien virus gives some people super powers. 00:06:59.302 --> 00:07:04.991 When pitching 'Wild Cards' I have to say why it is not a conventional 00:07:04.991 --> 00:07:07.639 super hero template. 00:07:07.639 --> 00:07:14.791 I say what would happen in a real world if all of you who are here tonight, 00:07:14.791 --> 00:07:17.559 suddenly had a super power? 00:07:17.559 --> 00:07:21.011 Some of you could run really fast, some of you could throw lighting bolts, 00:07:21.011 --> 00:07:25.630 some of you were really strong, some of you could walk through walls. 00:07:25.630 --> 00:07:28.879 Entirely arbitrarily, 'Wild Cards'. 00:07:28.879 --> 00:07:32.230 How would it change your life, how would it change the world, 00:07:32.230 --> 00:07:33.865 what would you do? 00:07:33.865 --> 00:07:35.399 I ask people that. 00:07:35.399 --> 00:07:39.867 You know, all the years I've been asking people that no one has ever answered, 00:07:39.867 --> 00:07:43.219 I would buy a spandex costume and fight crime. 00:07:43.219 --> 00:07:46.354 [laughter] 00:07:46.354 --> 00:07:50.310 Which means that there is something wrong with the conventional comic book 00:07:50.310 --> 00:07:54.275 trouple. 00:07:54.275 --> 00:07:57.756 'Wild Cards' is an examination of that, but it's also a lot of fun. 00:07:57.756 --> 00:07:59.375 EVE: Speaking of comics, 00:07:59.375 --> 00:08:02.025 you've said that as you became a reader in your early life, 00:08:02.025 --> 00:08:04.877 comics were a really important escape for you, from the stiffling 00:08:04.877 --> 00:08:08.448 1950's literary world of Dick and Jane, who are very boring people. 00:08:08.448 --> 00:08:13.066 You've said that Stan Lee was one of your greatest literary influences. 00:08:13.066 --> 00:08:15.047 As a Marvel Comics writer I'm contractually obligated to ask 00:08:15.047 --> 00:08:18.464 you about that. 00:08:18.464 --> 00:08:21.283 Are there lessons from comics as a medium that you take into 00:08:21.283 --> 00:08:23.183 your other writing? 00:08:23.183 --> 00:08:27.669 GEORGE: Yes, I think. 00:08:27.669 --> 00:08:32.454 It would be very nice to say that my great literary influences were 00:08:32.454 --> 00:08:39.273 F. Scott Fitzgerald and Charles Dickens and other respected literary figures, 00:08:39.273 --> 00:08:41.207 and Tolkien of course. 00:08:41.207 --> 00:08:44.597 I admire those three writers all enormously, but, 00:08:44.597 --> 00:08:48.877 Stan Lee was probably more influential than any of them. 00:08:48.877 --> 00:08:51.929 The first published words of mine ever to appear were my letter 00:08:51.929 --> 00:08:54.479 in Fantastic Four #20. 00:08:54.479 --> 00:08:58.613 Which was critiquing, if you could call it a critique, Fantastic Four #17. 00:08:58.613 --> 00:09:02.668 My critique consisted of saying, move over Shakespeare, 00:09:02.668 --> 00:09:05.000 Stan Lee has arrived. 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:06.935 [laughter[ 00:09:06.935 --> 00:09:10.001 You've gotta wonder why Stan chose to publish that letter. 00:09:10.001 --> 00:09:16.955 I'd read comic books since I was a little kid, 00:09:16.955 --> 00:09:20.472 the funny animal comics, Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, 00:09:20.472 --> 00:09:23.441 Archie, all of that stuff. 00:09:23.441 --> 00:09:27.259 Super heroes, especially the DC super heroes, 00:09:27.259 --> 00:09:31.712 Super Man, Bat Man, The Flash, all of that. 00:09:31.712 --> 00:09:35.943 I had read all of those. 00:09:35.943 --> 00:09:40.147 The minute Marvel came on the scene, I think my interest in comics had 00:09:40.147 --> 00:09:45.248 actually been waning, the DC comics of the time were stiffling, 00:09:45.248 --> 00:09:52.485 they were perfectly circular. 00:09:52.485 --> 00:09:55.736 Super Man, he was Clark Kent he worked for the Daily Planet. 00:09:55.736 --> 00:09:59.370 Perry White was the editor, Jimmy Olson was his best friend. 00:09:59.370 --> 00:10:03.055 Lois Lane was his girlfriend. 00:10:03.055 --> 00:10:05.763 Something would happen, aliens would invade or there would be 00:10:05.763 --> 00:10:08.825 a villain or something, and Super Man would have an adventure. 00:10:08.825 --> 00:10:11.775 It would go circular, it would end right where it began. 00:10:11.775 --> 00:10:15.160 Everything would be back in place, nothing really ever happened in 00:10:15.160 --> 00:10:16.776 a Super Man comic. 00:10:16.776 --> 00:10:19.375 Which I realized after reading about 100 or so of them. 00:10:19.375 --> 00:10:23.462 You could read them in any order, they had their template and 00:10:23.462 --> 00:10:25.613 nothing was ever gonna happen. 00:10:25.613 --> 00:10:30.033 Jimmy Olson might become a giant turtle man in the course of the adventure 00:10:30.033 --> 00:10:33.924 but by the end of the adventure he would be back to being Jimmy Olson. 00:10:33.924 --> 00:10:36.468 There was no permanent changes. 00:10:36.468 --> 00:10:41.190 Then Stan Lee came along with Marvel, and the characters were fighting in the 00:10:41.190 --> 00:10:44.825 Fantastic Four, the Thing didn't like being the Thing. 00:10:44.825 --> 00:10:47.890 He was constantly fighting with Johnny Storm. 00:10:47.890 --> 00:10:51.724 They didn't have secret identities, their identities were out there. 00:10:51.724 --> 00:10:53.790 Then Spider-Man came along. 00:10:53.790 --> 00:10:59.841 Spider-Man, he didn't have his Lois Lane, he had a series of girlfriends. 00:10:59.841 --> 00:11:03.977 Liz Allen at first, who he had the hots for but she preferred to 00:11:03.977 --> 00:11:05.531 bully Flash Thompson. 00:11:05.531 --> 00:11:07.530 He couldn't get anywhere with her. 00:11:07.530 --> 00:11:10.047 Then he took up with an older woman, Betty Brandt, who was 00:11:10.047 --> 00:11:11.999 J. Jonah's secretary. 00:11:11.999 --> 00:11:14.082 He had that relationship for a while. 00:11:14.082 --> 00:11:15.732 Then he took up with Gwen Stacy. 00:11:15.732 --> 00:11:17.371 EVE: That didn't work out. 00:11:17.371 --> 00:11:18.873 [laughter] 00:11:18.873 --> 00:11:20.286 GEORGE: She died, ya. 00:11:20.286 --> 00:11:22.753 That was traumatic, be she actually died! 00:11:22.753 --> 00:11:28.088 DC never killed Lois Lane, or even Jimmy Olson. 00:11:28.088 --> 00:11:30.623 Although you might have wanted to. 00:11:30.623 --> 00:11:33.140 Nothing ever happened in the DC comics. 00:11:33.140 --> 00:11:35.024 A lot was happening in Marvel. 00:11:35.024 --> 00:11:39.040 You didn't know who was safe, you didn't know what would actually happen. 00:11:39.040 --> 00:11:41.226 Time actually passed. 00:11:41.226 --> 00:11:44.927 Believe it or not, looking at the old dotard you see in hat 00:11:44.927 --> 00:11:47.778 before you, I went to high school with Peter Parker. 00:11:47.778 --> 00:11:51.494 We were both in high school when I started reading Spider-Man comics. 00:11:51.494 --> 00:11:54.982 Just about the same time we both graduated high school and 00:11:54.982 --> 00:11:56.582 went to college. 00:11:56.582 --> 00:12:00.667 I went to North Western, I'm in a different city, I'm making new friends, 00:12:00.667 --> 00:12:04.702 I've got a room mate that I didn't know before, taking new classes. 00:12:04.702 --> 00:12:06.920 It's adjusting to a new whole new world. 00:12:06.920 --> 00:12:09.238 Peter Parker went through the same stuff. 00:12:09.238 --> 00:12:11.838 He went to college, he didn't go as far away from home, 00:12:11.838 --> 00:12:14.306 but he did have to move out of the house with Aunt May. 00:12:14.306 --> 00:12:17.441 Things happened and that was amazing. 00:12:17.441 --> 00:12:22.259 Another one of my comic books letters, I published a number of letters 00:12:22.259 --> 00:12:24.810 was a letter to the Avengers. 00:12:24.810 --> 00:12:31.396 Which again, was published, it was about Avengers #9, 00:12:31.396 --> 00:12:33.980 which is when they introduced Wonder Man. 00:12:33.980 --> 00:12:36.781 I'm not sure any of you remember that issue, you were probably 00:12:36.781 --> 00:12:38.413 a little too young. 00:12:38.413 --> 00:12:40.833 You probably don't even remember Wonder Man. 00:12:40.833 --> 00:12:44.504 Wonder Man came in and he joined the Avengers, he was a brand new hero, 00:12:44.504 --> 00:12:50.920 he really wasn't a hero, he was a spy who was set to join the Avengers 00:12:50.920 --> 00:12:53.454 to destroy them from within. 00:12:53.454 --> 00:12:57.371 He was only playing a hero, he was actually gonna destroy 00:12:57.371 --> 00:12:58.905 them from within. 00:12:58.905 --> 00:13:02.716 Then he became friendly with them and he couldn't bring himself 00:13:02.716 --> 00:13:04.527 to destroy them from within. 00:13:04.527 --> 00:13:08.142 He betrayed his masters and they killed him, 00:13:08.142 --> 00:13:11.444 So he died in the same issue he was introduced in. 00:13:11.444 --> 00:13:18.997 I loved this of course, so I wrote a long letter about how great this was. 00:13:18.997 --> 00:13:23.382 I look back now and my whole career was based on Avengers #9. 00:13:23.382 --> 00:13:26.134 [laughter] 00:13:26.134 --> 00:13:29.650 Introducing these grey characters who have divided loyalties who are 00:13:29.650 --> 00:13:31.786 not what they seem. 00:13:31.786 --> 00:13:34.705 EVE: And were a little traumatized. 00:13:34.705 --> 00:13:37.554 GEORGE: and then killing them unexpectedly. 00:13:37.554 --> 00:13:40.642 Now of course it was comics so they brought Wonder Man back eventually. 00:13:40.642 --> 00:13:45.978 That's the big flaw with comics, and I try never to bring anyone back. 00:13:45.978 --> 00:13:48.009 Or if I do, they're really screwed up. 00:13:48.009 --> 00:13:52.144 EVE: What I'm really hearing you 00:13:52.144 --> 00:13:54.947 talk about here is the idea of stakes. 00:13:54.947 --> 00:13:58.862 Your readers have to believe that the stakes are really high, 00:13:58.862 --> 00:14:01.396 that somebody really might get murdered. 00:14:01.396 --> 00:14:05.259 I read this interview with you where you talk about reading Lord of the Rings, 00:14:05.259 --> 00:14:08.257 and of course people frequently compare you to Tolkien, 00:14:08.257 --> 00:14:09.928 and feeling betrayed, 00:14:09.941 --> 00:14:11.962 OK if you haven't read Lord of the Rings you've had many decades so this is your 00:14:11.962 --> 00:14:14.031 spoiler alert, OK. 00:14:14.031 --> 00:14:17.949 That after they throw the ring in to the fires of Mordor and it's destroyed 00:14:17.949 --> 00:14:21.431 that they come back to the shire and the shire is getting sacked, 00:14:21.431 --> 00:14:23.632 the scouring of the shire, 00:14:23.632 --> 00:14:27.051 and you talk about feeling betrayed, that the story didn't have a happy ending. 00:14:27.051 --> 00:14:32.219 Now you've gone on where basically all your writing, you've become famous for 00:14:32.219 --> 00:14:35.205 writing iterations of the scouring of the shire. 00:14:35.205 --> 00:14:38.956 It seems like part of what you're taking on is keeping the stakes high. 00:14:38.956 --> 00:14:42.974 GEORGE: Yes, I do believe that. 00:14:42.974 --> 00:14:48.226 I read Lord of the Rings when it was first published in the United States. 00:14:48.226 --> 00:14:51.177 Actually, the illegal pirated edition. 00:14:51.177 --> 00:14:59.445 They were amazing books, I couldn't get enough of them. 00:14:59.445 --> 00:15:03.548 I was only like 13 years old, or something like that. 00:15:03.548 --> 00:15:10.652 When the ring went into the volcano, I said, well this is the end of the story, 00:15:10.652 --> 00:15:13.251 why is there so much more? 00:15:13.251 --> 00:15:16.918 Then I hit the scouring of the shire and I realized it wasn't the unequivocal 00:15:16.918 --> 00:15:21.303 happy ending, yay, the heroes have won, that I thought it would be. 00:15:21.303 --> 00:15:24.605 I really didn't understand it as a 13 year old. 00:15:24.605 --> 00:15:27.771 Of course, I reread Lord of the Rings every few years. 00:15:27.771 --> 00:15:31.759 I've come to not only understand it but I have a deep appreciation of it. 00:15:31.759 --> 00:15:34.544 Peter Jackson's movies are brilliant I think. 00:15:34.544 --> 00:15:40.645 They're as good an adaptation of Lord of the Rings that you could possibly get. 00:15:40.645 --> 00:15:45.796 But I do miss the scouring of the shire, which he doesn't include. 00:15:45.796 --> 00:15:52.383 It's an important part of the book, it says something important. 00:15:52.383 --> 00:15:55.349 I took that to heart. 00:15:55.349 --> 00:15:58.934 The other thing about reading Tolkien, of course is, like Wonder Man, 00:15:58.934 --> 00:16:00.888 it had a similar effect, 00:16:00.888 --> 00:16:04.838 In Fellowship when Gandalf dies, what the hell? 00:16:04.838 --> 00:16:09.108 Gandalf died? you can't kill Gandalf. 00:16:09.108 --> 00:16:13.607 He's the head guy, he knows everything that's going on. 00:16:13.607 --> 00:16:18.343 The other characters seemed like kids compared to Gandalf. 00:16:18.343 --> 00:16:23.413 The four hobbits and the squire guys, and I don't trust Boromir. 00:16:23.413 --> 00:16:29.048 Now Tolkien later brought him back. 00:16:29.048 --> 00:16:32.298 EVE: He brought him back as like Gandalf 2.0. 00:16:32.298 --> 00:16:35.096 GEORGE: I know, I didn't like Gandalf the White, 00:16:35.096 --> 00:16:38.216 I prefer Gandalf the Grey, I've always preferred grey characters to 00:16:38.216 --> 00:16:40.501 white characters. 00:16:40.501 --> 00:16:43.953 If Professor Tolkien was here we could argue about whether Gandalf 00:16:43.953 --> 00:16:45.804 should have come back or not. 00:16:45.804 --> 00:16:50.524 It had an enormous effect on me, killing Gandalf. 00:16:50.524 --> 00:16:54.938 Killing Gandalf also sets up, in the second book when he kills Frodo. 00:16:54.938 --> 00:16:58.109 Oh my god, he killed Frodo, Frodo was supposed to be the hero 00:16:58.109 --> 00:17:00.810 he was the ring bearer, now Sam is the ring bearer? 00:17:00.810 --> 00:17:02.577 How is this gonna work out? 00:17:02.577 --> 00:17:07.412 All of these things had an enormous effect on a young me and, 00:17:07.412 --> 00:17:09.280 they did raise the stakes. 00:17:09.280 --> 00:17:11.745 The minute you kill Gandalf, anybody can die. 00:17:11.745 --> 00:17:14.629 Then you're looking at the members of the fellowship and saying, 00:17:14.629 --> 00:17:17.164 who are you going to kill next? 00:17:17.164 --> 00:17:19.867 We got several extra hobbits, they could go. 00:17:19.867 --> 00:17:21.524 [laughter] 00:17:21.524 --> 00:17:23.468 EVE: Mary and Pippen, they get a little 00:17:23.468 --> 00:17:25.702 indistinguishable after a while. 00:17:25.702 --> 00:17:27.822 GEORGE: He didn't kill them, 00:17:27.822 --> 00:17:29.952 but I was afraid he would, so, that's the whole point 00:17:29.952 --> 00:17:33.406 To have the reader on the each of their seat. 00:17:33.406 --> 00:17:37.189 To not know what's going to happen. 00:17:37.189 --> 00:17:43.776 That's something I try to do in my books. 00:17:43.776 --> 00:17:47.978 Especially in the scary parts, or the battles, 00:17:47.978 --> 00:17:53.795 If you're really going into a battle, you would be afraid before hand. 00:17:53.795 --> 00:17:59.263 You would have this deep visceral fear, are you going to survive the battle? 00:17:59.263 --> 00:18:03.682 Nobody knows. 00:18:03.682 --> 00:18:06.968 I want that experience for the reader, I want the reader to not just 00:18:06.968 --> 00:18:09.437 read the book but to live the book. 00:18:09.437 --> 00:18:14.172 To almost be afraid to turn the next page, 00:18:14.172 --> 00:18:17.490 when suddenly the hero is surrounded by six big guys with axes. 00:18:17.490 --> 00:18:20.974 You shouldn't fee, oh, it's Conan, he's gonna get out of it. 00:18:20.974 --> 00:18:22.958 Six guys with axes, nothing. 00:18:22.958 --> 00:18:26.459 You should be terrified that these six guys with axes are going to 00:18:26.459 --> 00:18:28.043 hack you apart. 00:18:28.043 --> 00:18:31.244 I guarantee you if you leave this wonderful place tonight and are 00:18:31.244 --> 00:18:34.829 confronted with six guys with axes you'll be scared. 00:18:34.829 --> 00:18:39.840 We'll read about you in the Tribune tomorrow. 00:18:39.840 --> 00:18:42.299 How your hacked up body was found. 00:18:42.299 --> 00:18:44.349 [laughter] 00:18:44.349 --> 00:18:45.732 EVE: Alright, OK. 00:18:45.732 --> 00:18:50.452 So, you mention the Wild Card series which you have been editing for basically 00:18:50.452 --> 00:18:53.852 as long as I have been alive. 00:18:53.852 --> 00:18:57.870 It's a really cool concept, not only for the reasons you mentioned 00:18:57.870 --> 00:19:01.642 about really engaging with whatever the real stakes of super powers are, 00:19:01.642 --> 00:19:04.690 but also because it's a shared universe, and you've collaborated on these 00:19:04.690 --> 00:19:08.525 edited stories written by over 50 authors, working collaboratively. 00:19:08.525 --> 00:19:11.693 You've also edited multiple anthologies. 00:19:11.693 --> 00:19:14.694 My personal opinion which you may agree or disagree with, 00:19:14.694 --> 00:19:19.712 is that a good editor is actually a much rarer thing than a good writer. 00:19:19.712 --> 00:19:23.660 I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your identity as an editor, 00:19:23.660 --> 00:19:26.762 and how it may differ from your identity as a writer. 00:19:26.762 --> 00:19:29.631 GEORGE: I don't know if ts a rarer thing, 00:19:29.631 --> 00:19:35.686 but in the anthologies that I have done, anthologies like Dangerous Women, 00:19:35.686 --> 00:19:40.353 Warriors, Rouges, I had the great pleasure of working with Gardener, 00:19:40.353 --> 00:19:46.522 who unfortunately passed away last year. 00:19:46.522 --> 00:19:51.623 Gardener was one of the greatest editors in the entire history of science fiction. 00:19:51.623 --> 00:19:56.560 He won the Hugo award for best editor sixteen times. 00:19:56.560 --> 00:19:59.059 Which is pretty amazing. 00:19:59.059 --> 00:20:02.595 Working with him was on those books was increidble. 00:20:02.595 --> 00:20:06.579 I have edited other things, Wild Cards is a unique challenge because it is 00:20:06.579 --> 00:20:09.097 a shared world. 00:20:09.097 --> 00:20:13.733 When you're editing an ordinary anthology, not that any anthology is ordinary, 00:20:13.733 --> 00:20:18.401 when you're editing a more conventional anthology you're just buying good stories 00:20:18.401 --> 00:20:22.903 and they may have a theme, the theme is unicorns, 00:20:22.903 --> 00:20:28.106 so you invite people to send you unicorn stories. 00:20:28.106 --> 00:20:30.824 But all you're looking at is if its a good story, is it a bad story, 00:20:30.824 --> 00:20:34.908 can it be improved, if it has flaws, how do you fix it? 00:20:34.908 --> 00:20:41.027 With a shared world you still have that, but also your stories have to fit together. 00:20:41.027 --> 00:20:43.577 They are all essentially parts of a whole. 00:20:43.577 --> 00:20:46.880 They can't have contradictions, they can't have duplications. 00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:51.547 So a lot more rewriting is required, a lot more working together and 00:20:51.547 --> 00:20:53.397 a lot more editing. 00:20:53.397 --> 00:20:59.409 The Wild Cards are a very challenging series to edit, but I enjoyed doing that. 00:20:59.409 --> 00:21:02.718 I actually sort of got into editing almost by accident. 00:21:02.718 --> 00:21:08.653 My first published book was actually a book I edited not a book I wrote. 00:21:08.653 --> 00:21:15.556 At beginning of my career in 1973, I was nominated for the John W. Campbell 00:21:15.556 --> 00:21:20.009 award for the best new writer in Science Fiction. 00:21:20.009 --> 00:21:24.343 That was a brand new award given for the first time in 1973. 00:21:24.343 --> 00:21:26.510 Campbell had just died in 1971. 00:21:26.510 --> 00:21:29.210 I lost that award, it was the first of many awards that I've lost over the years 00:21:29.210 --> 00:21:31.778 in the field. 00:21:31.778 --> 00:21:35.097 I was nominated, and it is a great honor to be nominated, the nominators 00:21:35.097 --> 00:21:40.148 picked me as one of the six best new writers that entered Science Fiction 00:21:40.148 --> 00:21:42.230 in the last two years. 00:21:42.230 --> 00:21:46.701 At the time there was an anthology called the Hugo Winners, 00:21:46.701 --> 00:21:51.185 and there was an anthology called the Nebula Award's Book, 00:21:51.185 --> 00:21:53.487 but I wasn't nominated for them yet. 00:21:53.487 --> 00:21:57.923 There was no anthology for the Campbell award nominees. 00:21:57.923 --> 00:22:01.375 I thought there should be because it would a guaranteed sale for me. 00:22:01.375 --> 00:22:06.609 After I lost that very same convention, I went to some of the editors and said, 00:22:06.609 --> 00:22:10.995 why don't you have a Campbell award anthology just like you have the 00:22:10.995 --> 00:22:13.078 Hugo and Nebula anthologies? 00:22:13.078 --> 00:22:17.978 I thought somebody famous would do it and I could sell them a story, 00:22:17.978 --> 00:22:20.229 it would be a guaranteed sale for me. 00:22:20.229 --> 00:22:22.848 Instead they said, oh good idea you do it. 00:22:22.848 --> 00:22:26.582 So suddenly I found myself editing a book, I didn't know anything about editing books 00:22:26.582 --> 00:22:33.102 I learned on the fly, and I did six volumes of the series that would be 00:22:33.102 --> 00:22:36.653 called the New Voices, ultimately. 00:22:36.653 --> 00:22:42.874 That was my introduction to editing, entirely by circumstance. 00:22:42.874 --> 00:22:46.373 Watch out if you suggest anything to someone they might say, hey you do it. 00:22:46.373 --> 00:22:54.976 Suddenly you'll find yourself working with some people. 00:22:54.976 --> 00:22:57.895 EVE: Speaking of editing, we live in a world 00:22:57.895 --> 00:23:00.347 that sort of fetishizes brevity, and short things, 00:23:00.347 --> 00:23:03.763 what do you see as the virtue of continuing to write very long works 00:23:03.763 --> 00:23:09.199 in that world, and how do you negotiate that editorially? 00:23:09.199 --> 00:23:16.902 GEORGE: I do not share fetishation of brevity. 00:23:16.902 --> 00:23:20.104 I am in the anti brevity camp. 00:23:20.104 --> 00:23:22.356 [laughter] 00:23:22.356 --> 00:23:27.456 My stories throughout my career have been getting longer and longer, 00:23:27.456 --> 00:23:30.259 like I said when I began in the 70's I wrote mostly short stories. 00:23:30.259 --> 00:23:33.658 At a certain point my short stories were getting longer, they were 00:23:33.658 --> 00:23:35.459 now novelettes. 00:23:35.459 --> 00:23:38.594 When I won my first Hugo it was for a novella. 00:23:38.594 --> 00:23:41.413 So each of these is a longer category, than the other, 00:23:41.413 --> 00:23:46.231 then eventually six seven years into my career I started writing novels. 00:23:46.231 --> 00:23:52.065 They were relatively short novels, at some point for sanity I found myself 00:23:52.065 --> 00:23:56.784 writing Game of Thrones and it just kept getting longer and longer and longer 00:23:56.784 --> 00:24:06.171 I like it I think the length gives it a richness, gives it a texture. 00:24:06.171 --> 00:24:13.457 You can create world building, you can create an immersive world, 00:24:13.457 --> 00:24:16.977 and immersive universe, the readers will lose themselves in. 00:24:16.977 --> 00:24:23.395 For the length of the novel and perhaps for many novels beyond that, many works. 00:24:23.395 --> 00:24:26.579 I like that. 00:24:26.579 --> 00:24:33.566 Yesterday when we attended the award ceremony, they were flashing 00:24:33.566 --> 00:24:40.018 quotations about writing on the walls of the site where the awards were being 00:24:40.018 --> 00:24:43.069 presented. 00:24:43.069 --> 00:24:46.787 One of them was a quote that I wrote for a book called On Fantasy, 00:24:46.787 --> 00:24:51.539 it was about when I die they can keep their heaven I'd rather go to Middle Earth. 00:24:51.539 --> 00:24:55.290 Tolkien was the first really great world builder. 00:24:55.290 --> 00:25:02.060 He created Middle Earth in such detail, that it seems like a real place to me. 00:25:02.060 --> 00:25:06.978 I know Middle Earth much more than I know many real places. 00:25:06.978 --> 00:25:09.363 What do I know about Uruguay? 00:25:09.363 --> 00:25:12.613 I know a lot more about middle earth than I do about Uruguay. 00:25:12.613 --> 00:25:18.566 I can describe it's scenic wonders and the customs of its people. 00:25:18.566 --> 00:25:21.484 The roads that go from there to there. 00:25:21.484 --> 00:25:25.534 The Kings who ruled in past ages. 00:25:25.534 --> 00:25:28.253 EVE: And the languages and the geography 00:25:28.253 --> 00:25:30.589 GEORGE: It's an amazing place, I've tried to do 00:25:30.589 --> 00:25:33.754 the same with Westeros. 00:25:33.754 --> 00:25:37.573 That's one of the things that I think is important about writing Fantasy, 00:25:37.573 --> 00:25:39.325 Epic Fantasy. 00:25:39.325 --> 00:25:42.293 There are many different types of fantasy of course. 00:25:42.293 --> 00:25:48.144 If any of you are aspiring writers, or ever took fiction courses 00:25:48.144 --> 00:25:51.762 or studied fiction in high school or college or something like that 00:25:51.762 --> 00:25:55.280 they used to at least in my day, talk about the elements of fiction. 00:25:55.280 --> 00:25:59.513 Plot, theme, character, etc. etc. 00:25:59.513 --> 00:26:03.733 One of the elements of fiction was setting. 00:26:03.733 --> 00:26:07.901 In most mainstream fiction, contemporary fiction, 00:26:07.901 --> 00:26:10.119 setting gets short shrift. 00:26:10.119 --> 00:26:14.871 OK, it's in Chicago, OK it's in New York City, 00:26:14.871 --> 00:26:19.256 or even, it's in Victorian England, we know all about that, 00:26:19.256 --> 00:26:24.659 but the greatest fantasy to my mind is distinguished by its settings. 00:26:24.659 --> 00:26:28.612 The setting almost becomes a character, Middle Earth becomes a real place, 00:26:28.612 --> 00:26:33.893 it becomes a character, the Shire, Rivendale, Ministereth, 00:26:33.893 --> 00:26:37.611 Mordor, each of these is very vivid and real, and I've tried 00:26:37.611 --> 00:26:41.582 to do the same with my own Westeros. 00:26:41.582 --> 00:26:45.998 Create a setting that was almost a character in it's own right. 00:26:45.998 --> 00:26:48.451 EVE: Did you notice that one of those 00:26:48.451 --> 00:26:52.001 quotations on the wall was said by you, but was attributed to me? 00:26:52.001 --> 00:26:53.836 GEORGE: I did notice that. 00:26:53.836 --> 00:26:55.170 [laughter] 00:26:55.170 --> 00:26:56.687 Hey! 00:26:56.687 --> 00:26:58.971 EVE: I thought that was very strange. 00:26:58.971 --> 00:27:01.171 GEORGE: What a coincidence, Eve said exactly 00:27:01.171 --> 00:27:02.339 the same thing. 00:27:02.339 --> 00:27:04.257 EVE: I did not say that. 00:27:04.257 --> 00:27:06.823 I complained to someone but no change was made, 00:27:06.823 --> 00:27:08.725 so I want you to know that I'm glad you noticed that, I thought 00:27:08.725 --> 00:27:16.744 it was very bizarre. 00:27:16.744 --> 00:27:20.477 GEORGE: There was also a typo in one of 00:27:20.477 --> 00:27:22.029 my other ones. 00:27:22.029 --> 00:27:25.912 There was one where I said that because I'm a reader I have lived a thousand lives, 00:27:25.912 --> 00:27:27.581 loved a thousand loves. 00:27:27.581 --> 00:27:29.731 They changes the loves to lives. 00:27:29.731 --> 00:27:32.449 So it was I've lived a thousand lives and loved a thousand lives. 00:27:32.449 --> 00:27:35.117 Which is sort of repetitious. 00:27:35.117 --> 00:27:36.917 EVE: We had a lovely time 00:27:36.917 --> 00:27:40.285 we're very grateful, it was a wonderful event. 00:27:40.285 --> 00:27:42.643 GEORGE: The awards were handsome, and we got to 00:27:42.643 --> 00:27:47.637 meet the mayor and there were 82 authors on stage. 00:27:47.637 --> 00:27:52.140 Amazing authors I wish all their books had been on sale. 00:27:52.140 --> 00:27:55.591 I would have gone home with a big stack of them. 00:27:55.591 --> 00:27:58.443 EVE: So yesterday you were interviewed 00:27:58.443 --> 00:28:00.226 by Scott Simon from NPR. 00:28:00.226 --> 00:28:04.710 I thought you were very game in talking about what its like to have so many people 00:28:04.710 --> 00:28:06.613 waiting for your books. 00:28:06.613 --> 00:28:10.581 I have an ongoing fascination with the rhetoric people use, 00:28:10.581 --> 00:28:13.366 because sometimes it seems to veer out of the realm of fandom 00:28:13.366 --> 00:28:15.950 and into the realm of entitlement. 00:28:15.950 --> 00:28:20.834 In a way that seems to forget that you are a human person who is trying to 00:28:20.834 --> 00:28:23.636 make art which is a very difficult and unpleasant thing. 00:28:23.636 --> 00:28:26.887 What are your thoughts on that, do you think that people fundamentally 00:28:26.887 --> 00:28:30.254 misunderstand something about what writing is or about what this whole 00:28:30.254 --> 00:28:32.971 business is? 00:28:32.971 --> 00:28:36.056 GEORGE: Well, yes, I think that some of them do. 00:28:36.056 --> 00:28:37.556 Certainly. 00:28:37.556 --> 00:28:46.511 Some of them don't seem to understand that writers are different from eachother. 00:28:46.511 --> 00:28:50.661 They will point out to me some other writer and say, in the time you've been 00:28:50.661 --> 00:28:54.110 working on Winds of Winter he's published seven novels. 00:28:54.110 --> 00:28:56.230 Indeed there are writers who do that. 00:28:56.230 --> 00:28:59.214 There are writers you can practically set your watch by. 00:28:59.214 --> 00:29:01.714 They publish a novel a year, boom, boom, boom. 00:29:01.714 --> 00:29:05.084 That's great, I wish I could do that, but I can't, I never could. 00:29:05.084 --> 00:29:09.133 There are a couple of novels I wrote throughout my career that took me 00:29:09.133 --> 00:29:14.102 a year to write but they were like a fifth the size of the novels 00:29:14.102 --> 00:29:15.934 I'm writing now. 00:29:15.934 --> 00:29:20.756 So that's not going to happen. 00:29:20.756 --> 00:29:25.858 I can't help but think, I don't want all the wonderful young 00:29:25.858 --> 00:29:31.109 people I see in the audience to start taking aim at me and throw things here 00:29:31.109 --> 00:29:34.244 EVE: Well we have all these apples. 00:29:34.244 --> 00:29:35.978 [laughter[ 00:29:35.978 --> 00:29:38.162 GEORGE: I do think there is an aspect of 00:29:38.162 --> 00:29:42.130 generational change about this, I think the older readers 00:29:42.130 --> 00:29:46.499 baby boomers like me, or maybe even generation X'ers are used to 00:29:46.499 --> 00:29:48.299 waiting for things. 00:29:48.299 --> 00:29:52.746 The internet has created a generation that is used to instant gratification. 00:29:52.746 --> 00:29:58.002 Instead of answers, they want what they want and they want it now. 00:29:58.002 --> 00:30:00.885 I think the internet kind of creates that mindset. 00:30:00.885 --> 00:30:05.056 The old days when I needed to learn something I would have to go to the 00:30:05.056 --> 00:30:10.141 library and find a book on it, find another book on it just to 00:30:10.141 --> 00:30:12.525 double check that it was right. 00:30:12.525 --> 00:30:18.778 Now if I want to know anything I wip up google and boom, 00:30:18.778 --> 00:30:22.112 there's the answer in two minutes, 20 seconds actually. 00:30:22.112 --> 00:30:25.531 Depending how fast your internet speed is. 00:30:25.531 --> 00:30:30.716 It creates a different set of expectations 00:30:30.716 --> 00:30:40.468 There are many things the internet does, but it hasn't helped me write faster. 00:30:40.468 --> 00:30:45.889 So there it is. 00:30:45.889 --> 00:30:53.823 I try to keep it into proportion, it is sometimes annoying to me that 00:30:53.823 --> 00:30:57.409 there is so many voices that just want Winds of Winter, and choose to remind 00:30:57.409 --> 00:31:00.627 me every opportunity. 00:31:00.627 --> 00:31:04.529 I know perfectly well that if any of you go home tonight and go on Twitter 00:31:04.529 --> 00:31:07.961 "I was just at the Chicago Symphony Listening to George R. R. Martin" 00:31:07.961 --> 00:31:11.114 within the first three responses to your tweet someone will say well, 00:31:11.114 --> 00:31:13.548 "where's Winds of Winter?". 00:31:13.548 --> 00:31:15.465 Why isn't he writing it? 00:31:15.465 --> 00:31:19.502 I mean go home try it, see if it doesn't work that way. 00:31:19.502 --> 00:31:28.437 On the other hand, I think for the vast majority of writers 00:31:28.437 --> 00:31:33.357 including some really good writers, like I said we had 80 writers on the 00:31:33.357 --> 00:31:37.490 stage yesterday at the Carl Sandberg awards 00:31:37.490 --> 00:31:40.192 Many distinguished writers who have written novels and 00:31:40.192 --> 00:31:43.626 works of non-fiction, terrific stuff. 00:31:43.626 --> 00:31:48.246 You probably would never have heard of many of them, 00:31:48.246 --> 00:31:52.279 their books probably sell relatively few copies. 00:31:52.279 --> 00:31:56.331 For the vast majority of writers including me, for much of my career, 00:31:56.331 --> 00:32:02.135 the big question is obscurity, how do you get yourself noticed amongst 00:32:02.135 --> 00:32:05.969 all the books out there. 00:32:05.969 --> 00:32:09.353 I try not to be ungrateful about the fact that I have millions of people 00:32:09.353 --> 00:32:12.054 eagerly awaiting my next book. 00:32:12.054 --> 00:32:15.906 It certainly beats having no one give a damn about when my next book 00:32:15.906 --> 00:32:18.141 is coming out. 00:32:18.141 --> 00:32:23.159 Which is the fate of most writers, that's what they struggle with. 00:32:23.159 --> 00:32:26.326 You have to keep all of these things into proportion. 00:32:26.326 --> 00:32:35.164 With Game of Thrones achieving best seller status, the books actually not 00:32:35.164 --> 00:32:38.965 Games of Thrones, Game of Thrones was not a best seller when it first came out. 00:32:38.965 --> 00:32:40.882 EVE: Was it 'Song of Swords'? 00:32:40.882 --> 00:32:43.251 GEORGE: It was the second book 'Clash of Kings' 00:32:43.251 --> 00:32:46.351 hit the New York Times list for one week at 13 then it vanished. 00:32:46.351 --> 00:32:49.936 The third book 'Storm of Swords' debuted a little higher and lasted 00:32:49.936 --> 00:32:53.853 a little longer, it wasn't until the fourth book 'Feast for Crows' that 00:32:53.853 --> 00:32:56.688 I hit number one on the Times list. 00:32:56.688 --> 00:33:03.623 Then the show hit, and the books were already number one New York Times 00:33:03.623 --> 00:33:08.042 best sellers but the show made everyone crazy about them. 00:33:08.042 --> 00:33:12.795 It also made me famous to a degree that I had never anticipated in my life 00:33:12.795 --> 00:33:14.212 being famous. 00:33:14.212 --> 00:33:17.046 This happened to me when I was in my 60's. 00:33:17.046 --> 00:33:22.931 It's changed my life in ways that I don't necessarily love, but there 00:33:22.931 --> 00:33:25.681 are things about it that are great. 00:33:25.681 --> 00:33:28.251 Probably more good things than bad things. 00:33:28.251 --> 00:33:30.133 It certainly was a change. 00:33:30.133 --> 00:33:32.817 I'm glad it happened to me, strange as it seems, 00:33:32.817 --> 00:33:35.001 when I was in my 60's. 00:33:35.001 --> 00:33:38.570 It's given me an understanding of why people like Lindsay Lohan and 00:33:38.570 --> 00:33:40.772 Justin Bieber go crazy. 00:33:40.772 --> 00:33:42.823 [laughter] 00:33:42.823 --> 00:33:49.241 To be a sixteen year old kid and suddenly have that level of fame and attention 00:33:49.241 --> 00:33:54.692 and loss of privacy and thousands of people commenting on every shirt that 00:33:54.692 --> 00:34:00.262 you wear or every word that you say, I don't know how any sixteen year old 00:34:00.262 --> 00:34:04.747 could possibly handle that. 00:34:04.747 --> 00:34:11.798 I at least have had many long years of life on earth before I 00:34:11.798 --> 00:34:15.850 descended into the strange world of celebrity. 00:34:15.850 --> 00:34:17.651 EVE: And a lot of opportunity to make your 00:34:17.651 --> 00:34:22.187 make your work on your own terms and not kind of be accessing your success. 00:34:22.187 --> 00:34:27.105 So there is a cultural critique Doreen St. Felix 00:34:27.105 --> 00:34:30.739 who referred to Gwendolyn Brooks work, you may remember from your time in Chicago 00:34:30.739 --> 00:34:33.708 as being a citizen poet. 00:34:33.708 --> 00:34:37.126 I think that in Santa Fe where you have lived for many many years, you could 00:34:37.126 --> 00:34:42.429 be seen as a really active citizen author, you own the Jean Cocteau Cinema, 00:34:42.429 --> 00:34:46.296 which you bought and had restored as an eclectic movie house after it had 00:34:46.296 --> 00:34:48.163 been shut down. 00:34:48.163 --> 00:34:51.199 You've been a huge supporter of the Wild Spirits wolf sanctuary. 00:34:51.199 --> 00:34:55.967 Of course you are a co-conspirator in MeowWolf and their many installations 00:34:55.967 --> 00:34:57.817 and incredible works. 00:34:57.817 --> 00:35:02.220 Do you see this kind of community work as part of who you are as a writer 00:35:02.220 --> 00:35:05.136 or is it that you're a writer and you do this other stuff? 00:35:05.136 --> 00:35:07.705 Do you see part of your job as building community in this way? 00:35:07.705 --> 00:35:10.705 GEORGE: I think i'll go with I'm a writer 00:35:10.705 --> 00:35:13.040 and I do all this other stuff. 00:35:13.040 --> 00:35:21.993 I do believe in the concept of giving back, I've been very fortunate. 00:35:21.993 --> 00:35:27.095 There are a lot of things that go into being successful in any chosen career. 00:35:27.095 --> 00:35:30.130 But that's certainly true of a writer, you have to have talent, 00:35:30.130 --> 00:35:33.181 you have to persist, and you have to have luck. 00:35:33.181 --> 00:35:36.683 There are some great great books out there and great writers who 00:35:36.683 --> 00:35:40.684 have never achieved a large audience who have never made that much money, 00:35:40.684 --> 00:35:43.869 who have faced a lot of struggles. 00:35:43.869 --> 00:35:49.053 I've been very lucky and I'm cognizant of that. 00:35:49.053 --> 00:35:52.455 Not to say I haven't worked hard, I have. 00:35:52.455 --> 00:35:54.455 Luck is part of it. 00:35:54.455 --> 00:35:58.174 Robert A. Heinlen, the first Science Fiction book that I ever read was 00:35:58.174 --> 00:36:00.625 'Have Space Suit--Will Travel' by Robert A. Heinlen, 00:36:00.625 --> 00:36:03.093 and he was my favorite author for many years. 00:36:03.093 --> 00:36:06.695 He was probably the greatest Science Fiction author of his day. 00:36:06.695 --> 00:36:09.679 They called him the dean of Science Fiction at one point. 00:36:09.679 --> 00:36:15.714 Heinlen famously said "you can never pay back the people who helped you 00:36:15.714 --> 00:36:20.199 when you were starting out, so you have to pay forward." 00:36:20.199 --> 00:36:26.684 I've always taken that principal to mind, I've tried to pay forward both inside 00:36:26.684 --> 00:36:28.552 and outside of the genre. 00:36:28.552 --> 00:36:34.772 Doing things like supporting Wild Spirit, reviving the Jean Cocteau, and within 00:36:34.772 --> 00:36:41.292 the field trying to blurp good books by young writers who are just starting out 00:36:41.292 --> 00:36:44.759 to get their books a little attention. 00:36:44.759 --> 00:36:49.545 Helping writers workshops like Clarien and Clarien West and Odyssey. 00:36:49.545 --> 00:36:56.564 Sponsoring scholarships and all that, that's a method of giving back and I think 00:36:56.564 --> 00:37:01.063 there is an obligation on people to do that, to engage in their communities. 00:37:01.063 --> 00:37:05.400 I have two communities that I live in, Santa Fe, New Mexico community, 00:37:05.400 --> 00:37:10.829 where I make my home and also the world Science Fiction and Fantasy 00:37:10.829 --> 00:37:15.901 which I have been apart of since 1971 when I attended my fist convention. 00:37:15.901 --> 00:37:21.505 I still go to world World Con every year and attend the Hugo Awards, those are 00:37:21.505 --> 00:37:26.792 my people and it almost feels like family to me so I try to give in both of those 00:37:26.792 --> 00:37:28.584 communities. 00:37:28.584 --> 00:37:31.808 EVE: You travel exstensively, 00:37:31.808 --> 00:37:34.228 you just came back from Ireland, you're not going home for 00:37:34.228 --> 00:37:38.912 a couple more weeks after being here, but you also have said you really struggle 00:37:38.912 --> 00:37:42.398 to write on planes, hotels, basically anywhere that is not your home office. 00:37:42.398 --> 00:37:47.533 That you need several uninterrupted days to get into your groove. 00:37:47.533 --> 00:37:51.467 How do you balance the part of being a writer that is the writing, 00:37:51.467 --> 00:37:55.785 with the part that is the profession, coming to events like this, 00:37:55.785 --> 00:37:59.035 knowing that it's gonna drain some of the actual production. 00:37:59.035 --> 00:38:01.854 GEORGE: Well, that's a good question. 00:38:01.854 --> 00:38:04.339 How do I balance them? Badly I think. 00:38:04.339 --> 00:38:15.927 My relationship with travel is an interesting one, that I should probably 00:38:15.927 --> 00:38:19.344 talk about with a therapist rather than you people. 00:38:19.344 --> 00:38:21.731 EVE: No on'es listening we are just here 00:38:21.731 --> 00:38:23.430 with our freinds. 00:38:23.430 --> 00:38:26.449 GEORGE: I was born and raised in Bayonne, New Jersey. 00:38:26.449 --> 00:38:30.616 Which is a blue collar industrial city right across the bay from New York City. 00:38:30.616 --> 00:38:36.619 My father was a long shore man, although he went through long periods 00:38:36.619 --> 00:38:39.236 where he was unemployed. 00:38:39.236 --> 00:38:42.988 My mother was a house wife when I was young and later got a factory job 00:38:42.988 --> 00:38:45.572 when factories were in Bayonne. 00:38:45.572 --> 00:38:48.458 We never had much money, we lived in a federal housing project. 00:38:48.458 --> 00:38:53.409 We did not own a car, we never went anywhere. 00:38:53.409 --> 00:38:57.644 I lived on 1st street, my school was on 5th street, five blocks that was my world. 00:38:57.644 --> 00:39:04.479 Bayonne was a peninsula and living on 1st street was the Kilvon Cull 00:39:04.479 --> 00:39:09.615 which is a deep water channel that connected Newark bay and New York bay. 00:39:09.615 --> 00:39:14.116 I would see these great ships, oil tankers and freighters, things like that going by 00:39:14.116 --> 00:39:17.268 day and night with all the flags of the world on them. 00:39:17.268 --> 00:39:21.252 Sweden, Liberia, China, so forth. 00:39:21.252 --> 00:39:25.071 I had an encyclopedia where I could look up every flag I saw. 00:39:25.071 --> 00:39:31.822 There was this urge in me to get away from the five blocks where my life was lived. 00:39:31.822 --> 00:39:35.806 Occasionally we would go to New York City to eat. 00:39:35.806 --> 00:39:43.894 We never really traveled even like some of the other people in the neighborhood did. 00:39:43.894 --> 00:39:46.728 They would go to the Jersey Shore during summer. 00:39:46.728 --> 00:39:49.779 They would rent a cabin in the mountains, we never did any of that we just stayed 00:39:49.779 --> 00:39:51.564 home and worked. 00:39:51.564 --> 00:39:54.114 So Travel has always been enticing to me. 00:39:54.114 --> 00:39:59.200 As I became more and more successful. 00:39:59.200 --> 00:40:01.334 First of all I went to North Western, that was the first time 00:40:01.334 --> 00:40:04.868 I ever left New Jersey. 00:40:04.868 --> 00:40:09.452 The Midwest and Chicago and Evanston that was a whole new world to me. 00:40:09.452 --> 00:40:13.922 Later when I became successful I started going to Science Fiction magazines, 00:40:13.922 --> 00:40:18.891 in far flung places like Boston and Washington DC and all that. 00:40:18.891 --> 00:40:23.676 Every city was an adventure for me, eventually in 1981 I traveled to England. 00:40:23.676 --> 00:40:27.294 I left the country for the first time. 00:40:27.294 --> 00:40:37.348 As I became more successful, first within Science Fiction and later 00:40:37.348 --> 00:40:41.500 in the larger world when the books became best sellers and a hit 00:40:41.500 --> 00:40:45.368 I started getting more and more invitations to travel to places, 00:40:45.368 --> 00:40:47.536 all expenses paid invitations. 00:40:47.536 --> 00:40:52.119 Oh, they want to fly me to Vancouver, that's cool, I'll say yes. 00:40:52.119 --> 00:40:57.720 Oh look here's one where I can go to Scotland, I can go to France, 00:40:57.720 --> 00:40:59.954 I can go to Italy. 00:40:59.954 --> 00:41:02.206 Honestly, I said yes too much. 00:41:02.206 --> 00:41:07.877 I had a great time it was wonderful, it enriched my life I learned a lot, 00:41:07.877 --> 00:41:11.694 I made friends from all over the world, but I said yes too much. 00:41:11.694 --> 00:41:16.315 Now I have a staff that I've instructed to try to say no as much as possible, 00:41:16.315 --> 00:41:20.115 I have one of my assistants I call the Vice President in charge of saying no. 00:41:20.115 --> 00:41:22.151 [laughter] 00:41:22.151 --> 00:41:29.917 Sometimes I over rule her, I have my publicist here sitting in the second row 00:41:29.917 --> 00:41:34.803 trying hide who tells me to say no to everything because I should be staying 00:41:34.803 --> 00:41:36.636 home and writing. 00:41:36.636 --> 00:41:40.088 If I listened to him I wouldn't be here. 00:41:40.088 --> 00:41:42.589 [luaghter] 00:41:42.589 --> 00:41:49.310 I can't help it, I wanted to be here, I wanted to come back to Chicago, 00:41:49.310 --> 00:41:52.811 I wanted to, you know the Carl Sandberg award was an amazing honor. 00:41:52.811 --> 00:41:54.895 I wanted to be with you guys tonight. 00:41:54.895 --> 00:42:00.763 It's true I've got to, and I'm really trying, I'm saying no more and more, 00:42:00.763 --> 00:42:04.265 I've said no to three things this week. 00:42:04.265 --> 00:42:06.616 The invitations just keep pouring in. 00:42:06.616 --> 00:42:12.902 Travel doesn't have quite the allure it previously did when I never went anywhere 00:42:12.902 --> 00:42:16.086 so now they offer me money instead. 00:42:16.086 --> 00:42:19.719 I'm saying no to that too, I'm being good people. 00:42:19.719 --> 00:42:20.835 [applause] 00:42:20.835 --> 00:42:27.257 [laughter] 00:42:27.257 --> 00:42:31.775 The one thing I never say no to is the World Science Fiction convention, World Con. 00:42:31.775 --> 00:42:36.643 Which I went to for the first time in 1971, I go to that every year. 00:42:36.643 --> 00:42:39.444 So that's why I was in Ireland last month, for the World Con. 00:42:39.444 --> 00:42:44.079 There is a lot of conventions on the Science Fiction calendar, some of them 00:42:44.079 --> 00:42:48.031 are better than others, all of them are fun to some degree. 00:42:48.031 --> 00:42:53.083 But World Con is the oldest of them, it's where the Hugo awards are given. 00:42:53.083 --> 00:42:57.551 It's where I see friends that I only see once a year. 00:42:57.551 --> 00:43:03.887 The Science Fiction fandom is like forever, you go in there an meet people 00:43:03.887 --> 00:43:07.038 who will be part of your life for the next fifty years. 00:43:07.038 --> 00:43:10.040 You may only see them once a year at World Con but it's still great and 00:43:10.040 --> 00:43:12.224 important to see them. 00:43:12.224 --> 00:43:15.108 So that one I'll probably never say no to, but I try to say no to a lot of the others. 00:43:15.108 --> 00:43:18.176 At lest until 'Winds of Winter' is finished, then you'll see me popping 00:43:18.176 --> 00:43:20.777 around and popping up places. 00:43:20.777 --> 00:43:23.095 EVE: We're really grateful you said yes to us. 00:43:23.095 --> 00:43:26.230 I know it's also cause you wanted to go to Greek town and have some gyros, 00:43:26.230 --> 00:43:28.247 which we talked about earlier. 00:43:28.247 --> 00:43:31.448 GEORGE: OPA! 00:43:31.448 --> 00:43:34.165 EVE: A lot of writers who have their work 00:43:34.165 --> 00:43:38.068 adapted to film or television are not really involved, they kind of hand it over, 00:43:38.068 --> 00:43:43.168 sometimes that can create a distant or adversarial relationship with the adaptation. 00:43:43.168 --> 00:43:47.255 You are not like that, you've been a producer on Game of Thrones and you've 00:43:47.255 --> 00:43:49.837 also written scripts for some of the most iconic episodes, and I want to shout out 00:43:49.837 --> 00:43:51.890 a few of them 00:43:51.890 --> 00:43:56.509 You wrote "The Pointy End" which has this amazing scene where Syrio Forel protects 00:43:56.509 --> 00:43:59.885 Arya as she escapes and her life is never the same. 00:43:59.885 --> 00:44:05.153 Again this is a spoiler heavy zone, so exits behind you if you need to leave. 00:44:05.153 --> 00:44:12.237 You wrote that episode, that I love. 00:44:12.237 --> 00:44:16.156 "Black Water" and incredibly epic battle, that I think rivals Ministereth for 00:44:16.156 --> 00:44:17.756 great on screen battles. 00:44:17.756 --> 00:44:20.457 Where Tyrion proves himself to be a capable military strategist. 00:44:20.457 --> 00:44:22.958 We get lots of sweet dragon fire exploding. 00:44:22.958 --> 00:44:25.926 "The Lion and the Rose" where we bid, for some of us, a very gleeful farewell 00:44:25.926 --> 00:44:28.009 to Jofrey. 00:44:28.009 --> 00:44:32.479 We realize that we can see a minor die on TV and we're somehow still happy about it. 00:44:32.479 --> 00:44:34.831 [laughter] 00:44:34.831 --> 00:44:47.867 At the same time, you're heavily involved in the show, but you're still writing 00:44:47.867 --> 00:44:52.319 this series and you reserve the right to do what you want there autonomously 00:44:52.319 --> 00:44:55.404 not based on peoples responses to the TV series. 00:44:55.404 --> 00:44:58.504 This is a long way of asking, how do you see the relationship between 00:44:58.504 --> 00:45:03.073 TV Westeros and fiction Westeros, and how are you operating in both of 00:45:03.073 --> 00:45:06.508 these worlds? 00:45:06.508 --> 00:45:09.260 GEORGE: Well, how many children did 00:45:09.260 --> 00:45:11.227 Scarlet O'hara have? 00:45:11.227 --> 00:45:13.476 EVE: I'm the wrong one to ask that. 00:45:13.476 --> 00:45:17.979 GEORGE: She had three in Margaret Mitchell's novel. 00:45:17.979 --> 00:45:20.179 She had one in the movie. 00:45:20.179 --> 00:45:23.713 So how many children did she have? 00:45:23.713 --> 00:45:26.066 I mean which is "right"? 00:45:26.066 --> 00:45:30.316 The actual answer to that is a trick question of course. 00:45:30.316 --> 00:45:33.152 It is that Scarlet O'hara had no children because she is a fictional character 00:45:33.152 --> 00:45:34.867 and never existed. 00:45:34.867 --> 00:45:36.604 [laughter] 00:45:36.604 --> 00:45:40.739 It's two different mediums and two different ways of telling the same story, 00:45:40.739 --> 00:45:42.855 or at least a similar story. 00:45:42.855 --> 00:45:50.924 That's true whenever you adapt any work from books to television or movies, 00:45:50.924 --> 00:45:53.809 or even a radio play for that matter. 00:45:53.809 --> 00:45:58.313 You have to make choices as to what you leave in what you take out, 00:45:58.313 --> 00:46:02.180 there are issues that a television producer or screen writer has that 00:46:02.180 --> 00:46:04.731 a novelist does not have. 00:46:04.731 --> 00:46:09.432 You have to worry about the budget, you have to worry about the running time, 00:46:09.432 --> 00:46:15.151 you have actors who have contracts that have to be serviced. 00:46:15.151 --> 00:46:20.836 I could have a character like Theon Greyjoy or Varis, disappear for entire books 00:46:20.836 --> 00:46:28.257 and not be mentioned at all, or perhaps be presumed dead, 00:46:28.257 --> 00:46:32.391 they're off and you don't know what they're doing. 00:46:32.391 --> 00:46:36.926 You can't do that with a TV show, the actors are under contract, 00:46:36.926 --> 00:46:40.144 you're not gonna pay an actor for an entire season and not have them 00:46:40.144 --> 00:46:42.913 appear on screen. 00:46:42.913 --> 00:46:48.432 Television and film have things at their disposal that the novelist does not have. 00:46:48.432 --> 00:46:52.948 They can have a score like the wonderful music we were hearing by Ramin Djawadi. 00:46:52.948 --> 00:46:57.901 Our Emmy winning composer, that reinforces the show. 00:46:57.901 --> 00:47:00.819 We've got marvelous special effects and all that. 00:47:00.819 --> 00:47:05.539 The novelist also has tools that the screen writer and the director don't have. 00:47:05.539 --> 00:47:12.540 You can use an unreliable narrator, he has the wonderful strength which I use very 00:47:12.540 --> 00:47:16.592 heavily in 'A Song of Ice and Fire' of point of view. 00:47:16.592 --> 00:47:20.309 The camera is completely objective, it has no point of view. 00:47:20.309 --> 00:47:22.795 The camera is showing you what happened. 00:47:22.795 --> 00:47:27.481 When I write a scene from the view point of Sansa I'm filtering everything through 00:47:27.481 --> 00:47:29.196 Sansa's perceptions. 00:47:29.196 --> 00:47:32.199 Sansa is only seeing what she is looking at, if there is something behind her 00:47:32.199 --> 00:47:34.365 she doesn't see it. 00:47:34.365 --> 00:47:38.351 It's more difficult to write when you're doing it with a camera. 00:47:38.351 --> 00:47:44.754 So all of these things necessitate making changes, making a different approach 00:47:44.754 --> 00:47:50.672 That's what the process of adaptation is about. 00:47:50.672 --> 00:47:56.991 Then its up to the readers and the viewers to decide which they like better. 00:47:56.991 --> 00:47:59.007 They're both works of art. 00:47:59.007 --> 00:48:03.509 Margaret Mitchell's novel is there, it can be read, you can go see the 1939 movie, 00:48:03.509 --> 00:48:12.613 if you take into account inflation and all that it's still the highest grossing movie 00:48:12.613 --> 00:48:15.146 of all time. 00:48:15.146 --> 00:48:18.964 You can determine which you like better and argue about how many children 00:48:18.964 --> 00:48:22.031 she should have had. 00:48:22.031 --> 00:48:26.950 There it is, its two different works of art, related but not identical. 00:48:26.950 --> 00:48:29.418 EVE: Almost like alternate universe versions 00:48:29.418 --> 00:48:31.870 of eachother. 00:48:31.870 --> 00:48:35.305 Initially when people started showing interest in the series for television 00:48:35.305 --> 00:48:40.640 you felt that the scale of it might be beyond what could be represented on film. 00:48:40.640 --> 00:48:44.124 Especially because of part of what you just mentioned, the scope of your many 00:48:44.124 --> 00:48:46.890 characters, the world, the complexity of the plot. 00:48:46.890 --> 00:48:49.127 What do you think was the X factor? 00:48:49.127 --> 00:48:52.027 Is there something that changed or something that made it work 00:48:52.027 --> 00:48:55.361 despite those challenges of the medium? 00:48:55.361 --> 00:49:02.664 GEORGE: I think HBO was of the X factor, 00:49:02.664 --> 00:49:07.917 HBO was willing to let us make an adult fantasy. 00:49:07.917 --> 00:49:15.969 Fantasy books had been dominating the best seller list for decades but, 00:49:15.969 --> 00:49:19.921 whenever fantasy was done for TV for Game of Thrones, they put it on at 8 o'clock 00:49:19.921 --> 00:49:22.257 7 central. 00:49:22.257 --> 00:49:26.590 It was in the family hour because the people running television thought Fantasy 00:49:26.590 --> 00:49:32.261 dragons and swords and stuff was something silly, that it was for children. 00:49:32.261 --> 00:49:37.546 HBO had enough faith to redefine at least in terms of television, redefine the 00:49:37.546 --> 00:49:40.113 fantasy genre. 00:49:40.113 --> 00:49:42.947 That doesn't surprise me because you look at what they did previously, 00:49:42.947 --> 00:49:47.414 Deadwood, whole new take on westerns, Sopranos, completely different take on 00:49:47.414 --> 00:49:49.667 the gangster story. 00:49:49.667 --> 00:49:55.468 HBO was in the business of redefining genres and inverting troupes and 00:49:55.468 --> 00:49:58.752 turning them on their heads, and they did it with Fantasy. 00:49:58.752 --> 00:50:04.122 David Benioff and Dan Weiss the show runners did an amazing job 00:50:04.122 --> 00:50:06.842 and they assembled a great team. 00:50:06.842 --> 00:50:12.392 Game of Thrones has won, at this point, more Emmy's than any other show in the 00:50:12.392 --> 00:50:16.977 history of television, prime time show anway. 00:50:16.977 --> 00:50:25.247 What's interesting about it is many many many of those Emmy's are what they call 00:50:25.247 --> 00:50:29.664 in Hollywood below the line, they're for things like music, costuming, 00:50:29.664 --> 00:50:37.134 casting, stunt work, all of these things, special effects. 00:50:37.134 --> 00:50:40.152 All of these things are necessary to do a good thing. 00:50:40.152 --> 00:50:43.920 A novelist doesn't have to worry about that, I can just write what the 00:50:43.920 --> 00:50:47.204 costumes are, I don't have to worry about that. 00:50:47.204 --> 00:50:51.557 The show runner has to put together a team of people who can do it. 00:50:51.557 --> 00:50:55.925 In the case of Game of Thrones with extraordinary passion and skill to 00:50:55.925 --> 00:51:01.194 produce something that is really memorable and oustanding. 00:51:01.194 --> 00:51:05.329 David Benioff and Dan Weiss did that, they put together one of the greatest 00:51:05.329 --> 00:51:10.314 production teams and casts and crews in the entire history of television, I think. 00:51:10.314 --> 00:51:12.949 EVE: There are so many of those things that you 00:51:12.949 --> 00:51:15.482 just mentioned that I could shout out but the costuming in particular, 00:51:15.482 --> 00:51:18.834 I'm thinking of Daenerys obviously in the kind of progression of costuming 00:51:18.834 --> 00:51:24.254 of the course of their personal development as a character. 00:51:24.254 --> 00:51:32.840 GEORGE: Everything plays a role, all it takes is 00:51:32.840 --> 00:51:40.011 one person to screw up and you know you're watching the first episode of some 00:51:40.011 --> 00:51:45.028 new fantasy show and it seems to be promising and the dialogue is good, 00:51:45.028 --> 00:51:50.997 and maybe the special effects are good, and then you spot a zipper, 00:51:50.997 --> 00:51:54.331 and suddenly your suspension of disbelief is out the window. 00:51:54.331 --> 00:51:57.699 And you say "What the hell?" ya know? 00:51:57.699 --> 00:52:00.049 They've lost you. 00:52:00.049 --> 00:52:02.284 You have to get everything right. 00:52:02.284 --> 00:52:07.753 Being a show runner of a major television show is really a difficult achievement. 00:52:07.753 --> 00:52:11.471 EVE: You've mentioned in other interviews that 00:52:11.471 --> 00:52:15.471 and early TV influence for your was of course Star Trek and in that time 00:52:15.471 --> 00:52:21.307 Gene Roddenberry's universe was more diverse than some of the universes we see 00:52:21.307 --> 00:52:23.275 on contemporary television. 00:52:23.275 --> 00:52:28.077 I know you're also producing an adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor's "Who Fears Death?" 00:52:28.077 --> 00:52:31.578 which is exciting for many many reasons but one of them I think is that people 00:52:31.578 --> 00:52:35.780 seem to have an increasing hunger for sci-fi and fantasy and speculative fiction 00:52:35.780 --> 00:52:38.380 that reflects the diversity of our world. 00:52:38.380 --> 00:52:42.883 Is that something that's important to you or something you're thinking about? 00:52:42.883 --> 00:52:50.270 GEORGE: I think we have to move in that direction. 00:52:50.270 --> 00:52:59.654 I also think science fiction has always done better the society in general, 00:52:59.654 --> 00:53:02.941 not that its perfect by any means. 00:53:02.941 --> 00:53:08.693 The science fiction I like best is, there's a lot of kinds of science fiction, 00:53:08.693 --> 00:53:10.811 and fantasy. 00:53:10.811 --> 00:53:17.679 Besides epic fantasy there is urban fantasy, there's dark fantasy, there's 00:53:17.679 --> 00:53:22.581 fairy tales, there's cyber punk in science fiction, there's space opera. 00:53:22.581 --> 00:53:26.415 There are many many kinds of things. 00:53:26.415 --> 00:53:29.800 The sort of science fiction that I grew up on, that I love most of all, 00:53:29.800 --> 00:53:34.187 was the stuff that was set out among the stars. 00:53:34.187 --> 00:53:39.938 Where we go to alien planets 100 years in the future, 500 years in the future, 00:53:39.938 --> 00:53:46.823 and meet aliens, strange life forms, distant suns, it just appealed to me. 00:53:46.823 --> 00:53:51.410 Maybe it was cause of that travel thing, I liked the exotic flavors and to see 00:53:51.410 --> 00:53:55.144 sights never seen before, to go places no one had ever gone before. 00:53:55.144 --> 00:53:59.045 What I didn't realize though when I was reading, and I realized it as an adult 00:53:59.045 --> 00:54:07.614 many decades later, is that the we that was going out in those star ships in the 00:54:07.614 --> 00:54:11.966 science fiction that I read in the 50's and 60's, they weren't Americans. 00:54:11.966 --> 00:54:15.985 They weren't Chinese or Brazilian or French. 00:54:15.985 --> 00:54:19.989 They were earth men, or earthlings, or Terrans. 00:54:19.989 --> 00:54:21.754 Those were the terms that were made. 00:54:21.754 --> 00:54:26.989 If we were gonna meet the Octopus people of the third planet of Vega it would be 00:54:26.989 --> 00:54:31.758 Terrans meeting them and we would be part of the solar alliance or the united 00:54:31.758 --> 00:54:35.267 planets or something like that. 00:54:35.267 --> 00:54:41.628 Some of the authors of the time made a deliberate effort at diversity, maybe they 00:54:41.628 --> 00:54:47.720 didn't entirely succeed but you look at someone like Paul Anderson and he would 00:54:47.720 --> 00:54:52.715 have Scotsman and Irishmen but also Polynesians and Brazilians. 00:54:52.715 --> 00:54:58.661 Elspreg D'camp wrote a whole series in which Brazil was the dominate power of 00:54:58.661 --> 00:55:05.738 23rd century Earth. 00:55:05.738 --> 00:55:08.389 So that message was always there, it was there in the pulp magazines and the early 00:55:08.389 --> 00:55:10.188 science fiction. 00:55:10.188 --> 00:55:13.407 Gene Roddenberry brought it to television. 00:55:13.407 --> 00:55:22.561 The original Star Trek had some good episodes, and it had some really bad 00:55:22.561 --> 00:55:26.995 episodes but it was very exciting to see it at the time. 00:55:26.995 --> 00:55:36.551 Roddenberry was immensely courageous if nothing else, maybe he wasn't the greatest 00:55:36.551 --> 00:55:40.500 writer to come down the pike or the greatest show runner but you look back 00:55:40.500 --> 00:55:47.583 at the show that came out in 1767, he put a black woman on the bridge 00:55:47.583 --> 00:55:55.317 as communications engineer, he put an Asian as helms man. 00:55:55.317 --> 00:56:01.438 He put a Russian, at the height of the cold war, on the bridge. 00:56:01.438 --> 00:56:06.672 He was selling the idea that his federation, Earth has put aside all of its 00:56:06.672 --> 00:56:11.575 differences and we'd all come together as a single people. 00:56:11.575 --> 00:56:17.211 Maybe, most shocking of all was Spock. 00:56:17.211 --> 00:56:23.228 You think of Spock as a Vulcan, he wasn't a Vulcan, he was a half-breed, 00:56:23.228 --> 00:56:26.478 he was half Vulcan and he was half human. 00:56:26.478 --> 00:56:33.816 He had green blood and two hearts, a Vulcan father and a human mother, 00:56:33.816 --> 00:56:38.400 if you're a hard science fiction writer this makes no fucking sense, we're not 00:56:38.400 --> 00:56:42.368 going to actually be able to interbreed with the Octopus people of Vega, 00:56:42.368 --> 00:56:50.273 it doesn't work that way, any more than we can impregnate wombats here on earth. 00:56:50.273 --> 00:56:52.457 [laughter] 00:56:52.457 --> 00:57:00.892 None the less, whats striking about Spock when this came out in 1967 is the fact 00:57:00.892 --> 00:57:06.095 that at the time he was doing this miscegenation was still against the law 00:57:06.095 --> 00:57:09.563 in half the states of the United States. 00:57:09.563 --> 00:57:14.964 This was before Loving vs. Virginia which was the famous case recently dramatized 00:57:14.964 --> 00:57:20.567 in a movie, that established that a white man could actually marry a black woman. 00:57:20.567 --> 00:57:26.752 That was against the law, interracial marriage, having children with people of 00:57:26.752 --> 00:57:31.855 another race, and he's having half breed Vulcans. 00:57:31.855 --> 00:57:36.922 It was enormously progressive at the time. 00:57:36.922 --> 00:57:41.042 I didn't really noticed it because I had been reading about that stuff for 00:57:41.042 --> 00:57:46.411 a long time but looking back on it now and realizing books that sell 3,000 copies 00:57:46.411 --> 00:57:54.181 are one thing but a television show that reaches 20 30 million people 00:57:54.181 --> 00:57:56.715 really influences us. 00:57:56.715 --> 00:57:59.348 They really reflect us. 00:57:59.348 --> 00:58:06.068 Now, in science fiction and fantasy we are seeing a great up swell of diverse voices. 00:58:06.068 --> 00:58:14.154 By many different sorts of people, different skin colors, different religions, 00:58:14.154 --> 00:58:20.221 different sexual orientations, they're producing their own takes on this. 00:58:20.221 --> 00:58:24.808 As with any other groups some of them are good some of them are not so good, 00:58:24.808 --> 00:58:29.093 but I think it's a healthy sign for the genre. 00:58:29.093 --> 00:58:33.544 I do hope that there's still room for some old white guys like me. 00:58:33.544 --> 00:58:38.564 EVE: You can stay there is room at the table. 00:58:38.564 --> 00:58:40.931 GEORGE: Good. 00:58:40.931 --> 00:58:43.265 EVE: There's only two seats here so we'll 00:58:43.265 --> 00:58:44.715 see how it goes. 00:58:44.715 --> 00:58:46.049 [laughter] 00:58:46.049 --> 00:58:47.880 EVE: I'm going to ask you one or two more 00:58:47.880 --> 00:58:50.669 questions and then I'll go to these fan questions. 00:58:50.669 --> 00:58:51.754 GEORGE: Great. 00:58:51.754 --> 00:58:53.901 EVE: I think my final question will be this, 00:58:53.901 --> 00:58:58.538 you are a very frequently and many times interviewed person, 00:58:58.538 --> 00:59:01.035 you've been interviewed a lot. 00:59:01.035 --> 00:59:05.244 What is the interview question that wish people would ask, and what is 00:59:05.244 --> 00:59:09.049 the one that you do not like, or that you loath the most with 00:59:09.049 --> 00:59:13.917 apologies to those who have previously asked this question including me if 00:59:13.917 --> 00:59:17.432 I'm one of the people, it's not personal it's just that I'm asking. 00:59:17.432 --> 00:59:21.240 So a question you wish people would ask, and a question you hate the most. 00:59:21.240 --> 00:59:29.619 GEORGE: Obviously these days the question I hate 00:59:29.619 --> 00:59:33.175 the most is when will 'Winds of Winter' be out. 00:59:33.175 --> 00:59:34.854 [laughter] 00:59:34.854 --> 00:59:37.988 Because I have no good answer for that. 00:59:37.988 --> 00:59:41.044 When the day comes that 'Winds of Winter' is done and I can say, and I can when 00:59:41.044 --> 00:59:43.874 asked that question, October. 00:59:43.874 --> 00:59:46.230 That will a happier time for me. 00:59:46.230 --> 00:59:51.128 It's no fun to be asked repeatedly the same question over and over again, 00:59:51.128 --> 00:59:53.513 and you don't have a good answer for it. 00:59:53.513 --> 00:59:57.765 There are a lot of questions, I won't say I hate them but I've been asked them so 00:59:57.765 --> 01:00:03.336 often that it gets a little tiresome. 01:00:03.336 --> 01:00:08.001 It also shows that however much the person may be a huge fan of mine they've 01:00:08.001 --> 01:00:13.259 never actually gone online and looked at any of the 137 other interviews of me 01:00:13.259 --> 01:00:15.471 that you can find on youtube. 01:00:15.471 --> 01:00:19.444 Which is your favorite character, which character do you like to write the most, 01:00:19.444 --> 01:00:22.581 which character do you like to write the least? 01:00:22.581 --> 01:00:27.408 Ya know I've been answering that question since 1996. 01:00:27.408 --> 01:00:33.100 There are a number of questions that fall in that category. 01:00:33.100 --> 01:00:42.014 As to a question that I want to be asked, that's harder, 01:00:42.014 --> 01:00:44.019 I don't think I have one question. 01:00:44.019 --> 01:00:49.968 I do like the fact that in your questions you've discussed some things other than 01:00:49.968 --> 01:00:56.007 Game of Thrones, I love Game of Thrones, I love 'Song of Ice and Fire' but I do 01:00:56.007 --> 01:01:02.021 have a long history of writing other things and I'm very happy and proud 01:01:02.021 --> 01:01:04.374 of those things too. 01:01:04.374 --> 01:01:09.745 It's fun to discuss things that I haven't been asked about before. 01:01:09.745 --> 01:01:17.227 To talk about Fever Dream or Armageddon Rag or the Wild Card series, 01:01:17.227 --> 01:01:23.697 or Dying of the Light, or any of my short stories that I've written 01:01:23.697 --> 01:01:25.637 over the years. 01:01:25.637 --> 01:01:28.949 EVE: Good, I'm glad that if you hated one of 01:01:28.949 --> 01:01:32.503 my questions you're keeping it to yourself for the time being. 01:01:32.503 --> 01:01:34.133 [laughter] 01:01:34.133 --> 01:01:35.567 It's very polite of you. 01:01:35.567 --> 01:01:39.440 OK so I'm gonna ask you some fan questions, for which I can only moderately vouch 01:01:39.440 --> 01:01:43.086 for the quality, after having had asked you that last question. 01:01:43.086 --> 01:01:44.404 GEORGE: Should I be afraid? 01:01:44.404 --> 01:01:46.020 EVE: No I think these are all fine, 01:01:46.020 --> 01:01:48.190 I'm going to take my glasses off. 01:01:48.190 --> 01:01:52.355 OK so, Brendan B. Fish, I presume not his real name on Twitter asks, 01:01:52.355 --> 01:01:56.879 "Speaking personally, do you believe that Robert, Ned, and Jon Aron were justified 01:01:56.879 --> 01:02:01.082 in their rebellion against the Mad King, if it were you would you have stayed loyal 01:02:01.082 --> 01:02:03.665 to the Targaryens?" 01:02:03.665 --> 01:02:08.521 People in the audience are freaked out by this question for some reason. 01:02:08.521 --> 01:02:10.836 [laughter] 01:02:10.836 --> 01:02:14.166 GEORGE: I don't think I would have stayed loyal to 01:02:14.166 --> 01:02:16.520 the mad king. 01:02:16.520 --> 01:02:18.450 Do I think I would justify it? 01:02:18.450 --> 01:02:20.134 Ya, yes and no. 01:02:20.134 --> 01:02:24.636 I don't like to provide easy answers to that, I like to make the reader wrestle 01:02:24.636 --> 01:02:30.054 with the question and think about it. 01:02:30.054 --> 01:02:38.615 Because some of these questions never are easy when we encounter them in real life. 01:02:38.615 --> 01:02:45.799 It's been interesting coming back here to Chicago, 01:02:45.799 --> 01:02:53.147 because I spent ten years in Chicago and the Chicago area, 01:02:53.147 --> 01:02:58.950 I was at North Western from 1966 to 1971, up in Evanston. 01:02:58.950 --> 01:03:03.669 Then I was in Chicago from 71 to 76. 01:03:03.669 --> 01:03:11.725 If you look at that era, particularly the early part of that era, the 60's. 01:03:11.725 --> 01:03:16.354 It was sometimes known in the history books, for you young people who have read 01:03:16.354 --> 01:03:19.507 about it in history as the turbulent 60's. 01:03:19.507 --> 01:03:23.567 There was an altercation going down in Vietnam that some of us didn't like, 01:03:23.567 --> 01:03:29.811 there were a lot of protests and demonstrations, people in the streets 01:03:29.811 --> 01:03:34.280 by the tens of thousands by the hundreds of thousands in some cases. 01:03:34.280 --> 01:03:40.552 I look back on that era now and ya know, I ask myself that question, 01:03:40.552 --> 01:03:45.901 were the protests justified, did we do the right thing, did we do the wrong thing, 01:03:45.901 --> 01:03:49.285 should we have gone further? 01:03:49.285 --> 01:03:55.909 I was very much a clean for Gene guy, I still believed in the American system 01:03:55.909 --> 01:04:00.823 and elections and let's elect Gene McCarthy 01:04:00.823 --> 01:04:03.141 and put an end to the Vietnam war, 01:04:03.141 --> 01:04:05.695 and there were more radical people who wanted to destroy the state 01:04:05.695 --> 01:04:08.844 and tear it all down and rebuild it. 01:04:08.844 --> 01:04:14.662 When I look at all the things that happened, I don't know, 01:04:14.662 --> 01:04:17.893 it was a confused time and its still a confusing time when you 01:04:17.893 --> 01:04:20.698 look back at history. 01:04:20.698 --> 01:04:23.550 Maybe 100 years from now when everybody who participated are dead, 01:04:23.550 --> 01:04:26.337 we'll be able to sort it out and find the answers. 01:04:26.337 --> 01:04:30.407 Is violence ever justified to oppose evil in the world, if so, 01:04:30.407 --> 01:04:34.486 to what extent is violence justified? 01:04:34.486 --> 01:04:38.394 These are the questions that Ned and Robert had to deal with. 01:04:38.394 --> 01:04:44.191 There was no doubt that the mad king was mad. 01:04:44.191 --> 01:04:49.927 He was paranoid and violent and he was abusing his power. 01:04:49.927 --> 01:04:53.243 Westeros has no magna carta or anything like that. 01:04:53.243 --> 01:04:57.483 There was no way to handle this within the rule of law. 01:04:57.483 --> 01:05:03.218 Was what they did justified? 01:05:03.218 --> 01:05:10.953 Especially when you consider that it was triggered by a personal grievance. 01:05:10.953 --> 01:05:16.503 The execution of Ned's father and brother, was really a thing that radicalized, 01:05:16.503 --> 01:05:21.275 as we would have said in the 60's, Ned and put him in opposition to it. 01:05:21.275 --> 01:05:26.341 Robert was just broiling for a fight, and didn't like the fact that he lost 01:05:26.341 --> 01:05:29.455 his girlfriend. 01:05:29.455 --> 01:05:34.474 The personal informs the political. 01:05:34.474 --> 01:05:43.283 As a reader I like the writers who ask questions and get you to think. 01:05:43.283 --> 01:05:45.786 I try to do that as a writer. 01:05:45.786 --> 01:05:49.648 I don't necessarily like the writers who give answers. 01:05:49.648 --> 01:05:54.420 Often I don't agree with the answers they seem wrong to me in some cases, 01:05:54.420 --> 01:05:57.383 or they seem overly simplistic. 01:05:57.383 --> 01:06:01.102 Questioning is important. 01:06:01.102 --> 01:06:07.740 Theodore Sturgeon, who was one of the great great science fiction writers 01:06:07.740 --> 01:06:11.992 of the golden age, a real individualist, and free thinker, I think. 01:06:11.992 --> 01:06:17.375 He had a slogan which was called "Ask the next question", 01:06:17.375 --> 01:06:22.977 and he wore it, he had a medallion that he wore with a big Q with 01:06:22.977 --> 01:06:26.496 an arrow through it that stood for "Ask the next question.", 01:06:26.496 --> 01:06:31.096 I always admired Sturgeon and his views on that. 01:06:31.096 --> 01:06:32.368 EVE: Your answer about not giving answers 01:06:32.368 --> 01:06:35.473 was a very good answer. 01:06:35.473 --> 01:06:36.523 [laughter] 01:06:36.523 --> 01:06:37.717 GEORGE: Thank you! 01:06:37.717 --> 01:06:40.388 EVE: Leah Rachel Von Essen writes to the 01:06:40.388 --> 01:06:41.860 humanities festival, 01:06:41.860 --> 01:06:46.470 "I'm inspired by Sansa's character," She wrote books only, in parenthesis. 01:06:46.470 --> 01:06:51.058 "I'm inspired by Sansa's character and the way she her soft skills 01:06:51.058 --> 01:06:54.938 aren't denigrated even as Arya is the more classic strength warrior, 01:06:54.938 --> 01:06:57.531 do you think they parallel each other and how does their relationship 01:06:57.531 --> 01:07:03.093 mirror the dynamics of real life sibling relationships?" 01:07:03.093 --> 01:07:07.165 GEORGE: Well I hope that they are both realistic 01:07:07.165 --> 01:07:10.352 characters in some sense. 01:07:10.352 --> 01:07:14.368 I've known people who are like both of them 01:07:14.368 --> 01:07:20.804 and in some sense I'm like both of them. 01:07:20.804 --> 01:07:27.685 We're talking about two of my women characters, girls in that case. 01:07:27.685 --> 01:07:33.629 I've been asked about writing the girls, and women in my books. 01:07:33.629 --> 01:07:38.272 I have the advantage in 'A Song of Ice and Fire', 01:07:38.272 --> 01:07:45.800 is that I have a lot of women. 01:07:45.800 --> 01:07:49.001 Therefore, I can do a lot of different women characters. 01:07:49.001 --> 01:07:52.585 In an interview that I did in Canada a number of years ago, 01:07:52.585 --> 01:07:58.538 the host asked me how do I write women characters and I said well, 01:07:58.538 --> 01:08:03.873 I had this revolutionary idea, I act as if women were people. 01:08:03.873 --> 01:08:05.557 [laughter] 01:08:05.557 --> 01:08:09.559 [applause] 01:08:09.559 --> 01:08:10.993 That's my feeling. 01:08:10.993 --> 01:08:14.345 If you have a book and you only have one woman character, 01:08:14.345 --> 01:08:18.361 sometimes there is not room for any more because you're writing a short story. 01:08:18.361 --> 01:08:24.933 Or a novel that only has three or four main characters. 01:08:24.933 --> 01:08:29.417 People sometimes take it as oh that's his opinion of women or something, 01:08:29.417 --> 01:08:31.935 because this character has these flaws. 01:08:31.935 --> 01:08:34.951 But you have an advantage when you have twenty women characters 01:08:34.951 --> 01:08:40.454 that you can show the variety of people, some of them are noble, some of them 01:08:40.454 --> 01:08:44.589 are selfish, some of them are smart, some of them are stupid, 01:08:44.589 --> 01:08:52.726 I think that's true of all groups, men, women, straight people, gay people, 01:08:52.726 --> 01:08:54.843 whatever color. 01:08:54.843 --> 01:09:02.113 They come in all varieties and even the individuals have good and evil 01:09:02.113 --> 01:09:04.946 within them. 01:09:04.946 --> 01:09:13.067 I think that's realistic, and I think we're all grey. 01:09:13.067 --> 01:09:16.920 We all have good and bad in us, we've all done good things 01:09:16.920 --> 01:09:21.305 and we've all done bad things. 01:09:21.305 --> 01:09:28.425 Real history is full of stories about people who did something wonderful on 01:09:28.425 --> 01:09:33.225 Tuesday and something horrible on Thursday, same person. 01:09:33.225 --> 01:09:36.528 There is a wonderful writer who passed away a few years ago, 01:09:36.528 --> 01:09:39.646 not a science fiction writer but, Pat Conroy, 01:09:39.646 --> 01:09:42.096 have any of you ever read Pat Conroy? 01:09:42.096 --> 01:09:43.530 [applause] 01:09:43.530 --> 01:09:47.815 Terrific writer, one of the great writers I think of the 20th century. 01:09:47.815 --> 01:09:53.267 A lot of his books were made into movies, "The Great Santini", "The Water is Wide" 01:09:53.267 --> 01:09:57.583 which was made into the movie "Conrack", based on his own experiences teaching 01:09:57.583 --> 01:10:00.070 the words of discipline. 01:10:00.070 --> 01:10:04.205 Probably the best known books of his is "The Prince of Tides", 01:10:04.205 --> 01:10:11.040 I remember that book, that book has a character in it who is an absolutely 01:10:11.040 --> 01:10:16.876 abusive father, he terrorized his children he abuses them both verbally 01:10:16.876 --> 01:10:18.975 and physically. 01:10:18.975 --> 01:10:24.296 He's horrible to his wife, he's really a despicable, horrible person. 01:10:24.296 --> 01:10:28.597 But there are flashbacks within that to World War II, 01:10:28.597 --> 01:10:33.732 about an American aviator flying a mission over Nazi Germany who was shot down 01:10:33.732 --> 01:10:38.918 he parachutes out to safety but now he's in the middle of Nazi Germany 01:10:38.918 --> 01:10:40.950 and he has to get all the way back to the lines. 01:10:40.950 --> 01:10:47.454 He makes his way through the German lines, hiding in haystacks, and 01:10:47.454 --> 01:10:51.789 occasionally meeting Germans who try to turn him in, and then other Germans who 01:10:51.789 --> 01:10:54.174 are kind to him and hide him. 01:10:54.174 --> 01:10:58.509 It's an interesting secondary story line. 01:10:58.509 --> 01:11:01.692 It's the same character, and you realize as you read this, 01:11:01.692 --> 01:11:05.028 you're reading this story about this brave American aviator trying make his way 01:11:05.028 --> 01:11:08.697 through the Nazi's and to get back to the lines and you're really rooting for him 01:11:08.697 --> 01:11:12.281 and you're identifying with him and you think he's great, 01:11:12.281 --> 01:11:17.450 and then you get to the present day and he's this horrible wretched person, 01:11:17.450 --> 01:11:22.250 based on Conrad's own father, who was mistreating his family. 01:11:22.250 --> 01:11:25.452 I loved that, I loved that depth of character there. 01:11:25.452 --> 01:11:30.371 It was amazing, the fact that Conrad did it so greatly. 01:11:30.371 --> 01:11:34.805 That's some of my views on characters. 01:11:34.805 --> 01:11:41.476 Arya and Sansa, indeed many of my characters, are complicated people. 01:11:41.476 --> 01:11:46.061 I try to show all of the complexities. 01:11:46.061 --> 01:11:50.729 I don't want it to be just one note. 01:11:50.729 --> 01:11:56.864 Arya is certainly more popular than Sansa. 01:11:56.864 --> 01:12:02.399 Sansa has her people who love her too, of course we'll have to see when I 01:12:02.399 --> 01:12:07.867 write the book, the end that I have in mind for both of them. 01:12:07.867 --> 01:12:12.287 EVE: Wow, yes, it takes me back to the point 01:12:12.287 --> 01:12:15.638 that you made earlier about length, and one benefit is we can actually see 01:12:15.638 --> 01:12:20.257 that character transformation, even over the course of a single novel, 01:12:20.257 --> 01:12:24.508 we can see this character begin in one condition and end somewhere else. 01:12:24.508 --> 01:12:29.976 Another question, this is from Lucifer means light bringer, 01:12:29.976 --> 01:12:34.011 which I also assume is not this persons government name. 01:12:34.011 --> 01:12:36.030 [laughter] 01:12:36.030 --> 01:12:39.063 "You've created several notable in world, mythical figures which seem to serve 01:12:39.063 --> 01:12:42.703 as archetypes that other main characters echo at times, 01:12:42.703 --> 01:12:45.201 can you say a few words about your use of myth and internal folk lore and 01:12:45.201 --> 01:12:51.002 the way those things interact with the main story and characters?" 01:12:51.002 --> 01:12:53.454 GEORGE: Ya I've had a lot of fun, it's part of the 01:12:53.454 --> 01:12:55.672 world building process. 01:12:55.672 --> 01:13:02.039 Every world, every culture has its myths, has its legends, has its heroes. 01:13:02.039 --> 01:13:08.193 I suspect everybody in this room, even if you haven't read the books, 01:13:08.193 --> 01:13:13.408 knows who Robin Hood was or a little about him, or King Arthur. 01:13:13.408 --> 01:13:17.612 Or maybe some of the American myths, Paul Bunion. 01:13:17.612 --> 01:13:20.064 EVE: Or Spider-Man or Super Man. 01:13:20.064 --> 01:13:23.697 GEORGE: Right, right. 01:13:23.697 --> 01:13:28.567 We refer to them occasionally, we make references to them. 01:13:28.567 --> 01:13:34.001 It's sometimes amazing to think of the extent to which some of these 01:13:34.001 --> 01:13:39.586 ancient myths and ancient characters permeate our culture. 01:13:39.586 --> 01:13:43.587 We watch football as somebody blows out his Achilles tendon, 01:13:43.587 --> 01:13:46.506 we're referring to a character from Homer. 01:13:46.506 --> 01:13:50.974 If he existed at all he existed 3,000 years ago. 01:13:50.974 --> 01:13:55.060 Ya know, and his only vulnerability was his heel. 01:13:55.060 --> 01:13:58.693 And because of that we're talking about an injury to a football player. 01:13:58.693 --> 01:14:00.611 It's amazing. 01:14:00.611 --> 01:14:05.080 So, a mythical world, obviously I can't reference Achilles, 01:14:05.080 --> 01:14:10.948 or Paul Bunion or Spider-Man, but has to have its own heroes, 01:14:10.948 --> 01:14:13.867 and its own legends. 01:14:13.867 --> 01:14:19.002 I try to put them in to give that flavor. 01:14:19.002 --> 01:14:24.205 I had a lot of, I don't know how many of you have read my latest Westeros book, 01:14:24.205 --> 01:14:26.271 'Fire and Blood'. 01:14:26.271 --> 01:14:28.855 [applause] 01:14:28.855 --> 01:14:34.273 'Fire and Blood' was a little different because it's not part of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' 01:14:34.273 --> 01:14:38.008 It's a fake history book, imaginary history. 01:14:38.008 --> 01:14:42.660 About the first 150 years of the Targaryen dynasty. 01:14:42.660 --> 01:14:47.580 It's written in world, it's written by archmaester Gyldyan at the citadel, 01:14:47.580 --> 01:14:52.865 three hundred years after many of the events which he is chronicaling. 01:14:52.865 --> 01:14:58.132 So like a real historian, like someone writing now about the American revolution, 01:14:58.132 --> 01:15:01.384 well he wasn't there for the American revolution he has to go back and look 01:15:01.384 --> 01:15:03.904 at primary sources. 01:15:03.904 --> 01:15:06.721 So did archmaester Gyldayn, and what you find out when you do that 01:15:06.721 --> 01:15:09.805 is that primary sources disagree. 01:15:09.805 --> 01:15:13.723 They have different versions of events, one person said it happened this way 01:15:13.723 --> 01:15:17.059 another person says no that never happened it happened this way. 01:15:17.059 --> 01:15:21.175 Archmaester Gyldayn trying to be a good historian is replicating all 01:15:21.175 --> 01:15:23.393 of the different versions. 01:15:23.393 --> 01:15:26.018 That was a lot of fun for me because I could play with 01:15:26.018 --> 01:15:28.245 the whole concept of history. 01:15:28.245 --> 01:15:31.579 History being told by the winners, history being cleaned up and 01:15:31.579 --> 01:15:35.048 made politically correct, or religiously correct, 01:15:35.048 --> 01:15:38.415 and I could present different versions of the various stories. 01:15:38.415 --> 01:15:43.502 I enjoyed that and I think some of my readers enjoyed that too. 01:15:43.502 --> 01:15:48.253 Particularly the version of history told by Mushroom the court fool. 01:15:48.253 --> 01:15:54.106 Who always told everything in the most sexual lascivious and shocking 01:15:54.106 --> 01:15:56.855 way possible. 01:15:56.855 --> 01:15:58.923 Usually with himself as the hero. 01:15:58.923 --> 01:16:01.307 EVE: And you have a history degree, 01:16:01.307 --> 01:16:02.991 so that's helpful. 01:16:02.991 --> 01:16:04.658 GEORGE: Well not a history degree, 01:16:04.658 --> 01:16:06.559 but a history minor. 01:16:06.559 --> 01:16:08.243 I love history, I read a lot of it. 01:16:08.243 --> 01:16:11.561 I'm not a historian by any means, I'm just a history nerd. 01:16:11.561 --> 01:16:15.246 EVE: So I'm going to give our final question 01:16:15.246 --> 01:16:19.247 to someone named Adam Prestigicomo, who wants to know, 01:16:19.247 --> 01:16:23.531 oh what up you're here, did I say your last name kind of right? 01:16:23.531 --> 01:16:26.716 Oh great, nailed it. 01:16:26.716 --> 01:16:31.036 Our good friend Adam wants to know, "what is something that makes you happy?" 01:16:31.036 --> 01:16:32.936 [applause] 01:16:32.936 --> 01:16:34.720 [laughter] 01:16:34.720 --> 01:16:41.074 GEORGE: There are a lot of things 01:16:41.074 --> 01:16:44.277 that make me happy. 01:16:44.277 --> 01:16:51.309 I love books, reading a good book makes me happy. 01:16:51.552 --> 01:16:55.717 I've been reading since I was a small kid I still read veraciously. 01:16:55.717 --> 01:16:59.659 I read a chapter or two from a book almost every night. 01:16:59.659 --> 01:17:03.094 Every once and a while I pick up a book where I read that chapter or two 01:17:03.094 --> 01:17:05.812 and then I have to read another chapter and another chapter and another chapter. 01:17:05.812 --> 01:17:08.725 I wind up staying up all night, I love it when that happens. 01:17:08.725 --> 01:17:11.892 I love good movies, I love good television. 01:17:11.892 --> 01:17:15.778 The kinds that get their hooks into me and I have to binge all on Netflix. 01:17:15.778 --> 01:17:19.778 I actually kind of hate the concept of binging but I find myself doing it anyway. 01:17:19.778 --> 01:17:21.480 [laughter] 01:17:21.480 --> 01:17:24.398 As my waste line will testify I love good food. 01:17:24.398 --> 01:17:29.400 Especially Greek food in Chicago, Opa Opa! 01:17:29.400 --> 01:17:34.534 Great barbecue when I'm in Texas. 01:17:34.534 --> 01:17:38.719 In New Mexico where I live, I moved to New Mexico in 1979 and I can 01:17:38.719 --> 01:17:42.370 never leave because I became addicted to green chille. 01:17:42.370 --> 01:17:45.854 Which you can really on get in New Mexico. 01:17:45.854 --> 01:17:49.423 Someone there knows the truth of what I speak. 01:17:49.423 --> 01:17:53.285 You'll probably all boo me for this but of course pizza in New York. 01:17:53.285 --> 01:17:58.894 EVE: It is what it is. 01:17:58.894 --> 01:18:04.063 GEORGE: So I love all that. 01:18:04.063 --> 01:18:10.899 And I love writing my own stories, particularly I love finishing them. 01:18:10.899 --> 01:18:15.567 [laughter] 01:18:15.567 --> 01:18:18.452 I actually don't love, I mean people say do I enjoy writing, 01:18:18.452 --> 01:18:20.952 EVE: No one likes writing. 01:18:20.952 --> 01:18:22.920 GEORGE: Writing is hard. 01:18:22.920 --> 01:18:24.204 EVE: Writing sucks. 01:18:24.204 --> 01:18:25.270 [laughter] 01:18:25.270 --> 01:18:27.037 GEORGE: I'm constantly questioning myself every 01:18:27.037 --> 01:18:29.254 sentence I put down I wonder whether its good enough. 01:18:29.254 --> 01:18:33.507 I reread what I wrote yesterday and I hate it. 01:18:33.507 --> 01:18:38.243 But when I actually finish a book, the rush that comes through me, 01:18:38.243 --> 01:18:41.177 it was easier to write short stories cause then I would get that rush 01:18:41.177 --> 01:18:47.596 every few weeks but now I get that rush every eight years or something like that. 01:18:47.596 --> 01:18:49.680 [laughter] 01:18:49.680 --> 01:18:55.233 It's a great rush, and I'm hoping to have it again in the relatively near future. 01:18:55.233 --> 01:18:59.701 When I finish 'Winds of Winter', I do know that the day after 01:18:59.701 --> 01:19:04.835 'Winds of Winter' comes out I'll get the first text saying, 01:19:04.835 --> 01:19:08.469 when is 'Dream of Spring' coming out? 01:19:08.469 --> 01:19:10.470 [laughter] 01:19:10.470 --> 01:19:14.171 So, ya know, these pleasures are temporary. 01:19:14.171 --> 01:19:17.958 There's a lot of things I love, I love the people in my life. 01:19:17.958 --> 01:19:19.842 I've been very fortunate. 01:19:19.842 --> 01:19:24.142 I have my wonderful wife Paris who unfortunately couldn't be with me 01:19:24.142 --> 01:19:25.510 on this trip. 01:19:25.510 --> 01:19:29.562 I have an amazing staff of minions who serve me. 01:19:29.562 --> 01:19:32.730 One of them, Sid is here with me tonight. 01:19:32.730 --> 01:19:36.197 Four or five others are at home, they try to keep my working, 01:19:36.197 --> 01:19:39.067 and try to keep the distractions at bay. 01:19:39.067 --> 01:19:42.567 I love my publishers David Munch, who didn't want me to come here. 01:19:42.567 --> 01:19:44.452 [laughter] 01:19:44.452 --> 01:19:47.620 And my editor Anne Groll, and my wonderful publishers. 01:19:47.620 --> 01:19:52.387 There's a lot of things that make me happy, thank you. 01:19:52.387 --> 01:19:55.421 [applause] 01:19:55.421 --> 01:20:02.691 EVE: Well, George R. R. Martin, 01:20:02.691 --> 01:20:10.811 it has made me very happy to have the chance to speak with you 01:20:10.811 --> 01:20:14.980 and I think I speak for a lot of people in the audience who share that sentiment. 01:20:14.980 --> 01:20:18.315 Please give one more round of applause to George R. R. Martin. 01:20:18.315 --> 01:20:29.800 [applause]