Dear George R. R. Martin

I’ve just finished reading “A Dance with Dragons” and, like the previous books in the series, it was brilliant – gritty, devious, heroic, fantastical, compelling, page-turning, crude, sexy... you get the gist. No one does fantasy quite like you, that’s for sure. It was also nice to have Tyrion back in the story, as well as Jon, Daenerys and the little updates on Bran (who I’m most curious about), as well as a host of other great characters. A sign of a truly great fantasy is missing the characters after you finish the book and I miss them dearly. This is why I wanted to write to you.

WHEN is the next book coming out?

When you finished “A Feast for Crows” in 2005, you promised we’d get our fix of the rest of the characters next year – which I took to be 2006. Well here we are in 2012 and I’ve just read it. Now I appreciate it was published in 2011, but I actually waited until the soft copy came out, because I’d waited so long already, why rush out to purchase the hard cover version, which is painful to read? When I read hard cover books, it hurts my wrists holding the big tomes open, and my body as the sharp corners poke into my skin when reading in bed. Now you are an author of a calibre that I always buy in hard cover – pain and all – but not for this one... maybe for the next? Depends on when you publish it I suppose.

Understand that I am not being critical here, because I appreciate you have been a very busy man creating HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and well done on that. Not only have you given me an interpretation of the story different to my own imagination – and luckily I like your interpretation – but you have made fantasy appealing to a much broader demographic than before. I’ve been banging on at people for years about getting into fantasy, and every time I twist someone’s arm and they indulge, they are forever grateful I got them onto it – my husband is on that grateful list. So I believe you have done this on a much broader scale, which is a wonderful thing for writers of fantasy, and I’m also hoping it will create new fantasy writing talent for all of us to enjoy.

I am an avid fantasy reader, often consuming book after book after book for months on end. Sometimes I have to force myself to take a break and read something more “serious,” but it’s not long before I re-indulge in my fantasy addiction – hey, there are worse things I could be addicted to? My Dad got me onto fantasy more than 30 years ago, and I see it as one of his great gifts in my life – I love it and I love how it drives my imagination.

Suffice to say I am a huge fan of your work and you are definitely one of my favourite fantasy writers. But please, all I ask is don’t take too long to publish the next book? I don’t want to forget the story by the time it comes out – as I did with the last one and I had to re-read “A Feast for Crows” but I forgot the story before that too... One day I’ll read them all again.

In closing off, I felt compelled to ask you, on behalf of your adoring fans who have been with you since the beginning, please get that next bloody book out ASAP OK? Have we got a deal?

Keep up the amazing work.

Yours, without the bollocks

Andrea