This End Not An End Point

It’s May, 2009. Approximately four years after the release of A Feast of Crows, the fourth book in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice. Readers are getting antsy about Martin’s insistence on doing other things: editing books in his Wild Carda universe; writing stories that are not A Dance of Dragons; consulting on the HBO television series made from his work; writing blog posts all of the above, rather than working on the now overdue fifth volume which turns out to be two-and-a-half years away.

A phrase rolls across the internet, a little viral moment shared by booklovers: George RR Martin is not your bitch.

We know this, because Neil Gaiman told us so, responding to a fans question about what readers are owed when a series is plagued by delays and gaps the Martin’s series is. It’s still another two and a half years before A Dance of Dragons drops in June, 2011. The final two volumes are still forthcoming, nine years after the last release. Adaptations of the series have reached their conclusion, before the source material.

Martin’s readers hit the ragged edge and found themselves waiting, hoping, struggling. Sitting with a prolonged ellipsis, looking towards an uncertain future with no idea when the story may resume.

The ragged edge Martin leaves at the end of each novel is not so different from the cliff-hanger at the end of a comic book. It’s a waypoint on the character’s journey, not a definitive ending. Satisfying without being filling, enough to keep you satisfied until the next instalment lands. Even trade paperbacks, bringing together six or eight issues of an arc, typically end on a moment that’s pivotal without becoming a final climax.

If the ragged edge is part of the pleasure, what makes Martin’s readers so unsatisfied?

Part of the issue is definitely temporal: mediums that rely on long-term seriality have typically foregrounded when and where you can find out what happens next. Pick up the next issue in thirty day. Tune in for the next episode, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. The uncertainty of the ragged edge is mitigated by the firm knowledge of when it will be resolved, allowing the focus to shift to how and the pleasures of speculation.

Disruptions to those norms have typically erred on giving the readers control: binge watch this whole season of TV in boxed, or stream it on on day one; subscribe to get each issue as it comes out, or buy the trades to read whole arcs at once.

Books have rarely had that kind of trade-off, and Martin’s schedule is plagued by a lack of trust. Eleven years after the last release, with no firm date for the final volumes, even the hint that a new book is coming is met with a kind of ongoing distrust. We’ve been burned before, the fans mutter. Just tell us when it’s actually out.  

The other difference is structural. Martin’s series progresses towards an end-point, concludes once the Game of Thrones is played and the new kind is finally crowned. Meanwhile, Superman’s story has been ongoing since his debut 1938. Comic books will iterate on and on, leaving the current story arc behind. We’ll keep writing so long as you keep buying, and there’s value in putting out issues.

The default promise of the comic book serial is this end not an endpoint. There is always another issue. Another take on the character, another adventure to be resolved. Every happy ending is temporary. Every resolution can be undone in the name of another story down the line.

George R.R. Martin is not your bitch, but his series is framed as one big story told in seperate parts. The ragged edge feels like a broken promise, a void that leaves the tale unfinished.

And that’s compounded by the product you buy: each instalment a big, doorstopper novel that has weight and heft. A book just like any other, with the attendant promise that it will contain a whole story and a point of narrative climax.

The physical object signals intent, even if the contents diverge from the promise.