I’ve never read George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire books. I know I should, because I like the show so much. As much as people hate on GoT showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, I truly think they believed that Martin would have finished the series by the time the show was concluding and that they could actually base the later seasons on Martin’s source material. At the very least, they thought/expected A Dream of Spring (the final book) to be close to done by the time the show was close to done. A Dance With Dragons came out in 2011, the same year the show started. People have really been waiting eight years to read Book #6, The Winds of Winter, all this time. Some of the book fans even created a theory that perhaps HBO was responsible for the lack of a new book – GOT actor Ian McElhinney claimed that Martin had already finished The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring but was waiting for the show to end. Well, Martin slapped that story down, writing this on his blog:
All of a sudden this crazy story about my finishing THE WINDS OF WINTER and A DREAM OF SPRING years ago is popping up everywhere. No, I am not going to provide links. I don’t want to reward purveyors of misinformation with hits.
I will, however, say for the record — no, THE WINDS OF WINTER and A DREAM OF SPRING are not finished. DREAM is not even begun; I am not going to start writing volume seven until I finish volume six.
It seems absurd to me that I need to state this. The world is round, the Earth revolves around the sun, water is wet… do I need to say that too? It boggles me that anyone would believe this story, even for an instant. It makes not a whit of sense. Why would I sit for years on completed novels? Why would my publishers — not just here in the US, but all around the world — ever consent to this? They make millions and millions of dollars every time a new Ice & Fire book comes out, as do I. Delaying makes no sense. Why would HBO want the books delayed? The books help create interest in the show, just as the show creates interest in the books.
So… no, the books are not done. HBO did not ask me to delay them. Nor did David & Dan. There is no “deal” to hold back on the books. I assure you, HBO and David & Dan would both have been thrilled and delighted if THE WINDS OF WINTER had been delivered and published four or five years ago… and NO ONE would have been more delighted than me.
I believe him? I don’t think he’s finished The Winds of Winter and I definitely don’t think HBO would have asked him to sit on finished novels. If anything, HBO AND his publishers are probably really torn up that they can’t synergize and monetize the books and the show together in the final season.
Which brings me to something I’ve been thinking about throughout Season 8… this show is ending with a whimper not a bang, clearly, and there are many fans upset with how little character development there is and how rushed everything feels. Do you think that will hurt the sales of The Winds of Winter and eventually A Dream of Spring? Do you think people will be like “well, now I know how it ends and it sucks so I’m not going to read it”? Or will MORE people read the final books because they want to reassess the final seasons of the show and get more context for certain plotlines and such? Basically, will a sucky end to the show hurt or help Martin’s books?
Photos courtesy of WENN.
That’s a good point-I think the original fans will read the books, but anyone who read them because of the show won’t. I imagine his publishers are not thrilled about the reactions to the last two seasons in combination with the delay.
I read the books prior to the show and no. .I’m good with not finishing the books. They took YEARS to come out and I just grew out of them, changed by book interest, am irritated that Martin took his readers forgranted( by not buckling down to do his job). I will be just fine with the show’s ending. I almost feel he is waiting for the show to end to see another person’s work completed, and what works/didnt storywise.
I started the books 14 years ago, and if he writes the last two I will read them. Many storylines are diferent, and the detail and backstory he creates is missing in the show.
However, I think he might not finish them. He wrote himself into a corner, and now he finds 20 storylines that have to converge in a believable fashion. He might be blocked, but after 8 years, it seems he just gave up and started writing other things -the fire and blood Targaryen things for instance-…..
omg he hasn’t even started a Dream of Spring. People are going to be waiting another 10 years for that one, lol.
I do think people will read the books, I think there are enough things that are different between the books and the show that people will want to see followed through, but I think if people think the show ending is completely ludicrous, the books may not have the impact they would have if they were released in a more timely fashion.
This reminds me so much of Robert Jordan and the Wheel of Time series. The waits between books got longer and longer, and he passed away before completing the series. A young author was chosen to complete the series (Brandon sanderson) and he absolutely knocked it out of the park. Said writer now focuses on his own work and he is PROLIFIC. Like, he releases 2-3 books a year and they are very, very, very good…and super long, so it’s not like he’s churning out kids books.
Anyone looking for reading recommendations- Wheel of Time series (14 books, Robert Jordan but the last two are Brandon Sanderson) -and- several series by Sanderson: Mistborn eras 1 and 2, Stormlight Archive, and he has a handful of other standalone books too all in the same magical universe called the Cosmere. Highly recommend to plug up the wait for the next GOT books. And honestly, they’re better than GOT to me.
I’ll look into your recommendation, Ive read all the fire and ice series and have been impatiently waiting for the last two. One of the reasons fans are stressing about the releaseof new books is ( not to be morbid)
Is George’s age. In addition, he hasn’t even finished the first one and his books are huge, and by huge I mean, wordy, dense, detailed long, long novels.
thank you for this rec!
oh man, my brothers read the Wheel of Time books and loved them. I have never tried them though, maybe I will give them a shot. I read the first two GOT books but then stopped (I had the first four, but we moved and I couldn’t find the third one, and refused to buy it since I knew I had it…..lol.)
Good to hear. I am currently working my way through the Robert Jordan series, currently on book 11 and really glad to hear that the last two are great. Robert Jordan’s writing is extremely dense and, in the earlier books, he seems to take forever to get anywhere but the story itself is fantastic.
ETA I will be reading the last books by George R R Martin, just to see how he would have finished the series rather than how it has ended now.
I also liked Mistborn… until I read an essay from Sanderson about why he wouldn’t support gay marriage. He’s actually suuuper religious and I really saw that with the (patriarchal) conclusion to the Mistborn series.
I don’t read his stuff anymore.
“he is PROLIFIC. Like, he releases 2-3 books a year and they are very, very, very good…and super long, so it’s not like he’s churning out kids books.”
LOL no one releases that many books without help. GRRM should just do what every other top tier author does and outsource to ghost writers to help him finish. Pay the GWs enough and they will happily keep their mouths shut about their part of the work.
LOVE Brandon Sanderson!
MISTBORN is so freaking good the first time through. Some of the shine is taken off on a reread, at least for me.
@Algernon – Sanderson works on multiple books at a time and does pretty frequent updates to his readers on what he’s working on and where he is in the process. I don’t see any reason to think someone who writes as their full-time job couldn’t churn out novels, especially if he knows the story already and just has to write it.
@Yoko_ohno – I’m really disappointed to read that and wasn’t aware of it.
@Runcmc .Also a big WOT fan myself
Are you looking forward to the adaptation that has now been sold to Amazon ?
At least they are starting the show knowing with all the source material in place and has a finish .
The blurb they put out when it was announced said the Eye of The World will be told mainly from Moraine’s POV of the journey to the Blight with the Emond’s Fielders
Dovie’andi se tovya sagain
Agreed Yoko. I wanted to get into Brandon Sanderson because I too read the WOT novels, but that essay he wrote on gay marriage really left a sour taste in my mouth. The world-building in WOT is incredible, but Robert Jordan wrote every female character the same way–super serious, usually exasperated because of some man’s antics, kind of shrew-ish… If I had a penny for every time he wrote a woman crossing her arms beneath her breasts and tugging on a braid, I’d be a rich man.
I’ve started reading this series close to 20 years ago and I can say that I will DEFINITELY be buying the next book. I’m pretty confident that the novels will be quite different from the show, just because of how many differences there are between the two (taking Lady Stoneheart as an example…) I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some major differences between the book ending and the show ending, assuming we ever get to read a book ending that is.
Also, anyone who “knows” GRRM knows that he hasn’t exactly been rushing anything. If memory serves it was something like 6 years between books 4 and 5, so yeah, I doubt he was sitting on books 6 and 7 because HBO asked him to.
Yeah the idea he’d sit on two books is nonsense. HBO would not ask that and his publisher would never permit it.
I am not going to read the final books because it has been so long between books I would have to re-read the entire series to recall the plot lines for the many, many characters who are still alive in the books.
IDK why his publisher has allowed him to be soooooooo slow in getting these final books out. I’m not criticizing GRRM’s pace, just amazed that he wasn’t forced by his publisher to get the books put out in time to synergize and monetize with the show. I definitely think people will lose interest. Unless GRRM comes out and vocally says he’s ending it differently. Then fans might flock out of curiosity.
There is no “allowing” him to take so long. The publishers have no control over it. Writers are artists and especially at GRRM’s level of success, he probably has been able to dictate the terms of any contract he has so he wouldn’t be in breach or have to return any advance (which he probably doesn’t have per his own choice as he has always written to his own schedule). What are his publishers going to do? Threaten not to publish the book if he doesn’t write on their schedule? LOL, they have no bargaining power at all since, as GRRM said, the books make millions and millions of dollars for them. If a publisher tried to play hard ball with him, all GRRM has to do is make one phone call and he would have a new, extremely excited, publisher lined up.
And he has been writing the side books in the mean time
I think GRRM is over it, tbh. It’s been years since his last book and he seems to spend most of his time at conventions and the lot.
I feel this too.
Agree and I don’t mind if he is. This saga is way too complicated to have a perfect satisfying ending so why not imagine the ending you want and let’s let the guy enjoy his retirement.
I’ve read he refuses to write during football season.
LOL, wow, imagine refusing to go to work during the football season?
On what planet do these people live?
The planet where they’re already rich and don’t have to work anymore.
I agree. At this point, he has no incentive to finish the books. He can bang on about millions of dollars all he likes but the guy is already richer than god. How much more money does he need?At this point it’s clear hed much rather collect royalties and appearance fees than do any actual work.
“it’s clear hed much rather collect royalties and appearance fees than do any actual work.”
LOL same.
When the show started I wondered if we were ever getting the final books because GRRM has essentially written himself into a corner with myriad characters and plot lines. There is no way to wrap the series in just books without killing everyone and that seems cheap and lazy.
Agreed. In my opinion he is waiting to see the series’s end to have some idea for the books. Ghost writers will do the work.
GRRM fed the ending to B&W years ago. He already knows how it ends.
He’s been writing a lot, just not always Winds of Winter. He has gotten sidetracked on a lot of ASOIAF-adjacent works.
Not to mention, these books are not normal novel length. They are about 800 pages long and densely packed with details. GRRM comes off a perfectionist and so it makes sense that he takes him time.
Finally, as someone mentioned, he’s always take a long time between books. He took 6 years to deliver one book even when he didn’t have the show and all the publicity around it to delay him. So I don’t think this length or time has indicated he’s given up. He’s written and released a few chapters of the new book so he’s definitely been writing.
You can feel the difference in quality between scripts based on Martin’s books and scripts that went past the books. So, just because of that, I think there will be considerable interest in future books but just not as much as the viewing numbers for the show.
I also think Martin will change what happens to some of the characters.
And that is my last post in here because I haven’t watched past S8 E1 and I don’t want to be spoiled!
@HOPE, I completely agree with you. I have read all of his books and even though the show was an absolute feast for the eyes, the books are better. I would love to read George’s finish to the books. And honestly, while I am not thrilled the books take so, so long I do really enjoy a quirky, unique individual. George makes his own strange rules and in a society of so many “shoulds” I kind of appreciate that.
He really epitomizes laziness and procrastination, doesn’t he?
He has been writing other books, restoring old theaters and contributing to arts projects in Santa Fe. He has interests beyond the SOIAF series, clearly.
I think he just got bored with the main story. He’s still writing on a side series in the same world as GOT, and he’s contributing creatively to the HBO spin-offs. I don’t think he’s lazy at all, he keeps up an active schedule of appearances, but I think he did lose interest in the “song of ice and fire.” I think this last season shows us why. I think he realized he walked into an inherently unsatisfying ending and he would just rather not finish than end his opus the way the show is ending.
Hasn’t he always taken up to ten years to finish a single book? I doubt anyone was expecting him to finish two in six years.
The books storylines are so different to where the show is at now, I found it confusing reading that first preview of Winds of Winter because I kept getting mixed up between the show and the books, who was still alive in print but was killed off on screen. I hope GRRM and I both live long enough to see the end of the book series but I’ll probably need to start reading from the beginning again… so maybe not.
HBO greenlit GOT in 2008. I believe they did expect he would finish the books, especially as, after the show first became popular, HBO thought they would air 10 seasons of GOT. Yes, it takes GRRM years to write a book, but he only has two left, one of which is partially done. I don’t think it’s unreasonable the people at HBO thought he could finish 1.5 books in a decade. As I said up thread, though, I think GRRM lost interest in the story, which is the real problem.
I don’t think GRRM will ever finish the books. Even if he actually tried to wrap up the series, the way he’s writing, there is no way he can finish up the series in just two more books, and him needing four more books is more likely than him needing just three more books.
Yes, i have read the others and will read them. I think many will read them, hoping for a different ending.
It won’t be a different ending, because he told B&W how it ends, but I hope the books have more nuance and better illustrate why certain things are happening. Dany could use some more shading as she goes mad, for one.
I started reading the books because of the show and really enjoyed them at first… but I’m dragging to get thru the fifth one, “A Dance with Dragons.” He’s just eternally adding new characters and sub-sub-plots that I find it harder and harder to care about (the dwarf Penny?) and I get the feeling it’s gotten too big for him to be able to rein in or something. I doubt I’ll feel motivated to read the next one or two, and I also doubt it’ll even be an issue, because I don’t think they ever really will come out at this point.
It’s the only book I’ve ever put down without finishing. I got to the point where I just couldn’t take it anymore and didn’t care about what happened to anyone because I couldn’t remember who anyone was hahaha
And I agree, I don’t think he is ever going to finish them. Maybe someone else will after he’s gone.
8 years later, I still haven’t finished A Dance with Dragons. I forced myself to finish A Feast for Crows. Just didnt think the ADWD or AFFC were very good. Not sure if I will read the final books. It’s been soooooooooooooooo long. Frankly, I dont think he’ll ever finish them.
I read the books before the series began and struggled with the darkness in them to the degree I’d have to stop reading for months before going on. I did finish them before the series launched, but I wasn’t pressed to watch. Then, my husband got cancer and died quite suddenly, and I couldn’t bring myself to watch the series for the first season or two. Eventually, I bought the DVD sets and caught up — loved loved loved it and binge watched it so that I could start season three with everyone else.
Back to the question, I don’t know if I’ll buy the next book assuming it’s published in my lifetime. GRiMM, I believe, lost a golden opportunity by dragging the completion of The Winds of Winter out so long. And, after the source material dried up and all D&D had to go on was GRiMM’s outline, the series grew less and less compelling. They’ve all lost my enthusiasm at this point.
I’m so sorry for your lost. The butchering of magical elements (Whitewalkers, Bran, warping, The Red priests and priestess and of course Jon Snow’s destiny) has left me with a sense of disillusionment and loss of faith that those elements were ever important. It’s like seeing the strings moving the muppet and then ignoring them to once again believe the muppet is moving by his own.
@ C -Shelll That is so incredibly sad. I can’t imagine the # of things I love and yet have to abandon if my partner died.
I wish you hope and healing….
I’m so, so sorry for your loss. I’m going through a bereavement too and I once made a pact that I wouldn’t kill myself till GoT was over, not because I was a super fan but because “curious as to who will win the Iron Throne” seemed as good a reason as any to stay alive.
And while I was waiting I fell in love so I guess things do happen for a reason.
You are all so kind and wonderful. Thank you for the well wishes.
As many posters have said better than I, all involved have lost significant fandoms because of neglect and/or incompetence. I’m just waiting to see who is the last one standing next week, then moving on.
I think the stupid end of the series will generate more interest in the books IF he repeatedly states that the end is different (I think he has)
Does this mean we’re can stop bashing the showrunners for what essentially has been a bait and switch?
These guys were hired to adapt his works for the screen, not create original material based on an idea. They did that for several seasons, now we’re blaming them because the game has changed.
All of Hollywood knows these are two different, equally challenging jobs which is why the Oscars have two categories for it.
GRRM fans got Thomas Harris’d. He’s about to hand you guys Hannibal Rising and you can’t accept it.
The actual writer of the series has struggled so much to end it that he’s taken 10 years (so far) to write the penultimate book and hasn’t even started the last one.
There are things I’ve been disappointed about in the series and a lot I think they could have done better, but they didn’t sign up to come up with the ending. I can’t even imagine that level of stress involved in that.
Right. If GRRM can’t bring his threads together, why are we big mad the showrunners aren’t doing it in the most graceful way either?
But admittedly, I like this last episode the more I think on it
And the excerpts he has released from the next one show him going off on more and more tangents.
I like the last episode. I think that even though the build up was short, it was foreshadowed enough that it didn’t ruin it for me. None of the characters’ decisions surprised me except one, but even that made sense even if it wasn’t what I wanted. And visually it was stunning.
Novels and TV shows/films are different mediums and it can be tricky to adapt a book for visual entertainment. Having read all the books except the last one in his A Song Of Ice And Fire series, I think the HBO adaptation is a dumbed-down version. Entertaining for sure, but the sex/orgies and violence are excessively gratuitous compared to the novels. Of course, this is intentional: attract the widest audience possible by appealing to the lowest common denominator. Also, I remember reading about an unnamed HBO producer who insisted that they include more orgy scenes and increase the female nudity.
This series is ending with a whimper because the showrunners are hacks. They succeed when they build on the source material by Martin. When they have to create their own plotlines and dialogue, as they are doing for the final season, their weakness shows. They cannot match Martin’s creative powers. These are the same 2 men who are developing “Confederate” for HBO, an alternate U.S. history where neither side won the Civil War. Really, was there public demand for such a show? Are they going to depict the Confederate States as misunderstood instead of wrong?
Not the same situation and not an adaptation from one medium to another, but the showrunners who reimagined Battlestar Galactica created an award-winning new series that was greatly superior to the original 1970s series (which was a cheesy ripoff of Star Wars anyway). The reason for the improvements was because the showrunners and the writers were consistently good.
I didn’t read A Dance With Dragons for the same reason Megan wrote above: Martin takes so long between books that you feel you have to reread the earlier ones to catch up with the latest installment. There are so many details and it’s easy to forget the dozens of subplots. I agree with other commenters – I fear he may not live to complete the last 2 books.
To be fair, Battlestar Galactica didn’t have the greatest ending either.
I have the feeling that Martin and HBO are pissed with D&D. This season is a complete mess (and that RT score for the last episode LOL)
I‘m almost over it. I loved the books and quit watching the show when the gap became too much. Now it‘s so long ago I would have to re-read everything and am afraid he‘ll just retell the show plot now. So … whatever.
Sadly GRRM probably won’t live to finish the books, the largest theory from the book-fans is that the publisher will get a ghost writer to finish it. I also believe that GRRM used GoT the show to A/B test endings as he did tell D&D which way the story was generally going to end up before they got this close to the end.
GRRM has said firmly during an NPR interview that his notes or any writings left related to GOT is to be destroyed by his estate/ or wife upon his death. He specifically used the example of avoiding the situation of a Ghost Writer who finished “The Will of Time” series. He views his characters as his babies. So I guess it’s in his will.
I’ve read all the books and the first three are outstanding. The fourth and fifth are…long-winded. However, now the the show is coming to an end, I’m even more eager to read the books because I think Martin’s ending will contain a lot more subtlty, complexity, and tie up A LOT more loose ends than the show. I’ve decided to treat them as two different entities, although they (the books and the show) started out as one in the same.
Martin is 100% capable of literary stalling without the help of anyone on this planet.
I don’t think we are right to armchair criticize D&D. I think they are doing a great job. I think people are just being whiney because it doesn’t fit with what THEY want to happen. Well, it doesn’t have to! I think people just like to bitch. About anything and everything. And I obviously enjoy bitching about people who bitch!
I thought the directing of the last ep was amazing!
Whatever else is happening with the writing, the directing has been amazing. This season *looks* incredible, the music is stunning, the performances are great. As someone who never had a favorite theory or cared much about the prophecies, I am happy with this season, except for how rushed it is. I would have liked a King’s Landing episode like the one we got at Winterfell before the battle there.
I think it’s fair to criticize their choice to rush the last 2 seasons. HBO wanted to give them 3 more seasons to complete this series. THEY chose to cram it into 2 half seasons. To me it says they want to move on instead of finishing something they signed up for. Whatever people feel about the show (And I don’t have a problem with the plots, rather the execution), it would say to me that I couldn’t trust them to follow through completely if something better came along.
That’s the thing though, this isn’t what they signed up for. They signed up to adapt the books (and did so brilliantly). Writing the ending is a whole different job (the ending that the actual author can’t even figure out). I can’t really blame them for wanting to be done with it at this point.
Those who are having issues with certain developments simply hadn’t been paying attention to all of the signs that were there. However, them short-changing this season isn’t helping. I agree with Lex up top, the over-all direction (and the score!) of the episodes have been fine but the plot has been sped up which doesn’t help the over-all story telling.
I think D&D absolutely deserve criticism for the pacing of the show.
*MAYBE SPOILERS? JUST PUTTING IT HERE JUST IN CASE EVEN THOUGH IT ALSO HAS JUST MY THEORY*
From the start it was clear to everyone reading the books that Dany vs Jon was inevitable from the start, the entire series is called Fire & Ice ofc.
I’ve always thought Jon was going to kill Dany or that the it would be something very devastating based on how the books were in terms of killing off charas. Dany’s chara in the books has always grappled with Dragon Dreams, an indicator that the person might be losing their mind as Targs who did end up cray, always had visions like that.
She also worries that she is losing her mind.
So in-between her own thoughts, and her disturbing habit of burning everyone regardless of the consequences, it’s very much foreshadowed that she was going to lose it by the end.
BUT because GRRM gave us per POV, including the dreams, the readers won’t likely have been that shocked when she burnt KL.
That is where D&D failed the most. Pacing her chara arc. They only gave limited dream sequences for Dany, as opposed to Bran’s. So by the time we see Bran becoming the 3-eyed Raven we expect it. But Dany’s mental demise is only spoken of by other charas, sometimes offhandedly, and so her suddenly spacing out in the aftermath of the battle against the Night King didn’t make much sense to viewers, as it def. didn’t in Ep.5.
I was ok with it, but only bc I read the books, but I understand why people are mad.
D&D should not have rushed her arc at all.
Same could be said for Jaime to a lesser degree who was always going to go back to Cersei.
Had D&D went ahead and gave us another episode or two or given us more of Dany’s dreams throughout the last 7 seasons, I think fan response would have been better as well as made the entire show richer for the story telling.
But otherwise, I personally still love the show. Still love Dany even though I’ve know she was going to be some type of antagonist, and that Jon & Dany would never get a happy ending.
I’m fine with GRRM not finishing the books. With all the plotlines he’s started it will be impossible for him to do so even if he lives to be a hundred. But dude needs to stop whining about fanfiction and calling it theft. Good grief, man, let the fans pass the time as they can waiting nearly a decade for the next book, it’s harmless fun and they’re not making any money off it. And I say this as an author from a tiny publishing house, with a full-time job and a kid, whose editor would blow a gasket if I took even two years between books, and who would be THRILLED if anyone wrote fanfic about my characters.
I bet he’s worried someone figures out a better ending that he can. I’ve always respected JK Rowling for her position on fan fiction. She’s said she is flattered that people want to do it, and is fine with it as long as its not commercial. But she wrote 7 books in 10 years rather than no books in 10 years, so that probably impacts her position on it haha.
It is actually better he isn’t finished. This will prolong GoT! We get the immediate show but then get to wait for the actual proper ending!!! So exciting!! Two separate endings! Woooo. This way it will be more thought out and all the stories will have proper conclusions
Also… GRRM… he has a team of writers helping… what is the effing hold up?!?!??!?!??!?!
He had better give them the outline to flesh out and finish the story should he die!
ETA sorry wrong thread!
I came to the conclusion years ago that he simply has no idea where to take his story. He wanted to do this huge Tolken world building but fell flat IMO. When the show aired even the writers expressed their concern if he would even finish his book series before the show caught up with the books.
I do not understand why people keep talking about the books having a different ending, GRRM told B&W how it all ends years ago. The books won’t end any differently, they will just have more detail about how the end comes about.
Yea I think the ultimate ending in terms of who sits on the throne will be the same, but the individual endings for certain characters will almost certainly be different, just because there have been some big plot differences in book vs show.
I think this is just wishful thinking by book readers. He’s not done. He may never be done. If he does finish the next book, I’ll read it. I invested too much time on reading the rest of the series to quit now. Plus the books are better and more satisfying than the show.
I don’t think major character deaths will change. I think the main characters who have died will die that way in the books, too. Rhaegal the dragon might be different, if only because Euron has the dragon horn in the books, and the show never bothered with that, but the thing in the red keep, for instance, I think remains the same.
I remembered watching one interview with him and Stephen king and George saying it was hard for him to get inspired or something along those lines.
It’s obvious this isn’t true. If they were written there’d have been source material to make the last season (and more) better.
The poor season will help the books. There’s no way the people who started with the books will give up on the books. They’ll want to know the “true” story. Meanwhile people who only watched the TV show might try the books to see if it salvages the story for them.