In a recent blog post, Martin confirms that his beast, long slaved over, is finally complete:
Instead of continuing work on the novel, pushing back the release date even further, I spoke with my editor and felt the best course of action would be to split the novel in half. What was once one novel is now three: A Feast for Crows, A Flank of Beef for Brienne and A Dance with Dragons.
In the spirit of the original split, I’ve moved many of the characters to A Dance with Dragons, including Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister. A Flank of Beef for Brienne will focus solely on the title character, with cameos from that hooker in King’s Landing and the horse Bran rides around on.
A Flank of Beef for Brienne will be released September, 2011 and will contain work that has been completed for three years. By my estimate, it will ring in somewhere around 900 pages.
Haha.
April Fools!
But, the real trick here isn’t the lame attempt at a George R.R. Martin joke, but that you thought I seriously considered it a good, original April Fools Day gag. It’s not. It’s lame, and sure to be one of many jokes proclaiming that A Dance with Dragons is done. Guess the jokes on you.
Oh my goodness, you shouldn’t do that a person. I actually bought it for a second before I finally read the post…
You had me until “A Flank of Beef”.
I especially like the part about “will contain work that has been completed for three years”.
Wow. I went through a whole range of emotions there, from disinterest to ‘oh’.
Damn you! You made my day, up until the point I saw the “blog post” and started laughing.
I still think we should have tried to send a fake ARC or manuscript copy to Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist…
OK you got me – good one
Fake or not, it couldn’t be as good as what Robert Stanek writes, no? ;)
Going around to my morning blogs, I asked myself, “What would be the most obvious April Fools gag that Dribble of Ink could possibly post? Of course, that Martin’s book was complete! But, he’s far more creative than that, he’ll come up with–oh. Well, then.”
I’d still read it.
@Ink – But that’s exactly the joke!
Hehe, I know. It was more a smirk on the gullibility of the rest of the commenters!
My joke kinda fell through, though, because I was the only one lame enough to go with such an obvious gag!
Love it. That was much more creative than the usual april fools joke.
At first I had this sharp intake of breath as I read the title of the post, a gasp if you will, then I realized what day it is. Shit. Stop playing with my emotions man!
It’s alright, man, we still like you.
But, but . . . I didn’t get to your blog until today . . .
No…the joke is still on George, unfortunately.
Heh, I didn’t fall for that. GRRM’s journal is on my daily check before Dribble of Ink, I’m afraid, and Martin said he’d announce the finishing of Dance on his blog first. But there was nothing. :)
That was really cruel. I was doing a happy dance until I read “Flank of Beef”.
Not cool.
Not at all.
Well I almost sprayed a mouthful of tea out all over my laptop when I saw that blog post title. It was such a letdown reading the rest of the post. Oh well….
I actually moved on from this author, I gave his books to the used book store and canceled the ‘pre-print’ order a heck of a long time ago, think anyone who waits more than 2 years for a release date on a book is crazy – by the time it’s release the made for TV will have been released. Aren’t you fed up with ‘I’ve made progress’ or ‘will release in fall of ????’ excuses?
My Breath stopped… and then continued again.