Is This Good News Or Bad News For 'GoT' Fans?

Fans of the hit television series Game of Thrones, based on the hit series A Song of Ice and Fire, might have a hard time deciding exactly how to feel about this. According to George R. R. Martin's blog, Martin won't be participating in Game of Thrones Season 6. The author, who usually delights fans by writing at least one episode of the HBO show per season, declined to participate in Season 5, and now, apparently, Season 6 is also a no go. However, those of you who are getting ready to sob into your cereal might perk up at the reason behind the author's withdrawal. He can't afford to devote those six weeks to anything other than Winds of Winter — the next novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Yay?

"After wrestling with it for a month or so, I've decided not to script an episode for Season 6 of Game of Thrones. Writing a script takes me three weeks, minimum, and longer when it is not a straight adaptation from the novels," Martin wrote on Friday. "...Writing a Season 6 script would cost me a month's work on Winds, and maybe as much as six weeks, and I cannot afford that. With David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Bryan Cogman on board, the scriptwriting chores for Season 6 should be well covered. My energies are best devoted to Winds."

Along with this came more bad news: Martin has cancelled a couple of his appearances at conventions, such as the World Fantasy Convention and San Diego Comicon. Of course, the reasoning remains the same. The man just can't work on a novel, and edit a novel, and work on some more upcoming television concepts, and still be everywhere at once, you guys. In his own words, he is "busy." So, really, this news is the kind of thing that feels really bittersweet. We might be losing Martin in one place (cough, Season 6, cough), but that just means we'll get our hands on the next book in the series a lot faster — which means even more Game of Thrones in the future. Surely that future payoff is worth our present disappointment?

Of course, it might be hard to tell that to the people who bought tickets to San Diego Comicon just for the chance to meet Martin, but, hey. Winds of Winter isn't just going to write itself. As Martin rightfully points out, the show has more than capable writers already, who can handle writing every single episode in Season 6 just as well as they handled writing every single episode in Season 5. The rest of us will just have to deal with it until we can be the first in line at the bookstore to get our hands on Winds of Winter — whenever that will be.

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