No, no! Don't you know that every ASoIaF fan has, by the mere act of reading the extant books, obtained a mortgage on Martin's future writing? That he owes each and every one of us the rest of the books in the series ASAP, and that if he for whatever reason is unable to deliver, he will majorly owe us (even from beyond the grave) for the YEARS we have WASTED and the DOZENS OF DOLLARS we have spent on the older books, waiting in vain?!?<p>... The above is a zero-exaggeration paraphrasing of *many* so-called ASoIaF fans' ridiculously entitled views of Martin's work (including elsewhere in this discussion). People express this anger in different ways. Some do what I mention above. Some take the more passive-aggressive route of constantly posting about how Martin needs to lose weight for his health, or "please stop watching football and start writing", or "please stop going to conventions and start writing",[1] or "hope he finishes the books before dying". As if such creeps are actually concerned about Martin's well-being; if they could snap their fingers and have the entire series completed tomorrow at the cost of its author dropping dead at once, I know what 90% of them would choose.<p>ASoIaF is a brilliant series, one of the masterpieces of the past 20 years. If Martin were to die tomorrow I'd sympathize with his wife, be glad I had the chance to read five remarkable books and watch the TV series and, yes, be sad to not read the end of the series. I'd not, however, be angry at him/God/the universe for dying before giving us more. They're great novels, but at the end of the day they're just that, novels.<p>[1] Yes, there are people who have posted both of these things on Martin's Livejournal site