Welcome to Australia!
Thankyou, it's good to be here.
so much of the Game of Thrones universe is about that brutality of war,
and world in conflict,
but I was curious to discover that you
as a young man, were a conscientious objector to Vietnam.
So what is it about the brutality of war then that fascinates you?
War is a huge subject for anywhere.
As long as we keep having wars I think writers will keep writing about wars.
It would be nice to arrive at a date where we had no more war,
maybe I would be less interested in writing about war.
I don't think that day is going to come in my lifetime.
My feeling on writing about war in a fantasy context is that
if you are going to write about it, you have to treat it honestly.
And you have to show all sides of it.
"There are brave men knocking at our door. Let's go kill them!"
So how does it change your writing, knowing that
there is this TV show catching up with you?
I am conscious of that - I've said sometimesI feel like a guy laying tracks for the railroad.
And I'm laying the tracks as fast as i can, but I can see the locomotive coming up behind me.
I can see the smoke, andI can hear the whistle echoing through the hills
that's coming toward me, so I better keep laying that track.
But, when i go into my office, and i turn on my writing computer,
all that vanishes, and it's just me, and the characters, and the world of Westeros
and the words.
"It's a thousand leagues from here to the wall.
And winter is coming".
Is it true that you have a superfan who knows your universe so well that
occasionally you can rely upon them to give you information about your own world?
Sure, two of them. Elio M. García and Linda Antonsson in Sweden.
They do the Westeros website.
How does htat conversation go?
"This character, Bill... did i ever say what colour his eyesc were?"
And they know?
"Elio will always go, 'yes! on page 13 of book 4, you said that his eyes were grey-green'.
That's insane!
I'm very bad with eye colour. I can't rememeber people's eye colour.
'Sit down, Podrick. We're going to need details.
Copious details.'
You haven't made it in popular culture until someone makes a porn parody of your work...
and you have made it, because Game of Bones exists.
They're calling it a Game of Bones.
And that's the best they could come up with?
I know, right? I mean, I could have come up with something better.
According to you, it's not dirty enough. Is that true?
The producer of it was talking about it,
on eliminating the incest, saying 'we don't do incest. It's too shocking'.
"I am the MILF of Dragons!"
So I just found it ironic that my books have something in them
that's too dirty for porn.
"Perhaps it's time for the King of the North to get what he deserves, down south'.
I mean, a blow job".
"Oh, cool!"
The fan reaction, particularly to the TV show, has been interesting
reacting to the Red Wedding episode of the last series,
Robb!
Were you prepared for that to happen?
I knew the Red Wedding reaction would happen because it happened already,
it happened 13 years ago when the book came out.
The only thing I didn't anticipate is that
people would film other people reacting to it.
That's a sign of the new age - making your girlfriend cry on youtube.
'Let's show the whole world how upset they were!'
What's the weirdest fan reaction you've ever got?
Most people bring their books to be signed,
but I also have people have me sign various parts of their body.
I suppose the strangest one was the guy who had me sign his arm
and then told me he was rushing off to his favourite tattoo parlour
to get my signature permanently tattooed
so i hope he continues to like the books!
Otherwise he's going to have the signature of someone he doesn't like written on his arm.
But fans do rock up to your house, right? With six-packs of beer and just want to hang out.
How do they known about the six pack of beer?
Yes, Yahoo published a picture of my house
which I'm still annoyed about
and immediately people started showing up at my front door.
"where are my dragons?"
Here is Australia, many people download the TV show
and they do that partially because Foxtel makes them wait a day.
What would you say to people to encourage them to wait?
I don't know. I'm of a generation that waited for everything.
If I wanted to see a movie, I couldn't buy a DVD, I had to wait until it was on television.
Now the current generaiton doesn't want to delay their gratification, not a day
not six months.... not six minutes.
It's changing the whole world.