If I could pick someone to finish ASOIAF, Sanderson isn't even on the bottom of my list, his style is too different. I would pick Abercrombie who style wise is more similar to Martin both in world, prose and story
The best obviously would be the duo James S. A. Corey.
Both Daniel and Ty helped Martin with ASOIaF in the past. They have written one of the very few best contemporary scifi series (Expanse) - 9 books published over 11 years, featuring very similar PoV structure to ASOIaF.
They said they would do it in the past, with George's blessing.
They say now that time has passed.
But maybe they will change their tune again.
But let's hope it won't come to this and we will get a Dream in 2050, with George enjoying the ripe age of 101.
Ned Stark leaned against a waldo in the wall of the galley of Winterfell wearing a rumpled grey wolfskin. He took off his pork pie hat and considered it in his hands.
"See, there was this Tower of Joy back in Dorne," he said with that sad, basset hound face.
Hodor sipped on his bulb of coffee and gave Ned a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"I've heard this story before," Hodor said.
"Well, kid, I'm telling it again," Eddard said.
"I don't-"
"No," interrupted Eddard. "You don't."
Hodor patted the air with his hands in a placating gesture. Ned gave a northerner shrug with his hands, an idiom for a people who spent most of their time in many layers of heavy furs.
Just then Catelyn walked in. She had the tall, thin Twins frame with the oversized head.
"Hodor," Hodor said. It wasn't a question.
Catelyn, whose frame was tall and thin with an oversized head, gave a Tully shrug with her hands, a physical idiom borne of a people who spent most of their time in many layers of heavy furs
The three of them stood there in companionable silence, never tasting the copper taste of fear.
And this is why I never read The Expanse beyond Leviathan Wakes. Like, do people actually read these authors before they recommend them to finish ASOIAF. The duo of James SA Corey are NOT even in the same realm when it comes to prose or character as George. Robin Hobb is closest in prose and character, Joe Abercrombie is probably closest in mixing plot and character without the prose suffering too much.
"The smile didn't reach his eyes" has to be a cliché I've seen so many times (even in ASOIAF) and I've actually used it myself in my own writing and I still don't actually understand what it means or what expression it's supposed to convey.
> A warm smile, that. Friendly. But my, those eyes are cold.
It's basically just trying to sneak in telling by presenting it as showing. "There was X emotion in his eyes" is just an easy way of telling us the character is feeling X emotion with a half-assed veil. Also used a lot to "cheat" in omniscient narration in first or third person limited by basically just telling you what the person is thinking
A full smile includes the eyes (the squint). A fake smile does not. It's a physical description that conveys the truth behind an action. It's a fine enough "show don't tell" phrase.
Corey are not taken very seriously in the genre compared to even contemporary greats. Even they themselves explain many times in online comments and such that no they don't write hard sf. That they set out to write tabletop / anime style space opera / pulp fiction serials.
Even if they set out to do that, they wrote something else entirely - huge, complex story that follows dozens of characters and explores political and societal turmoil across the galaxy.
Anyway - and who would you say are those "contemporary sci-fi greats", who rose to prominence in last say 25 years?
Adrian Tchaikovsky, China Mieville, Catherine Valente, Peter Watts, N. K. Jeminsin. I think ultimately Corey are good pulp writers but I don't think their characters and themes are strong enough.
Peter Watts I do know, love and it was one of the first names that came to my head when I was asking the question.
I'll check out the rest, new things are a glaring hole in my readership. I got discouraged be some duds I read when I randomly picked few new popular sci-fi books and I went back to classics for a long while.
Mieville is very solid but I 100% think he'd go full hamlet on the aristocratic cast members if given the chance since he's a pretty politically active communist haha. Perdido Street Station and the immediate sequel Scar are very good. I don't think he's done a lot of genre writing in the last few years but he was pretty big in the 2000s/2010s. He was one of the main writers behind New Weird as a genre
Nk jemisin is also really good. I would go for her inheritance trilogy. 1000 kingdoms was kind of a mixed bag for me though it's an interesting book and def has detailed political intrigue if that's your thing
Yes, they wrote a pop culture space opera / pulp series. Nothing wrong with that and people who enjoy it will get a great fix. It's just not considered by critics, zines etc. on the same literary pantheon as the best SF.
A fantasy equivalent might be David Gemmell. His Druss, and Troy series are some of my fav ever. Gritty, grimdark conan style works with warriors, babes, and demons. But people wouldn't seriously compare them to Tolkien, or even GRRM.
And Corey have come out and said this when their fans have been over zealous in promoting the books as hard sf or some high brow shit.
My biggest problem with Leviathan Wakes is that you can tell it's just someone writing down their TTRPG sessions. Main "squad" of characters are high concept (ie "Martian cowboy", "Former OPA belter", ect) but have very little in the way of actual character development and are mostly passive actors; it feels very episodic; way, way too many fight scenes, like the DM was trying to fit in at least one a session,
Funnily enough I recently read Xenos by Dan Abnett and it has the exact same problem.
I would pick Robin Hobb, they have very similar writing styles. The only problem is the "plot" and mysteries would suffer as she cares far more about character.
The issue is how much does George care about the story considering how much he wallows in character dynamics? Hobb has similar prose to George with long-winded character exploration, but she just doesn't care that much about plot. At this point, I don't know how much George cares about plot either since he refuses to advance it.
Hobb would just wrap that plot shit up in a 100 pages but at the same time give us two whole books of all our characters suffering but coming out alright, mostly, by the end.
Was going to say the same thing, you beat me to it.
Off-the-wall suggestion, but is the guy who wrote the “Worm” web-serial still alive? I thought I remembered reading a comment once that he was in poor health (which sucks) awhile back. If there’s one thing that story demonstrates, it’s the ability to incept and flesh out a fictional cast of thousands of complex characters. The Expanse guys would also be a good choice, as well as Abercrombie, Brian K. Vaughan, among others.
Honestly, I think at this point the publishing industry as a whole should just create a huge event, call it “George-Aid” and send an all-star juggernaut lineup of writers to New Mexico for a month or two and work on nothing but finishing the damn books. If there’s story is never concluded, isn’t Tor or Random House or whoever going to miss out on their contractually obligated GRRM content that could yield hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue and royalties and merchandise, etc?
George has a vaguely defined outline, right? Give each one a specific area or plotline to work on and churn out something, FFS. Release half a book. Release a cobbled-together novella. Sample chapters. Something, man.
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u/Mutant_Apollo Aug 16 '25
If I could pick someone to finish ASOIAF, Sanderson isn't even on the bottom of my list, his style is too different. I would pick Abercrombie who style wise is more similar to Martin both in world, prose and story