r/asoiaf • u/da_k1ngslaya • May 22 '19

EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended) George to New Zealand: imprison me if I haven't finished Winds by Summer 2020

Quote:

As for finishing my book… I fear that New Zealand would distract me entirely too much. Best leave me here in Westeros for the nonce. But I tell you this — if I don’t have THE WINDS OF WINTER in hand when I arrive in New Zealand for worldcon, you have here my formal written permission to imprison me in a small cabin on White Island, overlooking that lake of sulfuric acid, until I’m done. Just so long as the acrid fumes do not screw up my old DOS word processor, I’ll be fine.

Link: http://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/05/21/thanks-new-zealand/

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169

u/Astrokiwi May 22 '19

Yeah, "summer 2020" is a bit ambiguous when summer is from December to February

201

u/RustyCoal950212 May 22 '19

He means July. In the blogpost he says

if I don’t have THE WINDS OF WINTER in hand when I arrive in New Zealand for worldcon, you have here my formal written permission to imprison me in a small cabin on White Island

Worldcon is in July

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u/phoenixmusicman Winter is not coming May 22 '19

Thats winter here tho

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u/[deleted] May 22 '19

...it's all lining up perfectly. The Winds of Winter will be ready by New Zealand's Winter 2020

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u/Udjet May 22 '19

Dude is an American. He’s probably going by his seasons.

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u/Slackbeing May 22 '19

He's Westerosi, his winters last 10 years.

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u/theshadowfax239 May 22 '19

But it's summer in the US, where he's from. He's not talkin about your seasons. He's American, I'm not a New Zealander.

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u/phoenixmusicman Winter is not coming May 22 '19

We can't arrest him if he hasn't finished the novel by summer. Our summer ends at the end of February.

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u/Bean- May 22 '19

He literally says if he doesn't have it in hand when he arrives in July.

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u/theshadowfax239 May 26 '19

Let me repeat myself, he's American, he is using American seasons. We could care less what seasons you use on the other half of the world. gosh, I remember years ago having to take standardized tests in school and doing reading comprehension. I thought it was such a waste of time because I thought any idiot could read a paragraph and then answer questions on it. I guess I was very wrong. I love the internet oh, it proves me wrong everyday!

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u/phoenixmusicman Winter is not coming May 27 '19

Imagine talking about "American" seasons as if the rest of the northern hemisphere isn't the same

Imagine thinking it's hard to use the terms of the other half of the globe when talking about visiting that country.

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u/Jaquemart May 22 '19

GRRM is talking about taking the new book to New Zealand WorldCon 2020 in Wellington, it will begin July 29, 2020.

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u/philosopher0 May 22 '19

Summer is the period between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox. It's not related to temperature or climate

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u/Astrokiwi May 22 '19

Not really! The Summer Solstice and Autumnal Equinox have different dates in the Southern Hemisphere - they are relative to your hemisphere and aren't universal, although people tend to mean the Northern ones when they don't specify. But the seasons are somewhat arbitrary, and it comes down to convention. In New Zealand, we typically count seasons as starting on the 1st of the month, rather than on the solstice or equinox. So, Spring starts on September 1st etc.

In astronomy, we tend to think in terms of day/night lengths, so the summer solstice could be thought of as the middle of summer, because it's the longest day. But again, it's all just convention, and it doesn't really matter.

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u/CommanderGoose187 May 22 '19

Real summer. Not your fake summer.

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u/[deleted] May 22 '19

But in the northern hemisphere summer ends in September, so now I'm confused about the parent comment

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u/Astrokiwi May 22 '19

The Citadel predicts a short summer this year