Hot off the momentous season finale of HBO’s House of the Dragon, author George R.R. Martin stopped by The Late Show Tuesday night. He was ostensibly there to promote his new illustrated history of the Targaryen dynasty, but in an extended chat with host—and fantasy fanatic—Stephen Colbert, he covered a lot more ground than that.
It was more than 10 minutes into their talk that the conversation turned to how dark fantasy and science-fiction storytelling has become as it relates to the “dystopian” state of the world. Martin admitted that he is becoming more and more pessimistic in recent years, especially compared to how optimistic he felt about humanity in his youth.
“Suddenly nuclear war seems more and more feasible again,” he said ominously. “It’s back there. We may have a nuclear war.” But in science fiction, Martin explained, even in the wake of nuclear annihilation, “there would always be some good people who would get together and they would reinvent civilization, and optimism was still there even if the setting was terrible.”
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“Is it still there?” he asked. “Can we be optimistic about climate change? What are we going to do if Putin actually does use nuclear bombs?” Then, to applause from the audience, he added, “I wish I had a dragon I could fly to the Kremlin!”
Martin struck a somewhat more optimistic note about the future of his own work earlier in the interview when Colbert joked that he was “legally required” to ask about the status of The Winds of Winter, the long-delayed next installment in the Game of Thrones saga. And this was after the pair opened the episode with a charming bit about how the host had foolishly enlisted the notoriously slow writer to pen that night’s monologue.
“I am making progress with The Winds of Winter,” Martin insisted. “I think it’s going to be a very big book,” he added, revealing that at more than 1500 pages it will likely be longer than any other book in the series. With some prodding from Colbert, he estimated that he is about three-quarters of the way there.
“So, 10 years to go 75 percent of the way through means…?” Colbert inquired.
“That’s depressing, that’s depressing,” Martin replied.
“So three more years,” the host suggested. But his guest didn’t make any promises.
