Science Fiction

I love Sanderson, he is my favorite fantasy author, and you are correct about his marvelous job finishing WoT, but he is just not the right fit tonally for ASOIAF. He doesn't even write swear words, and GRRM's books are fairly liberal with the fucks and the cunts. I would however be in favor of Joe Abercrombie or someone with a bit of a darker bent to their writing taking over if needed.

I hear he plans to bring in Patrick Rothfuss to pick up where he left off and also not finish the story.

Brando Sando has answered the question a bunch of times, and said he's not interested at all. Also, GRRM previously said he would never allow it to be finished by anyone else. Who knows? Maybe the publisher will force it.

I would suggest that it was the broad outline of the same ending he planned and shared with DnD just implemented badly. He's probably more pissed that they made his ending so unpopular by completely botching the landing as he now can't use that same ending without risk of rejection. I still maintain it would have sucked as an ending even if it had been implemented at the same standard as series 5, but what we got made it far far worse.

The reason he hasn't finished (or isn't even trying any more) is because he's written himself into a corner. There are a lot of loose ends and parts that don't make sense, and that's not even counting the parts that the show left out!

He probably felt dread, because he was probably hoping that they'd fix some of the mistakes he made, and make writing the book simpler.

He probably couldn't see the tv due to the big pile of money sitting between him and the screen covering his view.

I think he was fine with it, watching from his hot tub filled with money.

rather than the far more likely situation of rewrites and editing.

At this point that feels like the bigger assumption

Or credited writers even...

Who wouldn't want to work with him to finish ASOIAF for a co-author credit?

Or a mention in the foreword even...

Or better yet... The pagecount on the next book is somewhere around 1,100 pages at last count which is more than enough to publish.

Find a natural breaking point around 700 or 800 pages, go to print and reset the clock.

Then you're already up 300-400 pages on the next book.

Pride mostly.

There might also be some contractual obligations for him to be the one to right it. Also, he probably doesn’t have a clue where to take them.

I'm actually surprised he was still working on them two years ago.

Or just hire a ghost writer. Nobody needs to know and even if it comes out, nobody would care.

Eventually winter came and they all rolled over and died. The end.

George R. R. Martin

With Brando the Mando Sando it boils down to work ethic and process.

He has said in lectures that while writing a first draft, an author should be able to push out a thousand words an hour. That's pretty reasonable if you're a decent typist and you're just focusing on getting rough ideas down. Once he's got a draft, he throws it to his editor(s) who gets to work. If he's gotten a draft back from them with notes, he gets on that. Otherwise, he's cranking away at the next first draft.

The man is prolific because he's got his team dialed in and treats it like any other job. He shows up with a plan and executes.

D&D's biggest problem is they did a good job adapting pre-existing material, but couldn't adapt a PowerPoint deck.

I always felt that one of the main problems with GoT/ASOIAF was that it was a nuanced, political fantasy with top class world-building, but the overarching plot was pushing everyone towards a massive final confrontation (or 2 really). There was not really a good way to resolve the confrontation without a massive battle (or 2). So the ending was always going to have to move away from what made the series interesting/successful (book and TV), i.e. plot, characters, intrigue, shades of grey.

There were other problems as well, but that was something baked into the whole series by GRRM, and I'm not sure he can really find a way to do it differently. He might come up with a different outcome of the final confrontations, but it still has to be done with epic battles.

He's never finishing the series. He's going to be 76 in a month, he still has probably most of Winds to finish after 13 years, the math doesn't work out to getting A Dream of Spring, let along the fact that this story is way too big to satisfactorily conclude in 2 books at this point, and even if it could be done it would be complex and difficult and take longer than usual.

I'm irrationally still hopeful we get Winds. But that is it.

He should just get Brandon Sanderson to finish it for him prehumously

Twist the knife with that God awful last few seasons to the show, too. Really kill any good will you had with your fans.