George R.R. Martin published five Song of Ice and Fire books between 1996 and 2011. Since then: nothing. The Winds of Winter has been “in progress” for well over a decade, past multiple deadlines Martin set for himself in public and then missed. HBO ran out of source material, finished the story without him, and delivered an ending large parts of the fanbase still consider a disaster, one that could have been avoided if the books existed to guide it. Patrick Rothfuss is arguably worse off. The Wise Man’s Fear came out in 2011. The Doors of Stone has no release date fourteen years later, and Rothfuss spent part of that gap running a charity livestream fans felt mocked by how long they’d been left hanging. Into that record steps YouTuber Daniel Greene with a video that isn’t a reckoning. It’s an apology tour on Martin’s behalf.
