George R R Martin misses the date to keep his books ahead of the TV series

Apparently on New Year's Eve two things became impossible

Because notice of the exact date of the referendum on Britain's EU membership was not given, it became impossible to hold it before the end of June 2016 without breaching Electoral Commission Guidelines.

And because George RR Martin did not complete the latest novel in his "A Song of Ice and Fire" series by 31st December, it has become impossible for the book to be published in time for the events in it to appear in print before they begin to be shown onscreen in the "Game of Thrones" TV series.

(The Television show based on the books has taken the name of the first book in the series rather than that of the series of books.)

So people like me who want to read the books first will have to get the TV series on DVD or Blu-Ray and carefully not watch them until we have read the relevant book. Which may be an interesting thing to manage without picking up spoilers, but never mind.

Inconvenient as this is, I would greatly prefer that George RR Martin takes the time to get the novels right than try to rush them and not do the sort of high quality job which is the best of which he is capable.

Comments

Jim said…
Actually its not possible to hold it before November.

this is due to The Electoral Commission which recommends a six-month gap between passing of the law and the start of the referendum campaign. If then the referendum campaign includes designation, the combined campaign period would need to be four months. Four months plus the six-month gap gives us the ten months.

though its unlikey we will see it before Autumn 2017, this year will all be the media wrongly reading the runes for an earlier vote, and stating how DC bottled it.

Exect to see the referendum Autumn 2017 when the colleagues will allow DC to present "the British option" (associate membership by another name) as his new fantastic idea, and great victory.
Chris Whiteside said…
Interesting point.

The exact wording of the Electoral Commission recommendation was

"We continue to recommend that best practice for future referendums is that all legislation should be clear (whether by Royal Assent to a Bill or the introduction of regulations to Parliament for approval) at least six months before it is required to be implemented or complied with by campaigners, the Chief Counting Officer, Counting Officers or Electoral Registration Officers."

Royal assent was 17th December. I assume that the people who think a June referendum is possible are adding six months to that date.

I think however that the Commission is saying that returning officers etc need six months of all the rules that are going to affect them and that this will include the date plus any additional regulations.

Which rules out June 2016 even though some people whose view I normally take seriously still appear to think it's possible. I think they are wrong.

If the EU does a deal by the end of February and the government has any necessary further regulations ready to present to parliament they might just be able to manage a September or early October date, and I think that's as close to Winter as they would risk going.

So I think Spring 2017 is more likely. However I would not bet my shirt against your Autumn 2017 date being right.
Chris Whiteside said…
Worth a thread of its' own hence new post :-)

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