There is a particular cruelty to the phrase 'winter is coming' when it has been coming for more than a decade. And yet, here we are again: readers scanning the horizon for The Winds of Winter, while George R.R. Martin — very much alive, thank you — sounds like a man trying to keep his balance on a moving walkway that never stops.
Martin is 77 now, and he is tired of strangers treating his pulse like a publishing deadline. 'I never thought I'd live to be 77. I'm old, so I have some old-people stuff. My lower back hurts sometimes. I don't like to stand around. But I feel OK,' he told The Hollywood Reporter, before offering the sort of blunt, black-humored line that should have ended the chatter years ago: 'Maybe you should make that your headline: "George R.R. Martin Is Not Dying."'
