Quote:But more to the point, as I am dead and can no longer defend myself, let alone hire the appropriate team of insanely ruthless and expensive get-medieval-on-his-ass barristers, let us talk in a more general sense of the concept of plagiarism, lawsuits, unpaid royalties, honor, bald purloining, and derivation. Let us speak quietly and in long-forgotten tongues of White Walkers and Ring Wraiths, Mount Doom and The Wall, Targarians and Baggins’, Ned Stark and Aragorn Ellessar, dragons and dragons, kings and courtiers, Nazgul and wizards, Baratheons and Borimirs, Dothraki and pretty much throw a dart at any of my books at random. Good god, man, does no one remember my Undying Lands? Do they only remember the ludicrous “house of the undying?” manned by ridiculous magi in the preposterous walled city of Qarth? Not to mention every other possible shape and form of blatant and legally actionable thefting?

Ah, if only I could once again feel the cool hand of Galadrial on my neck. And perhaps her delicate but supple touch beneath the writing desk.

No matter.

As I once said, in the blackest of Black Speech:

Ash nazg durbatulûk,
Ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakatulûk
Agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

Let the usurper steal that! Hell, let his false and hollow quill scratch across store bought warg-parchment as he even attempts to translate.

Not to mention, and I feel a fair scoundrel even bringing this up since it is so plainly unjust, but where in Sauron’s name does George Martin get off, on top of everything else, embezzling my “R.R.”? It’s like someone stealing your kidneys. Or your sodden balls. Only the grossest charlatan would attempt such a thing. Let alone smugly collect worldwide royalties because of it.

But to the book itself: Crows? I am sorry, they do not feast. They pick and scavenge and cry out in their murderously human voices. Just as one, I would imagine, does on the subway whilst reading this drivel on a Kindle. Whatever in blazes a Kindle might be.

Alas, I can say but this; from the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be the blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.

And further, the headless can wear no crown.

So I tell you as firmly as I now stand here, or speak through you, or sprinkle my pixie dust or whatever the bloody hell it is that I’m presently doing; if I only held a fine gilded broadsword in my sinewy grip, I would raise it without a thought or shred of remorse, and in a single mighty stroke relieve George R. R. Martin of both his egregious initials and his empty head.

Let alone his agent. And his development deal. And a chance to cuddle in the director’s trailer with Amanda Peet while her husband is off stuffing the offal that is Martin’s prose through the magical deli grinder that turns it into a usable screenplay.

Furthermore….ah, why bother with this charade any longer? Okay, fine, **** it. I didn’t even read the book. But I did watch the entire first season of the show. You see, one thing they have in spades in the purgatorial nethers is television. In fact, it’s compulsory. So, yes, I watched every ********* episode.