Il évoque également Tolkien... L'interview est ici.
(...)A few days before we spoke, it was announced that “A Dance With Dragons” would be published in July. Does that mean you’re done with the book?
George R.R.Martin :
It’s not actually completed yet. I’m still working on the last few chapters here. But I’m close enough so that Bantam felt confident in announcing a publication date.
Did you conceive of “A Game of Thrones” as a reaction to Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” novels?
George R.R.Martin : I always wanted to do something in epic fantasy. But not just to rehash Tolkien. I wanted to do something to make it my own. To some extent, the project was also a reaction to my own Hollywood career. I was out there for 10 years, from roughly 1985 to 1995. I was on staff on “The Twilight Zone” and “Beauty and the Beast” as a writer-producer, and then I did about five years of development, doing pilots for shows of my own and some feature film scripts. The theme of that whole period for me was, I would always turn in my first draft to whatever network or studio or producer I was working for and the reaction was inevitably, “George, this is great. It’s terrific, it’s a wonderful read, thanks. But it’s three times our budget. We can’t possibly make it. It’s too big and it’s too expensive.”