George R.R. Martin Excluded From Sci-Fi Convention for Failing to Fill out the Right Form

George R.R. Martin has a lot on his mind, and we’re not talking about his trademark fisherman’s hat. Literature’s most locomotive-driver-looking gazillionaire is a busy guy. So much so, in fact, that he just got snubbed by a sci-fi convention in Scotland, seemingly for being too busy to fill out an application form.

In a recent blog post, the A Song of Ice and Fire creator claimed he attempted earlier this year to contact organizers for the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), the largest annual gathering of science fiction and fantasy writers, artists, and fans. The festivities, held in Glasgow from Thursday, August 8 to Monday, August 12, usually include panels, workshops, and more.

Martin had some ideas about potential events, including a memorial panel for sci-fi author Howard Waldrop, who passed away in January. He wrote to Worldcon’s programming chair to discuss the details, but organizers for the convention have a strict protocol that applies to all. Anyone looking to make a proposal has to fill out the same online application form—regardless of whether they’re a world-famous author like Martin, who’s sold millions of books, or someone far less well-known.

“No phone number was forthcoming, alas, just a form letter with a link to an application and a warning that while I was welcome to apply, I could not be guaranteed a place on the [program],” Martin wrote. Undeterred, he wrote them a couple more times over the last several months, but still to no avail. (His insistence on using a DOS computer and a word processor program from 1987 may or may not have been part of the problem.)

Martin wasn’t delighted by this turn of events, telling fans: “I will be in Glasgow, attending the con, but whether you’ll see me, I don’t know. I am not on any programming. It is not for lack of trying, though.”

For Game of Thrones lovers, none of this should come as much of a surprise. The Hugo award-winning author has been working on The Winds of Winter—the penultimate book in the series—for roughly 14 years now, still with no concrete end in sight. (Speaking of, he also recently wrote, “When Winds of Winter is done, the word will not trickle out, there WILL be a big announcement … where and when I cannot say.”)

But as fans will tell you, he hasn’t been solidly working on The Winds of Winter the whole time, either. Sometimes, he gets distracted and accidentally writes different 700-page books that, while gratefully received because they add to the rich lore of the world of Westeros, crucially aren’t The Winds Of Winter. That’s where Fire & Blood came from—Martin was working on a companion volume to the main book series and accidentally wrote far more than he meant to.

Plus, when he’s not casually providing the basis for enormously expensive HBO shows, Martin’s critiquing them. He recently pointed out that House Of The Dragon—currently in its second season and in great form at the moment, full of big dragon fights and hideous betrayals—uses dragon sigils that aren’t technically accurate to Fire & Blood, the show’s source material. According to Martin, the sigils should feature two dragon legs rather than four. He griped that the incorrect sigils even “wormed their way onto the covers of my books, over my strenuous objections” and warned: “Ignore canon, and the world you’ve created comes apart like tissue paper.”

If you’re attending Worldcon this August, though, look out for a familiar-looking hat in the bar. Martin claims he’ll be checking out art and wandering around the convention but also intends to “hang out in the bar, drinking with friends both old and new.” And on the way to the convention, he plans to swing by the set of A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms, yet another show inspired by one of his works. Currently filming in Belfast, the show takes place between House Of The Dragon and Game Of Thrones and is based on the short story collection The Tales of Dunk and Egg (even more specifically, “The Hedge Knight,” the first novella). It premieres on HBO in 2025, but whether or not fans will have copies of The Winds Of Winter by then is still anyone’s guess.

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