Entertainment / George RR Martin 5 Writers Even Slower Than George RR Martin JRR Tolkien, Junot Diaz couldn't match pace of Game of Thrones books By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff Posted May 11, 2014 1:40 PM CDT Copied This publicity image released by HBO shows Peter Dinklage, left, and Sophie Turner in a scene from "Game of Thrones." (AP Photo/HBO, Helen Sloan) Fans are impatient for George RR Martin's next installment in A Song of Ice and Fire, the book series behind Game of Thrones. But instead of getting on his case, let's consider some authors who take even longer to write a book than he does. Yohana Desta offers a list at Mashable: Junot Diaz took 10 years to write The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; fortunately, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his efforts. Pat O'Shea spent a decade on the kids' book The Hounds of Morrigan—which, to be fair, is 688 pages. JRR Tolkien worked on the Lord of the Rings trilogy for 16 years, compared to Martin's nine years for the first three Ice and Fire books. Michael Crichton put 20 years of work into Sphere, which is 544 pages. Michel Faber spent about that long on The Crimson Petal and the White, though it's almost twice the length of Crichton's book. Click for the full list. Or for more Game of Thrones, see what the show's stars look like in real life. (More George RR Martin stories.) Report an error