Have you ever reached a point when someone has worked your last nerve and made you lose your religion? Of course you have. Likely we all have at some point. Maybe it's your controlling blameshifting micromanaging boss who tells you for the fifteenth time to do something which you already did. Maybe it's a spouse or significant other who just HAS to have the last word in an argument and simply won't let sleeping dogs lie. Maybe it's someone smoking or spitting after you've asked them not to do that around you. Maybe it's a devious work rival who patiently waits until the department meeting with upper management to publicly ask you a question which is solely designed to make you look bad in front of the big shots. Maybe it's a child in the back seat who asks you "are we there yet?" every twenty minutes on a four hour car ride. Maybe it's a relative or alleged family friend, who upon the very day of a loved one's death has the gall to ask you if you've decided what you're going to do with their prized collection of books/cars/musical instruments/photographs/writings/etc. Maybe it's an underwriter who's calling you for the third time in an hour to ask about the $100 withdrawal you made from your bank account three months ago. Maybe it's an internet troll who is impervious to the most basic logic and can only communicate in slurs and profanities. Whatever or whoever it might be we all have our limits and for lack of a better word berserk buttons. Even the most mild mannered milquetoast man can occasionally lose his patience and wonder if it's time, as H.L. Mencken wrote, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats. Who knows if fantasy author George R.R. Martin is a mild mannered man or not. I don't know him. I do know that he has no patience with people speculating on his work ethic, his writing style, his weight, his age, his mortality or how likely he is to finish A Song of Ice and Fire before he leaves the planet. But just in case people didn't know, Martin very helpfully shared what he thought of his fans who ponder those questions or worse, ask him directly...
