This post brought to you by the Superhero Writers Union.

I love writing for Wild Cards. It’s an amazingly detailed world that has been expanded by thirty-plus writers over thirty years, and it’s a ton of fun to be a part of that. I mean, I get to make up my own super-powered characters and then let them loose in a playground that has been constantly expanded and improved for three decades. And the Wild Cards consortium is just stacked with super-nice and super-talented people.

That said, there’s one thing that annoys me about being a Wild Cards writer, and that’s entitled Game of Thrones fans.

Every time GRRM posts something on social media about Wild Cards, it takes about five seconds before someone responds with a dismissive one-liner that totally shits on whatever it is he’s trying to promote or announce. And it’s always a variation of the same boring, unoriginal garbage. Finish Winds of Winter. Nobody cares about Wild Cards. WHERE’S THE BOOK, GEORGE? NOT BUYING ANYTHING FROM YOU UNTIL YOU FINISH WINDS OF WINTER. Etcetera, etcetera. Yawn.

GRRM is the editor of Wild Cards (along with Melinda Snodgrass). He edits the books, he doesn’t write them. They are written by the members of the Wild Cards consortium. It’s a total dick move to dismiss out of hand the talents and work of the writers just because you think that the editor of the book ought to be spending all his time on that other book, the one you think you’re entitled to receive. (Never mind that “nobody cares about Wild Cards” is flat-out wrong. Our signings and panels are always busy, and the longest signing line I’ve ever sat for was a Wild Cards signing. The series has picked up a lot of fans in thirty years, and I highly suspect that it wouldn’t be thirty years old–or getting developed into a TV series AS I TYPE THIS–if nobody cared about it.)

I’m pretty proud of my Wild Cards contributions. I think they are some of the best stories I’ve written so far. And it makes me cranky whenever we try to do Wild Cards promo, and some whining garage dweller comes along and dismisses the whole thing with prejudice because OMG GRRM SPENT HIS TIME ON SOMETHING OTHER THAN WINDS OF WINTER. It annoys me, and when I am annoyed, I start adding names to my Go Fuck Yourself list.