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Thirteen years after George R.R. Martin's "A Storm of Swords" lost to J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" for Best Novel in the 2001 Hugo Awards, Martin's fans and perhaps Martin himself are still bitter.

An old quote from Martin regarding the loss that appeared on a fan site recently went crazy on Reddit:

"Eat your heart out, Rowling," Martin wrote. "Maybe you have billions of dollars and my Hugo, but you don't have readers like these ."

In 2012, Martin, author of the " A Song of Ice and Fire" series (adapted for HBO as "Game of Thrones"), elaborated on his feelings. "I wish I have beaten her, what can I say! I would have liked to win that award and I don't think Rowling cares much about it," Martin told the blog Adria's News. "And she didn't send anyone to accept the award, which is certainly annoying."

Posted by Reddit user gorgagon, the comment spurred a fierce debate generating more than 1,800 comments. Some called Martin's attitude presumptuous.

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But many stood up for him, like Reddit user greym84:

He's not being petty here. Rowling has outright disowned the fantasy genre, pretending her obvious fantasy series wasn't really fantasy, as if she's some kind of transcendental author too good for a Hugo award, which she never bothered to accept. ... So GRRM as a die hard SFF [science fiction and fantasy] writer, for decades on end, loses a SFF-specific award to a person who has spurned the genre and doesn't even care about the reward. ... So he takes a jab at Rowling, but the main point is to acknowledge that he doesn't write for awards, but for his fans. As for Rowling, I love Harry Potter and I think she's overall a decent person. I just think she was grossly out of line on this issue and GRRM, as a major voice in SFF, was well within his rights to acknowledge his readers at her expense.

For her part, Rowling may not care or even be aware of Martin's criticisms, since she has said in the past that she doesn't read fantasy or science fiction.

Interestingly, Martin doesn't even list his 2001 Hugo nomination for Best Novel on his website, although he lists his 2006 and 2012 Hugo Best Novel nominations for the next two books in his series (which he lost to different authors). Perhaps his loss to Rowling was more upsetting than his loss to subsequent authors, as his comments would suggest. And maybe Martin had high expectations in 2001 because he had already won Hugo awards in 1979 and 1997 for Best Novelette, Short Story, and Novella — and since by most accounts "A Storm Of Swords" is the best book of his epic series.

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