George R.R. Martin Accurately Summarizes 2016: 'Let This Wretched Year Come To An End'

“Death, death, and more death,” George R.R. Martin wrote in a blog post on Tuesday, pretty precisely capturing the downs, downs, and more downs of 2016.

“This year just keeps getting worse and worse.”

By worse, he means that just when we thought 2016 had taken as many great lives as it could ― David Bowie, Prince, Harper Lee, Alan Rickman, Muhammad Ali, Gene Wilder, George Michael, among so many others ― it took another.

Carrie Fisher, the author and actress known widely for playing Princess Leia Organa in “Star Wars,” died on Tuesday after suffering a heart attack last week. “There is not much I can say about the death of Carrie Fisher that a thousand other people have not said already,” Martin wrote on his LiveJournal. “She was way too young. A bright, beautiful, talented actress, and a strong, witty, outspoken woman. Princess Leia will live as long as ‘STAR WARS’ [sic] does ... probably forever ...”

Martin titled his blog post “A Bad Year Gets Worse,” under which he cited not only his location (Santa Fe) but his mood (sad, modified by a crying alien emoji).

Besides commenting on the tragic death of Fisher, Martin also paid tribute to Richard Adams, the author of Watership Down, who died at the age of 96 this week.

“A wonderful actress, a great writer,” Martin wrote of the two icons. “The world is poorer tonight.”

“Please,” he added, “let this wretched year come to an end.”

Earlier this year, when the world naively believed it had witnessed the apex of 2016’s misery, Martin offered the internet one of the most concise responses to the election of Donald Trump as president: “Winter is coming,” he wrote on the same LiveJournal. “I told you so.”

You did, George. You did.