George R.R. Martin Gives Another (Mostly Useless) Update on Winds of Winter
Martin is still committed to seven A Song of Ice and Fire novels.
For more than a decade, Westeros fans have read and reread George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, while awaiting the release of the sixth novel in the series, The Winds of Winter. The previous book, A Dance with Dragons, adapted as season five of HBO's Game of Thrones, was published in 2011, and the iconic author has been teasing fans ever since.
His latest update came during the House of the Dragon panel, which took place this spring, but it was more of a rumination than real news. According to Deadline, while talking about the challenges of adapting his novels, Martin mentioned that A Song of Ice and Fire will have seven books and expressed hope that it will happen soon.
'[Fire & Blood is] significantly different from the books that were the source for Game of Thrones,' the author said. 'Those are five, soon to be seven, I hope, novels that are fully developed with characters, the dialogue, the scenes, it's all there.'
Even though these words don't give any real information about the highly anticipated novel, they at least show that Martin considers it a priority, and the growing army of Westeros fans can hope to one day read the continuation of the story of Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, and other beloved characters — especially since the author assured them that his book won't repeat the HBO series.
'My gardening is taking me further and further away from the television series. Yes, some of the things you saw on HBO in GAME OF THRONES you will also see in THE WINDS OF WINTER (though maybe not in quite the same ways)… but much of the rest will be quite different,' the author wrote on his blog Not A Blog.
But when can we expect The Winds of Winter? Unfortunately, the writer doesn't give hard estimates. In October last year, he told Stephen Colbert that he was three quarters of the way through the book.
'I think it's going to be a very big book [more than 1,500 pages] and I think I'm about three-quarters of the way done,' Martin shared. 'The characters all interweave, and I'm actually finished with a couple of the characters, but not others. I have to finish all that weaving.'
When Colbert noted that if 75% of the book took 10 years to write, we'd have to wait another three years for the rest, Martin did not correct him.
'That's depressing,' was all he said, and we can't help but agree.
Source: Deadline, Not A Blog, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.