The rumors about the release of The Winds Of Winter have been swirling for quite a while. While we’ve had an A.I. finish the book long ago, reports that George R.R. Martin had secretly finished the book, was ready to announce it during the premiere of Game Of Thrones season 7, and that it could drop at any moment in 2017. It’s now 2018, we have a wonderful scene in a major film about Martin’s delays, and still no book on the horizon.
And now there could be more bad news for fans according to Martin’s own blog and Mashable. As they point out, the author noted that the first volume of his Fire & Blood series that details the history of House Targaryen will be out in 2018. But it’s the secondary detail that might have folks worried:
Yes, most of FIRE & BLOOD consists of the ‘sidebars’ I originally wrote for THE WORLD OF ICE & FIRE. Abridged versions of some of those pieces appeared as “The Princess and the Queen,” “The Rogue Prince,” and “The Sons of the Dragon,” but these are the full versions, together with some chapters that have never appeared anywhere…F&B will be in two volumes. Vol 1 before [The Winds Of Winter], vol 2 after.
So volume one of Fire & Blood will hit bookshelves this year, with the next main Game Of Thrones book sandwiched in between that and its second volume if we’re all lucky. But what this means is that The Winds Of Winter is still just an “it’s finished when it’s finished.” This is perfectly fine for folks who are ready for the show to end and for the real story to come to a close via Martin himself. Patience doesn’t seem to be an issue.
It’s the folks who were hoping to see the next book released before the show ended that will be disappointed the most. For now, it seems the show will be the definitive close to the story until Martin finishes this book and finally moves on to the final book in the series. Of course, all of this will be pointless once Martin comes out to deny it.
(Via Mashable / Not A Blog)
