Devastation hit the Game of Thrones fandom on Thursday after a dismal revelation from A Song of Ice and Fire novelist George R R Martin.
The fantasy author and TV writer, 76, wrote all of the novels that the two hit series Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon are based on.
While House of the Dragon is being adapted from a completed book, the Game of Thrones series famously overtook Martin’s novel series in 2015.
While the first five seasons are largely adapted from the first five A Song of Ice and Fire books, a sixth book – provisionally titled The Winds of Winter – is still forthcoming.
The latest book in the series, A Dance with Dragons, which was partially adapted into Game of Thrones’ fifth season, was published in 2011, just as the HBO series began.
After the end of the TV series – which starred Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, and Peter Dinklage – proved divisive, fans held out hope for George’s ending instead.
However, it seems fans may be waiting for quite a while after Martin admitted that, 13 years after A Dance with Dragons was published, book six may never come.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, he confessed: ‘Unfortunately, I am 13 years late [with book six]. Every time I say that, I think, “How could I be 13 years late?” I don’t know, it happens a day at a time.’
He continued: ‘But [Winds of Winter] is still a priority. A lot of people are already writing obituaries for me: “Oh, he’ll never be finished!” Maybe they’re right. I don’t know. I’m alive right now! I seem pretty vital!’
Fans have been frustrated with Martin’s progress, or lack thereof, on book six, and his updates have given them mixed messages in recent years.
In 2010, he told fans he had ‘four chapters done’ and that ‘more than 100 pages’ had been completed, but that the book may not see the light of day until 2014.
When no book arrived in 2014, he told fans in 2015 that book six would arrive in 2016, and that he’d written hundreds of pages – albeit patiently.
In 2016, Martin confessed that he had ‘missed multiple deadlines’, admitting: ‘The writing did not go as fast or as well as I would have liked.’
After promising to work on nothing else before The Winds of Winter was finished, he then set a provisional release date of 2017 before saying ‘another Westeros book’ was coming in 2018.
That turned out to be Fire and Blood, the fictional history of House Targaryen that’s currently being adapted into House of the Dragon, starring Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, and Emma D’Arcy.
As Game of Thrones concluded, Martin promised fans, ‘You have here my formal written permission to imprison me in a small cabin on White Island, overlooking that lake of sulfuric acid, until I’m done [writing].’
In the 2020s, however, his updates have become less hopeful, with the esteemed author saying he still has ‘hundreds of pages’ to write and that The Winds of Winter is ‘a long way off’.
Despite saying in October 2022 that he was ‘three quarters of the way’ through the book, he then said two months later that he was still 500 pages away from the end.
On top of all this is the fact that The Winds of Winter won’t even finish the book series, with prospective seventh novel A Dream of Spring said to be bringing the series to a close if it’s ever released.
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