George R.R. Martin Throws Even More Cold Water on Winds of Winter Dreams.
Basically, it looks like he will come out with a different book first. It’s hard to imagine him squeezing out the next book in A Song of Ice and Fire before that in 2018.
There were two years between A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. Two years between A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. Five years between A Storm of Swords and A Feast For Crows. Finally, six years between A Feast For Crows and A Dance of Dragons.
If the next book was released now, it would be more than six years. It looks like we’ll go beyond seven years.
The trend is not promising. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person who is, was (?), a big fan of the series to go through the five stages of grief. It is what it is.
Damn it! I was hoping he might at least finish it sometime in 2018, even if that meant a Spring 2019 release date. Now it’s looking like we’ll be lucky if he has it done by Spring 2019.
If it’s any consolation, most or all of the stuff going into the new book was supposedly written already. He wrote a ton of Targaryen lore for the World of Ice and Fire book, way more than they could ever use (I think Elio & Linda mentioned at one point that it was something like 200,000+ words – 700-800 pages of Targaryen lore and history).
LOL Winds of Winter is not even the last book of the series, I expect (A Dream of Spring) to come out in 2033. I lost interest really.
There might be a reason why the order of publication is Blood and Fire one (early Targaryen history) then TWoW then B&F 2. A storyteller such as GRMM has to be careful about not giving information too soon and some events in recent Targaryen generations (B&F2) could be key for the current story, e. g. Summerhall, Blackfyre. Another reason to be hopeful that the series will be completed: up to now GRRM had always a good part of book n+1 written when book n was delivered. So I expect the last book (A Dream of Spring) to come out faster than TWoW.
I was concerned with his editing work in the Wild Cards series…not sure if that’s normal for a writer in the middle of a series.
Just conjecture here, but I wonder if he’s demoralized at all with how the show’s writers have diverged so much from the books? Many times it wasn’t even necessary for adapting from book to TV, like injecting Talisa into the story in season 2. It’s only gotten worse from there. I’d regard Jaime’s character arc as one of the best in genre fiction, while in the show it’s…desecrated.