Tag Archives: The Winds of Winter

In 2017, Being a ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ Fan is More Hopeless Than Ever

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We’re two days into 2016. The Winds of Winter hasn’t come out.

George R.R. Martin, who shot an arrow through the heart of the entire fan base with his deflating blog post a year ago, has either made incredible secretive progress while writing the sixth book in ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ over the last year and has been able to keep it a well-hidden secret.

Or perhaps the growing pessimism within the fan base is there for a reason. Martin did say he isn’t going to give the fans any more updates about his ‘Winds of Winter’ progress and will only let them know when it’s done.

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But that hasn’t stopped a large portion of the book lovers (which are separate from the show fans in a number of ways, yet numerous, if inferior in numbers) to expect some sort of recognition as we switched from ’16 to 2017, just like he did last year. As of now, there hasn’t been any word.

There’s a good chance he’s keeping radio silence for the simple reason he never intended to let anything out. I mean Martin does blog, quite a lot. But not about the sixth book. He blogs about Wildcards, about the New York Giants and New York Jets. About anything Pop Culture. About things in New Mexico. About life. But not about the big elephant in the room, which has been over five years in the making.

For those who love to follow forums that discuss A Song of Ice and Fire, it has been difficult to miss the growing number of threads and posts that don’t actually mention the plot any longer. Suddenly, more and more posts are being written trying to decipher the number of pages Martin writes in a certain timeframe, attempting to figure out when the book will be out.

Don’t be surprised if it doesn’t come out in 2017 as well. Martin hoped he could finish the book by the end of 2015, which would have meant sending it to his editors and publishers in time for the book to be released before the beginning of season 6. No one is hoping that he beats season 7, and no one is going to be surprised if the series concludes (it ends with season 8) before book six comes out.

There’s something tragic about it in more than one way. The ending to his epic series will be told by someone else. Sure, the books are a completely different experience, but a lot of what still hasn’t been published in writing has been revealed on screen, a trend that will continue. Remember, D&D know how the story ends, and while they don’t tell the full story and some plot lines have taken a different course, it’s not going to be too far off what Martin has planned for the books.

Image via: Euron Greyjoy by Mike Hallstein

And wait, there’s more depressing news. Almost all of the sample chapters Martin has published or read in various conventions were written in 2011, 2012 or perhaps 2013. Maybe his most recent release, ‘The Forsaken’, an Aeron Greyjoy POV, is a bit newer. But overall, we have no indication that he’s made significant progress while Game of Thrones has become the biggest show on the planet. Maybe he hasn’t made any progress at all.

Personally, I’m one of those who believe he’s either given up on the series or written himself into a dead end; either way, he’s not enjoying it anymore. Martin isn’t someone who loves talking to his fans about his progress, not anymore. He hates fan fiction. He doesn’t like fans analysing and theorizing where the series is going. He hates (and for good reason) people discussing his health and whether or not he’ll ever finish the series. The fans might not get their next book or a ending to this series, at least not from him. But it’s OK. People will move on, even those who picked up the books in 1996 and have been waiting for over 20 years for resolution.

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But Martin himself has already missed out on the opportunity to tell the ending his own way. Maybe he knew he wouldn’t catch up to the series, but I doubt he thought it would take him this long to complete it. It’s been 16 years since A Storm of Swords, the third book in the series, came out. Only two books have been published in that time.

Another depressing realization is that the seven books Martin promised won’t cut it. Many think that The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring would need to be massive beyond belief in size and page count in order to wrap up everything Martin has been building towards. And assuming it is taking him this long to complete six books, forget about it when it comes to seven or eight.

The optimists would say that he’s actually working on two books at once. His writing style isn’t that organized; moving on to chapters that will be included in the next book does make sense. So if A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons came out over the course of 11 years, this means there’s a chance the books all come out by 2022?

From the bits of information we have, and from the snail-pace of the known progress, that’s actually an ultra-optimistic projection. It’s 2017, and I believe we may never see another book in the best fantasy series ever written.

‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ Remains an Uncompleted Masterpiece as We’re Still Waiting for ‘The Winds of Winter’

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It’s been over five years since the last novel in the ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ series, written by George R.R. Martin, and is the basis for the Game of Thrones TV show, came out. The release date of the next book in the series, ‘The Winds of Winter’, remains a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

A year ago, the author posted on his livejournal blog some a very disappointing announcement. He told his fans that the book would not be coming out in 2016, in time to coincide the release with the sixth season of the TV show, which meant that the plot of the show has now not just caught up with the books, but has surpassed it. It means the show runners are treading in uncharted waters, with only guidelines from Martin about what’s going to happen. This means the ending to this saga won’t be delivered by the person who created the story and this world, but through the television show, which debuted 15 years after the first book, ‘A Game of Thrones’, came out.

Before we dive in deeper, there’s one thing worth remembering: The show has diverged in several plotlines from the books, which means not everything that’s happened in the show is going to happen in the books, which means that maybe the ending will be different, and book readers haven’t been ‘spoiled’, or at least not as much as they thought they’d be.

An interesting thread on reddit discussed the one-year anniversary of Martin announcing that the book won’t be coming out in time to beat the show to it. He wrote about missing a deadline, and then missing another one. Since then, he hasn’t offered any updates, which could mean a number of things. It’s easy to see how more and more people have less and less faith in him ever completing the story compared to the optimism and faith last year.

What caused the change in hope? Well, following Martin’s writing timeline and previous problems, along with where he is today, does raise some concerns. This won’t be the first time a book series wasn’t completed, at all or simply by the original author, but every day that Martin doesn’t offer good news to his fans, more people believe they might not get to read the conclusion of what might be the best fantasy series of all time.

Martin has never been a fast writer. However, he’s now busier than ever, due to becoming famous thanks to the show, or a lot more famous (and richer, good for him) thanks to the success of ‘Game of Thrones’. It took him 11 years to release the 4th and 5th books. There were almost six years between those two books. Martin is close to breaking the record for hiatuses between books in this series. And why is it happening? A number of theories:

  • He’s stuck. Not writer’s block, but something along those lines. The Meereenese Knot, which is basically a lot of POV characters (the style in which this book is written) converging into one place, game Martin a lot of trouble with the two previous books. He’s in the same kind of problem now, according to many, whether it’s trying to fit in the POVs in one place (The North, King’s Landing), while stretching the world and his POV characters too much. Instead of carrying on with direct action like in the first three books, Martin dove into world building and slowing down the pace in the next two, which got him into this mess
  • He’s writing the last two books at once. People wearing “pink glasses” believe this one. That Martin, who usually writes the same character for a number of chapters which means even getting into the next book, is working both on The Winds of Winter and on what is supposed to be the series finale, A Dream of Spring, simultaneously. As good as it sounds, it’s probably unlikely
  • He’s simply tired of it. Maybe it’s depression from letting the show catch up with him, or the vocal few how hate on him on the Internet, or simply getting bored with the story. Martin might just be sick of the characters, the world, anything. It’s not that he can’t write, he simply won’t write. Part of me believes this is holding him back

Martin keeps updating his blog, only he doesn’t talk about the next book. And his infuriates some of his fans, who want to at least hear something about when it’s coming out, or not coming out at all. Remember, some of his fans began reading this series in 1996. That’s a generation gone by, and they still have no idea when it’s going to end.

In the meantime, while life goes on, all we have to do is wait, and maybe read something else (Which we all probably have). It could be ASOIAF related: Dunk & Egg tales or The World of Ice and Fire. Doing a re-read (I’ve done it three times myself) is also recommended, especially for those who have only recently gotten into the series. He’ll finish it when he’ll finish it, or he won’t at all. While it’s fun diving into this world and finding out new things, there comes a point when it’s not just out of the readers hands, it’s simply a waste of time thinking otherwise. Hopefully when it does come out, it’ll live up to the hype.

George R.R. Martin releases Next Game of Thrones Book Excerpt

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Just few days before the April 12th release of season five premiere of Game of Thrones, author George R.R Martin released a brand new chapter from the much anticipated book ‘The Winds of Winter’....