It seems like book fans have been waiting forever regarding the next installment in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series.
The Winds of Winter is the sixth book in the book series that was developed into HBO’s epic fantasy series Game of Thrones.
HBO overtook the books and went in their own direction with the TV show, going on to develop their own finale that, on the whole, disappointed fans, so readers have hoped the books would be better.
However, George R. R. Martin has been writing his latest book for more than a decade as book number five, A Dance With Dragons, was published in 2011, and fans are desperate to know when they will get the next one.
The Winds of Winter is a vast tome
While fans have been disappointed that it has taken so long for the next book to drop, the author has recently revealed that The Winds of Winter will be the longest one in the series to date.
“The Winds of Winter is going to be a big book,” Martin wrote on his blog.
“The way it is going, it could be bigger than A Storm of Swords or A Dance With Dragons, the longest books in the series to date. I do usually cut and trim once I finish, but I need to finish first.”
As previously stated by Martin, A Storm of Swords came in at 1,521 manuscript pages, which is somewhat different from the final page count in the published book. This is thanks to the page size difference between whatever word processing device Martin is using and the final size of the published book.
However, it does give some indication of just how big The Winds of Winter will be.
When Will The Winds of Winter be released?
Now, all readers want to know is when they will finally be able to devour the next book.
As yet, there is no set publication date for The Winds of Winter. Originally, when Game of Thrones first premiered on HBO, the assumption was that Martin would finish all the books in the series before the network overtook him.
This did not happen, and HBO forged ahead to create its own version of Martin’s story.
Since then, Martin has given many updates promising that the manuscript would be finished or setting pre-emptive deadlines that always came and went without a new volume for fans to read.
So, currently, with The Winds of Winter not even finished yet, it is anyone’s guess when it will be published as it still has to go through an editing process before it can be packaged up and released.
Fans of A Song of Ice and Fire can check out HBO’s complete Game of Thrones TV series based on the books.