‘Game Of Thrones’ Author George R.R. Martin Teases Release Date For ‘Winds Of Winter’

Game of Thrones fans have been waiting a long time for this. George R.R. Martin just offered an update on the release date of his new book, The Winds of Winter, teasing that it might be out later this year. Will Martin finally publish the sixth book in the hit series?

Entertainment Weekly reports that Martin isn’t finished with the book just yet. He’s also made similar promises in the past, so fans should take his recent comments with a grain of salt. Even still, it’s good to hear that Martin is making progress on the long-awaited book.

“Not done yet, but I’ve made progress. But not as much as I hoped a year ago when I thought to be done by now. I think it will be out this year. (But hey, I thought the same thing last year.)”

The last time Martin discussed The Winds of Winter was in January of last year. With the HBO series forging beyond the scope of Martin’s first five books, the author released a special statement confirming the book would not be released prior to Season 6 of Game of Thrones.

“Unfortunately, the writing did not go as fast or as well as I would have liked,” he told fans. “You can blame my travels or my blog posts or the distractions of other projects and the Cocteau and whatever, but maybe all that had an impact… you can blame my age, and maybe that had an impact too…but if truth be told, sometimes the writing goes well and sometimes it doesn’t, and that was true for me even when I was in my 20s. And as spring turned to summer, I was having more bad days than good ones. Around about August, I had to face facts: I was not going to be done by Halloween.”

There’s a possibility that Martin could wrap up Winds of Winter before Game of Thrones returns to HBO with Season 7. The new season isn’t expected to premiere until later this summer, giving Martin a few more months to finish his book.

According to the Telegraph, Winds of Winter is the penultimate book in Martin’s best-selling series, A Song of Ice and Fire. The book is expected to be followed by the final novel in the series, A Dream of Spring. Of course, even Martin has admitted that he has “problems with deadlines,” so there’s no telling when he will finally wrap up the franchise.

Despite the exciting news, many of the storylines in the new book have already been revealed on the show. Indeed, Nerdist is reporting that we already know a lot about what’s to come in Winds of Winter, both from revelations on the show and what Martin has revealed in interviews. Martin has even released chapter samplings for some of the characters, including Tyrion Lannister and Ser Barrister Selmy.

Naturally, fans have expressed their optimism over the news on social media. In fact, Inverse is reporting that Martin responded to one fan who wrote a comment on his blog. The fan asked Martin to reveal more details about the progress of the book, which he responded:

“If you think a tell all or update on WINDS OF WINTER would stop fans from asking about it … well, I love your optimism, but my own decades of experience suggest otherwise. There are only two things that will stop people asking me about WOW: (1) my finishing and delivering the book, or (2) a giant asteroid hitting the Earth and destroying human civilization. As I have no control over (2), I am working on (1).”

The new season of Game of Thrones premieres later this spring on HBO.

[Featured Image by Steve Snowden/Getty Images]