SAN DIEGO, CA - JULY 25: Writer George R.R. Martin of "Game of Thrones" signs autographs during the 2014 Comic-Con International Convention-Day 3 at the San Diego Convention Center on July 25, 2014 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Tiffany Rose/Getty Images)
Fans have been waiting over a decade for The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in author George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, the same series that spawned the mega-hit show Game of Thrones on HBO. To date Martin has released five novels in this sequence: A Game of Thrones (1996), A Clash of Kings (1998), A Storm of Swords (2000), A Feast for Crows (2005), and A Dance with Dragons (2011). While the wait between earlier installments was much shorter, it’s ballooned between later novels. Now it’s been 11 years, and the ending of A Song of Ice and Fire eludes us still.
But how many books does Martin have planned for this series? Is The Winds of Winter the last Game of Thrones book?
George R.R. Martin has been pretty open about his plans for A Song of Ice and Fire, so as things stand we have a solid answer: The Winds of Winter is the penultimate novel in the sequence, not the final one.
A Dream of Spring will be the final Game of Thrones book
In his original pitch to publisher Bantam, Martin envisioned A Song of Ice and Fire as a trilogy. However, the “tale grew in the telling,” as Tolkien would say.
The first of the proposed books in the trilogy, A Game of Thrones, ended up expanding into three books on its own. A Storm of Swords seemingly ended that part of the story, bringing both readers and Martin into the middle of his saga, but by then it had become abundantly clear that this was going to be a much longer series than originally planned.
However, it wasn’t until Martin was deep into the writing on the next book, A Feast for Crows, that the series evolved into its current format. The author had planned to have a five-year gap between A Storm of Swords and the following volume, but after spending several years writing it he decided it didn’t work. Instead, we got A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, which covered events happening concurrently in different parts of Martin’s sprawling world.
That brings us to The Winds of Winter, which was originally planned as the final volume of the series. However, shortly after A Feast for Crows was released in 2005, Martin confirmed that A Song of Ice and Fire would run for seven books, and that the final novel would be titled A Dream of Spring (a change from a previous working title for the book, A Time for Wolves).
That means that, as of this writing, there are two more Game of Thrones books planned: The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring.
Though it’s worth noting that Martin has left a back door for himself; the series could feasibly extend beyond A Dream of Spring. ”I’m as firm as I am,” Martin told Entertainment Weekly back in 2011 in regards to whether A Dream of Spring would be the final book, ”until I decide not to be firm.”
Martin is still hard at work on The Winds of Winter. No release date has yet been announced, so for now our watch continues.
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Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin has offered an update on the long-awaited next installment in his fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. The novel, which is titled The Winds of Winter, was originally intended to be the concluding volume in the series, but will now be the penultimate entry. Readers have been waiting for this novel in frustrated anticipation since the release of the previous entry, A Dance with Dragons, in 2011. While Martin has been consistently working on other projects (including the first volume of a history of House Targaryen, released in 2018), he has been consistently vague on settling on a release date for the next novel.
This release delay had unexpected ramifications on the hit HBO series Game of Thrones, which is adapted from his series and began airing in 2011. It's likely that the creators of the series presumed that the next novel would be published before the show reached that point in the series, given that up to that point he had only had gaps between novels last up to 5 or 6 years. However, that did not turn out to be the case and eventually the show split from the source material, concluding with a controversial final season that frustrated most fans of the show.
On his official website, George R. R. Martin shared a message to his fans giving his update on a lot of projects related to A Song of Ice and Fire, including his thoughts on the prequel series House of the Dragon, which has wrapped filming. He confirms that "of course I am still working on The Winds of Winter." However, his notes on his progress are not promising. He says that he worked on the novel "a lot" in 2020 but "less" in 2021. Read the full quote below:
Yes, of course I am still working on The Winds of Winter. I have stated that a hundred times in a hundred venues, having to restate it endlessly is just wearisome. I made a lot of progress on Winds in 2020, and less in 2021… but “less” is not “none.”
The world of Westeros, the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, is my number one priority, and will remain so until the story is told. But Westeros has become bigger than The Winds of Winter, or even A Song of Ice and Fire.
Many fan-favorite characters from the Game of Thrones series have been confirmed to make an appearance in the new novel. This includes Sansa and Arya Stark, Theon Greyjoy, and Tyrion Lannister. The novel is also confirmed to feature the Others (known in the show as White Walkers), taking the characters farther North than they've ever been before. The story is also set to resolve some major A Dance with Dragons cliffhangers as well as delivering two battles that were being set up in that previous novel.
George R. R. Martin has been subject to a lot of prodding from Game of Thrones fans across every corner of the Internet about the progress of this particular novel. Unfortunately, this means he is largely immune at this point, so progress will be made at the exact rate he wishes it to. It will be interesting to see if the new novel - whenever it comes out - solves some of the problems audiences had with the polarizing Game of Thrones season 8, or whether it will be similarly shocking.
Next: George R.R. Martin’s Original Game Of Thrones Plan Fixed The Finale’s Mistakes
Source: George R. R. Martin