George R.R. Martin's Editor Confirms The Winds of Winter Won't Be Published This Year

Posted on January 30, 2015

It's a sad day for Game of Thrones fans: George R.R. Martin's publisher confirmed to The Guardian that the next book in the Song of Ice and Fire series will not hit bookstores this year.

The Winds of Winter is the next installment in the series that is the basis for HBO's hit series Game of Thrones, but there is not publication date. Many fans expected the book to be released this year, but it's not happening.

Martin's editor, Jane Johnson put a brave face on it when asked by The Guardian when the book will be released, but she has not set a release date. She said, "I have no information on likely delivery. These are increasingly complex books and require immense amounts of concentration to write. Fans really ought to appreciate that the length of these monsters is equivalent to two or three novels by other writers."

So why can't Martin get the book done? After all the last book was released in 2011. The answer is that he's been doing other things. This October A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, a prequel to a Song of Fire and Ice, will be released.

The book is set almost 100 years before the current series of books. The Targaryens hold the Iron Throne. The book is a compilation of three prequel novellas which are titled The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight. This is the first time the novellas have been in print together. The book has all new black and white line illustrations by Gary Gianni which Johnson said will be in a classic style.

Keen to deflect readers' disappointment Johnson over no new novel this year she says that the stories, "give fascinating insights into the ongoing story, from the point of view of Ser Duncan the Tall, a hedge knight, and his squire Egg – who may be rather more than he first seems."

That's all well and good, but at this rate the show will end long before the books are all published. But since the showrunners have already been told how it all ends by Martin himself, fans of the tv series will most likely get their ending in a timely fashion.