The world’s most *ahem* ‘thorough’ writer has promised the world another book in the Game of Thrones universe this year, but not the one readers have been eagerly waiting for.
Winds of Winter, the highly anticipated next instalment in the Song of Ice and Fire, has been delayed several times and now might take even longer after George RR Martin’s latest announcement.
George confirmed that a story entitled ‘The Sons of the Dragon’ will feature in upcoming anthology The Book of Swords, due for release on October 10th this year.
It’s still unclear whether Winds of Winter will actually be released in 2017 despite George RR Martin promising it will be released “this year,” referring to 2017.
Not that we should be surprised because he also noted that he believed the same thing would occur the previous year and he was clearly wrong about that.
Here’s a breakdown of George RR’s publishing dates on the Song of Ice and Fire series so far:
1996 – A Game of Thrones
1998 – A Clash of Kings
2000 – A Storm of Swords
2005 – A Feast for Crows
2011 – A Dance with Dragons
20?? – A Dance with Dragons
Bad news for book fans, he definitely seems to be slowing down.
It’s probably not helped by the fact that he writes on an old DOS machine running Wordstar 4.0 – a piece of software that was first released in 1978.
However, what we do know about the story he is releasing is that The Sons of the Dragon is set before the Song of Fire and Ice series, and will chronicle the reigns of the second and third Targaryen kings, Aenys I and Maegor the Cruel.
Hopefully it will sate the cruel Game of Thrones withdrawal symptoms before winter actually comes.