The last we heard from George R.R. Martin’s “I’m done giving updates on Winds of Winter” updates on Winds of Winter, the author believed he’d hit about 75% of the way through writing the Song of Ice and Fire novel he’s been updating us about for over a decade. Now? Ehhhh.
In a recent interview at an event with Shadowhunters writer Cassandra Clare, Martin briefly joked that early 2025 could still see him trying to finalize the sixth book in his beloved fantasy series. When Clare raised that she has a new novel due out March of 2025, The Ragpicker King, Martin playfully added “the really depressing thing is that still may beat The Winds of Winter, who the hell knows?”
Now he’s obviously joking a little—immediately after, the writer added “I’m 12 years late with Winds of Winter, as we know. I’m just gonna put it right out there, you guys don’t have to pester me about it.” But it’s still a little sad for Martin that, after at least establishing a pretty positive update this time last year about the progress of the novel, even having sworn off giving updates, now the author is not entirely sure that he could have Winds of Winter done in over another year’s time. At least he’s putting it out there and not beating himself up about it.
“It’s a big, big book, I’ve said that before. It’s a challenging book. It’s probably gonna be a larger book than any of the previous volumes in the series,” Martin said of the process of writing Winds in his past update, during a livestream for Penguin Random House in October 2022. “Dance with Dragons and Storm of Swords are the two largest books in the series, they were both about 1,500 manuscript pages. I think this one is going to be longer than that by the time I’m finished with it.”
With House of the Dragon set to return next year, and HBO still eager to explore even more aspects of the Game of Thrones universe beyond it, it’s not like fans won’t have some snippets of Westeros to bide the time away. But it’s clear there’s still going to be a lot of that time to bide away when it comes to Winds of Winter.
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