Big Surprise: George R.R. Martin Won't Release That Next Book in 2015
George R.R. Martin's publisher, Jane Johnson of HarperCollins, told the Guardian that A Song of Ice and Fire fans will have to wait at least another year for The Man Who Is Not Your Bitch to finish The Winds of Winter, the highly anticipated sixth book in the series. Quelle surprise!
The followup to 2011's A Dance With Dragons is not on the HarperCollins release calendar this year, Johnson said, adding "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."
Martin, who has caught flak for enjoying his celebrity ever since the HBO adaptation of his books became a huge hit, has promised not to dick fans around with hints about release dates. He's made predictions in the past, and they've turned out to be horribly wrong, so his new policy is "When it is done, I will say that it is done, on whatever day I happen to finish. I don't know how I can make it any clearer."
He would, however, really appreciate if you would stop fretting that he'll die before he delivers the end of the story.
"I find that question pretty offensive, people speculating about my death and my health," he said last year in an interview with the Swiss newspaper Tagesanzeiger, "So fuck you to those people."
Just in case, though, he's given Benioff and Weiss an outline of the future events of the series, enough to wrap up Game of Thrones should the worst happen. Old gods and the new willing, some of that material might make it to air this season.
