The Winds Of Winter: Book 6 Will Arrive...Someday

[Azi]

11 minutes ago, Hanahope said:

Has there been any other series that got so popular, but was never finished?  I know the Wheel of Time series did finally end by someone else finishing the story.  any others?  There are times when I have to doubt that Martin will ever finish the series and the TV show will be all we'll ever get of the story's end.  And we'll just have to be ok with that.

Hm, the only contemporary ones of (nearly) similiar popularity I can think of right now got never finished by the original author because the they died (Dune, The Millenium Trilogy/Series and I think The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) which is a valid excuse in my opinion.
(Especially vexing to me is the case of David Feintuch's Seafort Saga a friend of mine is really invested in. He finished the script, but the book never came out.)

I can however think of several manga series... but that's a whole other ball game.

I'm currently convinced that if GRRM ever finishes this series (which I have doubts about), it won't be in two volumes. I don't think he can, unless rocks fall and everyone except the people truly important to the endgame die in TWOW.

[nikma]

And I thought my opinion on him couldn't get any lower. 

[WearyTraveler]

5 hours ago, nikma said:

And I thought my opinion on him couldn't get any lower. 

So, we're supposed to coddle him now, poor little lamb?

[nodorothyparker]

He does know there's a way to shut up the people he's complaining about, right?

[WindyNights]

On 3/29/2017 at 10:33 AM, ElizaD said:

Honestly, since GRRM has already failed to release TWOW before the show finishes airing all its adaptation of TWOW content (will the book even get as far as Jon's kinging and Dany's departure?), I'm kinda hoping it's published in late 2018, just for the sad comedy of the entire show having aired in the time between the ADWD and TWOW release date announcements.

In less than two weeks we should get to celebrate the milestone of the TWOW wait beating the ADWD wait. I managed to dig up some old TWOP stuff and found a post from the 2011 ADWD spoiler thread where I was wondering if we would have TWOW in 2015. I'm amused that my pessimistic prediction still turned out to be way too optimistic.

From the leaks, I don't think any of this content is actually going to be in TWOW or ADOS. 

As the writers said, the show became its own thing apart from the books.

I'm absolutely certain we're getting King Jon by TWOW although not in the terms presented like in the show where they re-enact Robb's kingship scene with him winning a battle but something more contested.

[Constantinople]

Don't expect that book out any time soon:

Game of Thrones spin-off series in the works, HBO confirms

HBO has confirmed that a team of writers and Game of Thrones creator George RR Martin are working on ideas for spin-off shows that could see the fantasy show’s reign as the king of prestige TV continue for years.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/may/04/game-of-thrones-spinoff-series-hbo

[ElizaD]

I bet GRRM's going to be working on the show ideas that involve historical Targs. I don't think they can do the Dance, though. It would either be hideously expensive (without the guaranteed popularity of season 7/8 GOT) due to all the time-consuming dragon CGI or it would be the dragon war where they keep on coming up with excuses for why we hardly ever see any dragons, which would make it pointless. Dunk & Egg lacks the sex, shocks and plotting that made GOT famous, so I personally feel that it wouldn't be a good idea either.

And yeah, we're never getting book 7. GRRM's found yet another thing that's going to be more fun and less demanding than actually finding the self-discipline required to wrap up the ASOIAF plots.

[YaddaYadda]

Even if they wanted to do Dunk & Egg, it's the same problem that they'd have with ASOIAF, it's incomplete. I'd love to see Robert's rebellion on screen, but there's the Rhaegar and Lyanna hiccup. We'll see, but at this point, I've sort of given up on seeing the final books, and on Dunk & Egg too. The Blackfyre rebellion is something I'd like to see as well. 

Edited May 5, 2017 by YaddaYadda

[Eyes High]

7 hours ago, ElizaD said:

I bet GRRM's going to be working on the show ideas that involve historical Targs. I don't think they can do the Dance, though. It would either be hideously expensive (without the guaranteed popularity of season 7/8 GOT) due to all the time-consuming dragon CGI or it would be the dragon war where they keep on coming up with excuses for why we hardly ever see any dragons, which would make it pointless. Dunk & Egg lacks the sex, shocks and plotting that made GOT famous, so I personally feel that it wouldn't be a good idea either.

And yeah, we're never getting book 7. GRRM's found yet another thing that's going to be more fun and less demanding than actually finding the self-discipline required to wrap up the ASOIAF plots.

GRRM said he wouldn't take on any non-TWOW writing projects until TWOW was done. So maybe TWOW is done after all?....Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.

I agree about Dunk & Egg being off-brand for GOT--no sex, no dragons, no magic, pretty low stakes--but GRRM has said a few times that he loves the idea of a Dunk & Egg spinoff, and he's collaborating with writers on two potential spinoffs. I also think Dunk & Egg would be attractive for HBO, since it would be a heck of a lot cheaper and much easier to film. 

Even with a GOT Season 6 budget, the dragons only appeared in four out of 10 episodes, and even then it was only for one scene per episode. I don't know how they can do the Dance of the Dragons given how expensive dragon CGI is.

[ElizaD]

2 hours ago, Eyes High said:

GRRM said he wouldn't take on any non-TWOW writing projects until TWOW was done. So maybe TWOW is done after all?....Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.

I agree about Dunk & Egg being off-brand for GOT--no sex, no dragons, no magic, pretty low stakes--but GRRM has said a few times that he loves the idea of a Dunk & Egg spinoff, and he's collaborating with writers on two potential spinoffs. I also think Dunk & Egg would be attractive for HBO, since it would be a heck of a lot cheaper and much easier to film.

A more pessimistic interpretation: writing is going so badly that GRRM feels he can no longer put the rest of his life on hold in order to finish TWOW since the attempt doesn't appear to have helped him. IIRC, he announced that Kong was dead as soon he sent ADWD to receive the final edits, not after they were done, and while my memory is hazy after six years, I believe he'd been sounding more optimistic that spring about the book itself: we didn't need to analyze his other activities for clues that he might be feeling good about his progress.

I can see why GRRM loves D&E (Targs, travelogues, worldbuilding, no pesky plot), but if HBO ever decides to do it, Egg is getting aged up. I doubt they'd want a kid actor whose talent isn't guaranteed (not everybody grows up to be award-nominated Maisie) and who can't add a bit of sexiness to a story that's very different from GOT: as a title Dunk & Egg is already deliberately unglamorous. Egg is getting the Jon/Dany treatment if he's cast, young but over 18.

[benteen]

I imagine the actor playing Egg won't be 9 but probably 12-14.  Unless they replace him in later seasons.  Egg's reign is an interesting one and I'd love to see that focused on in regular seasons.  Considering that Egg is the Mad King's father and not grandfather on the show (Jaehaerys was eliminated on the show) we could end it with The War of the Ninepenny Kings and lead into the Tradgedy at Summerhall.

[Eyes High]

If Egg is aged up to be a sexy twenty something, I look forward to GRRM's reactions to the inevitable Dunk/Egg shippers.

[mac123x]

Hmm, some other possibilities could include The Conquest (could have the problem with dragon CGI costs), The Rogue Prince story, the whole Lives of Four Kings thingy.

 

Any of those "historical" stories have the same problem that the Silmarillion does for adaptation -- they're told more as a historian recounting events than as contemporary stories told through the eyes characters you can relate to.

[ElizaD]

GRRM:

And yes, before someone asks, I AM STILL WORKING ON WINDS OF WINTER and will continue working on it until it's done. I will confess, I do wish I could clone myself, or find a way to squeeze more hours into the day, or a way to go without sleep. But this is what it is, so I keep on juggling. WINDS OF WINTER, five successor shows, FIRE AND BLOOD (that's the GRRMarillion, remember?), four new Wild Cards books, some things I can't tell you about yet... it's a good thing I love my work.

I guess that should end the speculation he's starting new projects because he's secretly finished TWOW. And I admit it annoys me that he's talking about the "GRRMarillion" when he's famously complained about Gandalf coming back from the dead (hello Catelyn! hello Jon!) and not knowing what Aragorn's tax policies are: Tolkien's worldbuilding is far more complex than GRRM's and his audience got to read how Aragorn became king long before the Silmarillion was made public. But even now, GRRM prefers historical Targs to actually finishing the series that his fans love.

It was stated in some of the reports that I am working with two of the four writers. That's not quite right. I've actually been working with all four of the writers. Every one of the four has visited me here in Santa Fe, some of them more than once, and we've spent days together discussing their ideas, the history of Westeros and the world beyond, and sundry details found only in The World of Ice & Fire and The Lands of Ice & Fire... when we weren't drinking margaritas and eating chile rellenos and visiting Meow Wolf. They are all amazing talents, and I am excited to be working with them. In between visits, I've been in touch with them by phone, text, and email, and I expect there will be a lot more back-and-forth as we move forward.

This is not a man who hates what HBO has done to the books and prioritizes working on his own magnum opus. He doesn't want to make it as as good as possible, he just doesn't want to work on it when there's so much stuff out there that's more fun and doesn't require complex plotting. Talking about non-show theories feels utterly pointless since we're not going to get the answers.

[Eyes High]

On 5/15/2017 at 1:09 AM, ElizaD said:

I guess that should end the speculation he's starting new projects because he's secretly finished TWOW. And I admit it annoys me that he's talking about the "GRRMarillion" when he's famously complained about Gandalf coming back from the dead (hello Catelyn! hello Jon!) and not knowing what Aragorn's tax policies are: Tolkien's worldbuilding is far more complex than GRRM's and his audience got to read how Aragorn became king long before the Silmarillion was made public. But even now, GRRM prefers historical Targs to actually finishing the series that his fans love.

This is not a man who hates what HBO has done to the books and prioritizes working on his own magnum opus. He doesn't want to make it as as good as possible, he just doesn't want to work on it when there's so much stuff out there that's more fun and doesn't require complex plotting.

Harsh but true. GRRM has a myriad of shiny new projects to occupy his attention, and while he may have insisted that TWOW was his priority, that seems directly contradicted by the list he has provided of television shows and books that he's currently working on that's at least 10 items long, which is apparently not an exhaustive list!

I've always thought GRRM was a hypocrite for griping about Gandalf when he resurrected Catelyn and seems to have every intention of resurrecting Jon.

[benteen]

Yeah, I've long felt that GRRM just doesn't have the interest in doing The Winds of Winter anymore and this reinforces that to me.  I think the only reason he's still writing it is because he feels obliged to finish it (or contracted to).  I think it's become an anchor around his neck, especially with all the shiny new projects around him.  He's still interested in writing about the world of Ice and Fire, especially the Targs.  But not his current series.  This is indeed like Tolkein focusing on The Similarion bebefore finishing the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

He loves being the rock star writer.  Understandable and he did earn it.  But still, there's a reason he became a rock star and that is because of the Game of Thrones books.  He should get someone to help him finish it but he won't.

I expect we'll still be having these kind of posts from GRRM at least a year or two from now.  I truly believe we'll get The Winds of Winter as I have to imagine there's a lot done at this point.  But I can't see him starting again from page one to write A Dream of Spring, especially considering how much of a burden The Winds of Winter has been for him to write.  And if he decides this series needs an eighth book?  You can definitely forget about it ever being done.

On ‎5‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 8:38 PM, Eyes High said:

I've always thought GRRM was a hypocrite for griping about Gandalf when he resurrected Catelyn and seems to have every intention of resurrecting Jon.

100X.  Not to mention the fakeout deaths like Mance.  Catelyn's resurrection seems like it was done more for shock value too.

Edited May 18, 2017 by benteen

[YaddaYadda]

I don't know that he doesn't wanna finish Winds or finish the story. He just expanded the universe so much that his life might have gotten a lot more complicated. I'll always remember my extremely confused reaction when I started reading Feast for Crows and flipping through the pages looking for the POV characters I knew. It's interesting to see the original outline of the story and how much more there is to it now. I think his publisher will have to put his/her foot down at some point. 

[Advance35]

The Publisher will never get tough with him.  I think that's something they would have done long before now and at this point, G. Martin is too much of a Marquee name to be strong armed at this point.  That's why for all their mis-steps I haven't been as critical of the show as I probably could have been.  If it wasn't for them, I honestly don't think fans would have ANY resolution.  Although I think I read that if he is unable to finish, while NOBODY is allowed to write in his place, the ending is authorized to be released.  Huzzah.

Very disappointing as while I love the show, the detail and sense of universe that comes with the books is very appreciated by me.  The Vale, Sunspear, even Highgarden by reputation, all seem like fully textured locations.  I like getting to hear and feel the influence of the Redwynes, Florents, Fossoways, Yronwoods and Lords Declarants.  Even if we don't meet or spend much time with them.

[Eyes High]

3 hours ago, YaddaYadda said:

I think his publisher will have to put his/her foot down at some point. 

 

8 minutes ago, Advance35 said:

The Publisher will never get tough with him.  I think that's something they would have done long before now and at this point, G. Martin is too much of a Marquee name to be strong armed at this point.

I agree. I'm not sure what kind of leverage the publisher has to force GRRM to go any faster than he's already going.

 

Quote

That's why for all their mis-steps I haven't been as critical of the show as I probably could have been.  If it wasn't for them, I honestly don't think fans would have ANY resolution. 

I always thought the books would be finished some day, if not anytime soon, but I'm increasingly resigned to the idea that while we will likely get TWOW, ADOS--or, heck, even that eighth volume he occasionally hints at--is a pipe dream.

 

Quote

The Vale, Sunspear, even Highgarden by reputation, all seem like fully textured locations.  I like getting to hear and feel the influence of the Redwynes, Florents, Fossoways, Yronwoods and Lords Declarants.  Even if we don't meet or spend much time with them.

On the one hand, it's nice to have that level of detail, but at this point, it seems as if ASOIAF is collapsing under the weight of its own worldbuilding, something which is no doubt hindering GRRM's progress along with all the internecine plotting and multitudes of characters. The show writers didn't have the luxury of including thousands of characters or the multitude of plots, so they do have the luxury of keeping things extremely streamlined and keeping their eyes on the finish line.

I think it's going to torment book readers when the show ends and they're left wondering what percentage of the show ending is straight from the books, and what percentage is the TV writers' own invention. 

[WindyNights]

On 5/14/2017 at 10:09 PM, ElizaD said:

GRRM:

 

 

I guess that should end the speculation he's starting new projects because he's secretly finished TWOW. And I admit it annoys me that he's talking about the "GRRMarillion" when he's famously complained about Gandalf coming back from the dead (hello Catelyn! hello Jon!) and not knowing what Aragorn's tax policies are: Tolkien's worldbuilding is far more complex than GRRM's and his audience got to read how Aragorn became king long before the Silmarillion was made public. But even now, GRRM prefers historical Targs to actually finishing the series that his fans love.

 

 

 

On 5/18/2017 at 6:13 AM, benteen said:

 

100X.  Not to mention the fakeout deaths like Mance.  Catelyn's resurrection seems like it was done more for shock value too.

Guys, he's literally addressed this. 

He's not complaining about resurrection. He's complaining about characters coming back from the dead the same or improved like Gandalf the White did and would've preferred if Tolkien had left him dead as a result.

And he's said that it's different with his characters because they come back as less and they're not even the same characters in some ways.

GRRM: 

I do think that if you're bringing a character back, that a character has gone through death, that's a transformative experience. Even back in those days of Wonder Man and all that, I loved the fact that he died, and although I liked the character in later years, I wasn't so thrilled when he came back because that sort of undid the power of it. Much as I admire Tolkien, I once again always felt like Gandalf should have stayed dead. That was such an incredible sequence in Fellowship of the Ring when he faces the Balrog on the Khazad-dûm and he falls into the gulf, and his last words are, "Fly, you fools."

What power that had, how that grabbed me. And then he comes back as Gandalf the White, and if anything he's sort of improved. I never liked Gandalf the White as much as Gandalf the Grey, and I never liked him coming back. I think it would have been an even stronger story if Tolkien had left him dead.

My characters who come back from death are worse for wear. In some ways, they're not even the same characters anymore. The body may be moving, but some aspect of the spirit is changed or transformed, and they've lost something. One of the characters who has come back repeatedly from death is Beric Dondarrion, The Lightning Lord. Each time he's revived he loses a little more of himself. He was sent on a mission before his first death. He was sent on a mission to do something, and it's like, that's what he's clinging to. He's forgetting other things, he's forgetting who he is, or where he lived. He's forgotten the woman who he was once supposed to marry. Bits of his humanity are lost every time he comes back from death; he remembers that mission. His flesh is falling away from him, but this one thing, this purpose that he had is part of what's animating him and bringing him back to death. I think you see echoes of that with some of the other characters who have come back from death.

[John Potts]

11 hours ago, WindyNights said:

"My characters who come back from death are worse for wear. In some ways, they're not even the same characters anymore." GRRM

Except Gandalf WAS changed by dying - he states that in some ways, he's now Saruman (can't find the quote online). Yes, he comes back with a power upgrade, but he's also far more active post resurrection. He's not content to just wonder around saying, "You should do something about that" and sit back while Thorin tries to kill Smaug, he's on the battlefield at Minas Tirith fighting the Witch King. GRRM might prefer people being lessened by death, but he can't say Gandalf isn't changed.

Though my criticism would be that GRRM is too ready to use fake deaths as a cheap twist (Arya, Davos, Mance and Brienne - twice! - all have chapters where it looks like they've died, only to learn they actually survived). Even before the TV show, I doubt many people felt that Jon Snow WASN'T coming back (though possibly by having survived the stabbing rather than via Mel-resurrection) after the "For the Watch" moment, and that's partly because GRRM has been too ready to have his characters apparently die - and then have them survive via Author Saving Throw. You reap what you sew - once you convince readers that you can't trust the author when a character dies (even when we see it from their POV!) you can hardly blame readers for taking character death less seriously.

[WindyNights]

9 hours ago, John Potts said:

Except Gandalf WAS changed by dying - he states that in some ways, he's now Saruman (can't find the quote online). Yes, he comes back with a power upgrade, but he's also far more active post resurrection. He's not content to just wonder around saying, "You should do something about that" and sit back while Thorin tries to kill Smaug, he's on the battlefield at Minas Tirith fighting the Witch King. GRRM might prefer people being lessened by death, but he can't say Gandalf isn't changed.

GRRM says that Gandalf comes back improved so he acknowledges that he's changed but he's still Gandalf.

GRRM is saying he fixed that with his characters who aren't the same when they come back from death. They are missing huge aspects of who they originally once were so it wouldn't be fair to call them the same character. LS is not Cat, the Lightning Lord is not Beric and UnJon is likely not to be Jon.

[Meredith Quill]

Mod Note:

Let's not get derailed into a 'who did what better' debate. This topic is to discuss TWOW, that's all.

Thanks.

[mac123x]

On ‎5‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 0:09 AM, ElizaD said:

when we weren't drinking margaritas and eating chile rellenos

Not swan stuffed with dates, veal cutlets blanched in almond milk, bashed neeps smothered in butter, jellied dog brains, and lamprey pie, washed down with persimmon wine?  Shocking.

[Constantinople]

"Winter is coming" is the most iconic phrase George RR Martin has ever written.

And the most ironic.

[Lady S.]

Guess 2018 is officially the newest deadline he can blow.

Quote

And, yes, I know you all want to know about THE WINDS OF WINTER too. I've seen some truly weird reports about WOW on the internet of late, by 'journalists' who make their stories up out of whole cloth. I don't know which story is more absurd, the one that says the book is finished and I've been sitting on it for some nefarious reason, or the one that says I have no pages. Both 'reports' are equally false and equally moronic. I am still working on it, I am still months away (how many? good question), I still have good days and bad days, and that's all I care to say. Whether WINDS or the first volume of FIRE AND BLOOD will be the first to hit the bookstores is hard to say at this juncture, but I do think you will have a Westeros book from me in 2018... and who knows, maybe two. A boy can dream...

http://grrm.livejournal.com/544709.html
 

[nodorothyparker]

Sure, two books in a year.  Why not offer some lovely beachfront real estate in the Riverlands while you're at it?  

So yet another side project to put off finishing the series he's already into his second decade of not finishing.  I don't find the pale magical inbred people nearly as interesting as he seems to.

[Azi]

With every new other project he does, I start to love Game of Thrones a bit more than I do A Song of Ice and Fire tbh. The tv show is definitely not perfect, but I'm so thankful that it will tell me how this whole thing will end. 
I just don't get why if he doesn't really have interest in finishing the main story anymore or maybe rather doesn't really know how to do get to the end... he doesn't get help. I get that he has his pride and hates other people dictating him how to write, but at this point no one would judge him ever. They'd probably fall on their knees to thank him. I don't even want to know what his publisher thinks. Like, of course the books still bring them money, because the tv show is still ongoing and people keep turning to the books thanks to it, but how long will this go on after the series finishes? (Note how the cover of that anthology says a "new Game of Thrones story" will be inside and now ASoIaF)
 

Edited July 23, 2017 by Azi
typos. typos everywhere.

[Eyes High]

On 7/22/2017 at 8:43 PM, nodorothyparker said:

Sure, two books in a year.  Why not offer some lovely beachfront real estate in the Riverlands while you're at it?  

So yet another side project to put off finishing the series he's already into his second decade of not finishing.  I don't find the pale magical inbred people nearly as interesting as he seems to.

Pretty much. He also said that TWOW was "months away" in January 2016, a year and a half before he wrote again that TWOW is still "months away."

[benteen]

Oh, I'm sure we'll get two books in 2018.  Just neither one of them will be The Winds of Winter.

Edited July 24, 2017 by benteen

[blackwing]

What is "Fire and Blood"?  A spin-off series or a new series?  So frustrating.  I get that the man has a lot on his plate and clearly more interested in making money from the TV show than from writing books, but at some point, I would hope he recognises that he owes a lot to the fans of the books that helped make the TV show the great success it is.

I can't believe it has been 20 years since I first started reading this series in 1997.  I remember being impatient when the second book didn't get released until two years after that.  Oh, if only I knew how short a wait two years was.  At this point, I have forgotten everything that happened in the previous books, where the books left off, and am sure that I will be confusing what happened in the books with what happened in the TV show.  Because I'm convinced we aren't going to be seeing this book until after the show is done.  I'm hearing rumours that the final season of the show may now air in 2019 instead of 2018.  So in 2019 is when he will probably start writing WoW again, so perhaps a 2021 publication date is in our future?

Of course, that all depends on whether or not he decides to have prequel or spinoff TV show(s).  Aargh.

7 hours ago, benteen said:

Oh, I'm sure we'll get two books in 2018.  Just neither one of them will be The Winds of Winter.

And more likely, when he says there will be "two books in 2018"... neither of them will be written by George RR Martin.  It's semantics.  Two people will definitely publish a book each in 2018.

[benteen]

It's amazing when you think about it.  There are meetings between characters this season on the show that will likely take at least another six years MINIMUM before GRRM actually gets around to writing them in A Dream of Spring.

[ElizaD]

I'm feeling good about my guess that the entire series will air before TWOW is published. GRRM is choosing Fire and Blood's fake history of dead Targs over the unresolved plot of ASOIAF's main characters.

Next week we'll see the first meeting of Jon and Dany. I don't believe that we will ever get to read it. Many readers try to spin the last books as masterpieces that will be/would definitely have been so much smarter than what we got on TV, but to me it feels incredibly dishonest to pretend that it's not a huge failure of GRRM's work ethic that all the major events he set up will climax on HBO's Game of Thrones and those who only wanted to read his books will get to know them as random gossip of the Hot Pie style ("Jon Snow looked hot in that last shot of him on the Iron Throne!").

[benteen]

You may be very right about never getting to read Jon and Dany meeting up in the books.  With GRRM planning to spend at least a few hundred pages on Dany dancing with Dothraki, that means any potential meeting won't occur until A Dream of Spring (if GRRM doesn't decided to do an 8th book).  That means we are at LEAST six years away from reading that.  Probably longer.  You're right, it is a major failure of GRRM and his work ethic if he can't at least get one book out during the entire run of the show.

Dany will most likely meet Tyrion in The Winds of Winter but that's not a guarantee either.  I think the first meeting in the book will be more interesting because Tyrion is St. Tyrion on the show while he's more developed as a shades of gray character but it really doesn't matter because the show did it first and it was a very good scene.

Edited July 25, 2017 by benteen

[WindyNights]

Eh, I think you guys are overblowing this. 

 

Fire and Blood Volume I was already mostly written from when he overwrote TWOIAF.

 

He also said there's a good chance that TWOW will come out before the second half of 2018 meaning he'd have finished the book 3 months before. 

[benteen]

Problem is, you can't take any of what GRRM says about when his books will be published at face value.

[Haleth]

Words are wind.

[blackwing]

18 hours ago, WindyNights said:

Eh, I think you guys are overblowing this. 

 

Fire and Blood Volume I was already mostly written from when he overwrote TWOIAF.

 

He also said there's a good chance that TWOW will come out before the second half of 2018 meaning he'd have finished the book 3 months before. 

Because you think that whatever he says is believable?  I'm pretty sure at one point he had said he wanted the book to be published before Season 6 aired on TV.  Didn't happen.  I believe in early 2015 he said he had a deadline of fall 2015 to finish the book.  Didn't happen.  In early 2016 he said he wouldn't work on any books or screenplays or anything else before he finished the book.  Didn't happen.  In early 2017 he said he thinks the book will be finished this year.  Remains to be seen.  But in this new blog entry, he now says 2018.

Given his track record... I don't think anything he says is reliable.  

[Lady S.]

I'm wondering if the publishers just want some book released while the show is still airing. Even if it's not in the main series, there should be some sales boost with the current pop culture relevance of Westeros, and they can expect interest to go down year by year after the show ends. No one can force him to finish Winds anytime soon but people could advise him to split up Fire & Blood so that a first volume could be released next year. I do believe him that most of the first part of Fire & Blood is already written since that's clearly easier for him to write and they apparently had a lot of stuff left over from the World Book.

[WindyNights]

On 7/26/2017 at 1:27 PM, blackwing said:

Because you think that whatever he says is believable?  I'm pretty sure at one point he had said he wanted the book to be published before Season 6 aired on TV.  Didn't happen.  I believe in early 2015 he said he had a deadline of fall 2015 to finish the book.  Didn't happen.  In early 2016 he said he wouldn't work on any books or screenplays or anything else before he finished the book.  Didn't happen.  In early 2017 he said he thinks the book will be finished this year.  Remains to be seen.  But in this new blog entry, he now says 2018.

Given his track record... I don't think anything he says is reliable.  

Elio and Linda said this just recently in a video. Fire and Blood Volume I won't impact the writing for TWOW.

 

Fire and Blood Volume I is already mostly written from he wrote TWOIAF according to them. The only thing GRRM has to do is edit it and fill in some gaps. 

The only reason why it'll take a year is because GRRM wants illustrations like WOIAF had. 

The only thing GRRM is untrustworthy on is how long he'll take to finish a book and he's warned people many times that he's very bad at that so take his time schedule with a grain of salt and even he says to do that. That doesn't mean everything he says is a lie.

Edited July 28, 2017 by WindyNights

[glowbug]

We should change the title of this thread to "The Winds of Winter: Book 6 Will Arrive...Never". 

[benteen]

Agreed.  GRRM is just not that interested anymore.

[nodorothyparker]

"The Winds of Winter  Book 6 Will Arrive ... When Someone Else Finishes It For Him."

[polyhymnia]

My daughter is now old enough to watch the series and I have told her if she wants to read the books to basically just read the first three books unless/until the last two are written.

Edited July 28, 2017 by polyhymnia
subject/verb agreement

[AimingforYoko]

On 7/27/2017 at 10:51 PM, glowbug said:

We should change the title of this thread to "The Winds of Winter: Book 6 Will Arrive...Never". 

A minor, but hilarious sub-plot of Logan Lucky is a fake prison riot and one of the list of demands is The Winds of Winter (And A Dream of Spring)in the library. The warden had to explain that it wasn't out yet and one of the prisoners said, "Bullshit, that book was scheduled to be out two years ago!"

[Azi]

I don't even know if this is worth posting here, since it's the same old stuff, but here you go I guess:

 

Quote

"I did not start to write slower over the years. I was working on the first book for six year and four years on the second one. Fantasists who release their novels every year, do not offer books of large volume. These are not 1.5k pages like mine, but, for example, 500. In addition, I have not become younger. Age does not add enthusiasm.”

Maybe also relevant:
 

Quote

“The book series and TV adaptation go their separate ways. On the screen characters are killed right and left. About twenty of them have died already, which are quite alive to me and will appear in a new book.”

Yeah, well. The show has overtaken you, so that's really not that strange. Unless of course they all survive the next book.

Source: George R. R. Martin: “I do not watch Game of Thrones”

[WearyTraveler]

Every time I see this thread has been updated, I think I'll come and find something encouraging.... SIGH!

EVERY.DAMN.TIME!!!

[glowbug]

1 hour ago, WearyTraveler said:

Every time I see this thread has been updated, I think I'll come and find something encouraging.... SIGH!

EVERY.DAMN.TIME!!!

Me too. I keep telling myself that it's going to be nothing. People complaining (rightfully) or GRRM saying it will be finished when it's finished (non-answer), but my stupid heart won't listen and I still have this small grain of hope. Ugh. 

[YaddaYadda]

3 minutes ago, glowbug said:

I still have this small grain of hope.

Kills the small grain of hope, @glowbug and let extreme pessimism be born?

[WindyNights]

11 hours ago, Azi said:

 

Yeah, well. The show has overtaken you, so that's really not that strange. Unless of course they all survive the next book.

Source: George R. R. Martin: “I do not watch Game of Thrones”

I think that's what he's implying. That these characaters aren't dead at the book's parallel point in the story.