The Winds of Winter

The Winds of Winter
Author George R. R. Martin
Country United States
Language English
Series A Song of Ice and Fire
Genre Fantasy
Publisher Bantam Spectra/US
Voyager Books/UK
Preceded by A Dance with Dragons
Followed by A Dream of Spring

The Winds of Winter is the planned sixth novel in the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin.

Martin believes the last two volumes of the series will be books of 1,500+ manuscript pages each.[1] They will take readers farther north than any of the previous books, and the Others will appear in The Winds of Winter.[2] Martin has refrained from making hard estimates for the final release date of the novel.[3] In April 2018, Martin revealed that the book would not be published in 2018.[4]

Plot

The Winds of Winter will take readers farther north than any of the previous books, and the Others will appear in the book.[2] The previous installment, A Dance with Dragons, covered less story than Martin intended, excluding at least one planned large battle sequence and leaving several character threads ending in cliffhangers.[3] Martin intends to resolve these storylines "very early" in The Winds of Winter, saying "I'm going to open with the two big battles that I was building up to, the battle in the ice and the battle at Meereen—the battle of Slaver's Bay. And then take it from there."[2] A Victarion Greyjoy chapter will begin five minutes after the end of A Dance with Dragons, taking place on the eve of the Iron Born's arrival in Slaver's Bay.[5] Arianne Martell sample chapters that Martin released on his website showed her heading for Griffin's Roost to see the young man who is calling himself Aegon.[6][7] At Guadalajara International Book Fair 2016, Martin gave some clues about the dark nature of The Winds of Winter: ... "I’ve been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fill the world, so this is not going to be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places. .... Things get worse before they get better, so things are getting worse for a lot of people.”[8]

Viewpoint characters

Martin has confirmed that the following characters have point-of-view chapters in The Winds of Winter:

  • Sansa Stark: One chapter was removed from A Dance with Dragons in June 2010,[9] and one sample chapter titled Alayne appeared on Martin's website in April 2015.[10]
  • Arya Stark: One chapter was removed from A Dance with Dragons in June 2010,[9] and one sample chapter titled Mercy appeared on Martin's website in March 2014.[11][12]
  • Arianne Martell: Two chapters were removed from A Dance with Dragons in June 2010.[9] One sample chapter appeared on Martin's website in January 2013,[6] and was read at Harbour Front Literaturfestival in June 2015.[13] Martin read from both chapters at MystiCon in February 2016.[14] In May 2016, Martin replaced the sample Sansa Stark chapter titled Alayne on his website from 2015 with the first Arianne Martell chapter he has read from at MystiCon.[15]
  • Aeron Greyjoy: One chapter was removed from A Dance with Dragons in July 2010.[16] A chapter titled The Forsaken was read in May 2016 at Balticon. It was written in, or before, 2011 but there was no confirmation that this was the chapter removed from A Dance with Dragons.[17]
  • Theon Greyjoy: One sample chapter appeared on Martin's website in December 2011.[18][19] It also appears as a teaser chapter at the end of the UK paperback edition of A Dance with Dragons (part two).
  • Victarion Greyjoy: Portions of one chapter were first read at TIFF Bell Lightbox in March 2012.[5]
  • Tyrion Lannister: One chapter was read at Eastercon in April 2012,[20] and another one at Worldcon in August 2013,[21] the second of which was later published in the official iOS app on March 20, 2014.[22]
  • Barristan Selmy: One chapter was released as a teaser at the end of the 2013 U.S. paperback edition of A Dance with Dragons.[23] In 2013 Martin read from a second chapter at Boskone.[24]

Martin confirmed that there are no new viewpoint characters intended for The Winds of Winter.[25] Martin confirmed that Areo Hotah[26] and Melisandre[27] will return as viewpoints but did not state which novel their chapters will appear in, and that Bran Stark[28] will appear in the novel, but did not elaborate if as a viewpoint. In addition, he teased at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con that Jeyne Westerling, Robb Stark's widow, will appear in the prologue chapter, but did not reveal who will be the POV character.[29]

Background and publication

Chapters

The Winds of Winter[9] was originally intended, in the very early stages of the series, to be the final installment of A Song of Ice and Fire (then conceived as a trilogy).[30] Following his expansion of the series, Martin eventually concluded it would be succeeded by one final novel, A Dream of Spring.[31] By June 2010, Martin had finished four chapters for The Winds of Winter from the viewpoints of Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, and Arianne Martell.[9] In July 2010, he added an Aeron Greyjoy chapter that had been moved from A Dance with Dragons to The Winds of Winter, accumulating around 100 completed manuscript pages.[16] Following the publication of A Dance with Dragons in the summer of 2011, Martin announced his return to writing the series in January 2012,[3] having spent the intervening time on his U.S. and overseas book publicity tours and attending various conventions. He continued to work, with his two co-authors Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson, on the illustrated series companion guide The World of Ice & Fire concordance and Westeros history, which at one time he wanted to have completed by the end of 2011. He also worked on a Westeros story, the fourth Tales of Dunk and Egg novella.[32]

In December 2011, Martin posted a Theon Greyjoy viewpoint chapter from The Winds of Winter; he also announced that another sample chapter would be included at the end of the North American paperback version of A Dance with Dragons,[2][33] which was originally expected to be released in summer 2012,[2] but was released on October 29, 2013.[34] (International paperback editions of A Dance with Dragons published a year earlier did not include a new, as yet unpublished sample chapter.)[35] In the first quarter of 2012, Martin read new chapters of other characters at public events, including the chapters of Victarion Greyjoy and Tyrion Lannister.[20] Martin continued work editing anthologies and completing a large, highly detailed series atlas The Lands of Ice and Fire, which was published in October 2012.[36][37] Martin published another sample chapter from Arianne Martell's POV on his website in January 2013.[6] On March 27, ten days before the Game of Thrones season four premiere, Martin posted a chapter on his website, titled Mercy. Martin said the new chapter is actually an old one, though never published nor publicly read.[11] In April 2015, Martin posted a Sansa Stark viewpoint chapter from The Winds of Winter titled Alayne.[10] In May 2016, Martin replaced this chapter with an Arianne Martell chapter he had read from at Mysticon,[15] and an Aeron Greyjoy chapter that was removed from A Dance with Dragons was read at Balticon.

As of June 2016, a total of 11 chapters from The Winds of Winter have been either read publicly or published as a sample chapter. The point of view characters with released material are Victarion, Aeron, Tyrion, Barristan, Arianne, Theon, Mercy (Arya), and Alayne (Sansa).[38] Several websites, including Goodreads, have dedicated entire discussion panels to any material that has been released from The Winds of Winter, including plot twists, theories, and speculations. In 2018, Martin indicated he won't release any more sample chapters.[39]

Publication date

Martin believes the last two volumes of the series will be massive works of 1,500+ manuscript pages each.[1] He does not intend to separate characters by geography again, as he was forced to do because of the unpublishable length of A Feast for Crows' original manuscript. But, as Martin stated in a 2011 interview, "Three years from now when I'm sitting on 1,800 pages of manuscript with no end in sight, who the hell knows".[40] In 2018, he revealed that some of his publishers had suggested splitting The Winds of Winter into two books but that he was against it.[41]

In April 2011, shortly before the publication of A Dance with Dragons which took him six years to write, Martin hoped that "the last two books will go a little quicker than this one has" and estimated that it would take "three years to finish the next one at a good pace".[42][43] By October 2012, 400 pages of the sixth novel had been written, although Martin considered only the first 200 as "really finished", the rest still needing revisions.[44] In April 2013, Martin estimated that he had a quarter of the book.[45] In the past, Martin has angered some of his fan base for repeatedly estimating his publication dates too optimistically; therefore, he has refrained from making hard estimates for The Winds of Winter's final release date.[3] Ultimately the book "will be done when it's done".[30] In 2012, Martin had acknowledged his concerns about the final novel, A Dream of Spring, not being completed by the time the TV series Game of Thrones catches up in its storyline to the novels.[46]

In January 2014, Martin's UK publisher, Jane Johnson, declared on Twitter that the book would "certainly" not be published before 2015.[47] In September 2014 Johnson stated that the book was "not a 2015 release".[48] In April 2015, Martin commented on his blog that The Winds of Winter will not be eligible for the 2016 Hugo Award which is awarded for science fiction or fantasy works of the previous year[49] but he also said he would like to have it published before the sixth season of the HBO series Game of Thrones (which would cover material from the book) aired in 2016.[50][51] In Autumn 2015, statements made by the Spanish editor and the Polish translator of the novel indicated that it was expected to be published in 2016.[52][53][54][55]

In early January 2016, Martin confirmed on his Live Journal that he had not met an end-of-year deadline that he had established with his publisher for release of the book before the sixth season of the HBO show. He added that there was "a lot still left to write" and that completion of the book was "months away still... if the writing goes well". Martin also revealed there had been a previous deadline of October 2015 that he had considered achievable in May 2015, and that in September 2015 he had still considered the end-of-year deadline achievable. He further confirmed that some of the plot of the book might be revealed in the upcoming season of Game of Thrones[56] but one of the showrunners, David Benioff, claimed that while certain key elements would be the same, the show would diverge from the book in many respects.[57] In February 2016, Martin stated that he had dropped all his editing projects except for Wild Cards, and that he would not be writing any teleplays, screenplays, short stories, introductions or forewords before delivering The Winds of Winter.[58]

In September 2014, Walt Hickey of FiveThirtyEight and Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post estimated the release date sometime between 2015 and 2018, based on extrapolation of Martin's writing pace.[59][60]

On January 10, 2017, Martin announced on his blog in a response to a comment that he believed that The Winds of Winter will be released "this year", referring to 2017. However, he also noted that he had believed the same thing would occur the previous year.[61][62][38] He confirmed on his blog that he was still working on The Winds of Winter as of July 22, 2017, being "still months away" from finishing the book. He also indicated that it may not be published until 2018 or later, with Fire & Blood, the book on the history of House Targaryen, possibly preceding it.[63] In April 2018, Martin confirmed on his blog that Fire and Blood would be published November 20, 2018, and The Winds of Winter would not be published in 2018.[4] In June[64] and again in August 2018,[65] he confirmed he's continuing work on The Winds of Winter.

References

  1. 1 2 "George R. R. Martin Webchat Transcript". empireonline.com. April 2012. Retrieved April 26, 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "George R.R. Martin Talks Season Two, 'The Winds of Winter,' and Real-World Influences for 'A Song of Ice and Fire'". SmarterTravel. March 26, 2012.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Hibberd, James (July 22, 2011). "The Fantasy King". ew.com. Retrieved January 21, 2012.
  4. 1 2 "FIRE & BLOOD : On The Way - Not a Blog". georgerrmartin.com.
  5. 1 2 Martin, George R. R. (2012). In Conversation With... George R.R. Martin on Game of Thrones Part 3 – TIFF Bell Lightbox. TIFF Bell Lightbox. Event occurs at 30:50 min.
  6. 1 2 3 Martin, George R. R. (January 27, 2013). "Arianne". George R. R. Martin. Archived from the original on March 29, 2013.
  7. ↑ "Excerpt from the Winds of Winter - George R.R. Martin".
  8. ↑ Gettell, Oliver (December 6, 2016). "George RR Martin on Winds of Winter: Things are getting worse". Entertainment Weekly. Time Inc. Retrieved December 21, 2016. Watch Martin’s full Q&A above.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Martin, George R. R. (June 27, 2010). "Dancing in Circles". grrm.livejournal.com. Archived from the original on April 4, 2012. Retrieved February 4, 2012.
  10. 1 2 "Excerpt from the Winds of Winter - George R.R. Martin". georgerrmartin.com.
  11. 1 2 "'Winds Of Winter' Chapter — George RR Martin Releases 'Game Of Thrones' Excerpt - Hollywood Life". Hollywood Life.
  12. ↑ "The Winds of Winter: Mercy". georgerrmartin.com. Archived from the original on March 27, 2014. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  13. ↑ Martin, George R. R. (2015). George R. R. Martin reads TWoW Arianne @ Harbour Front Literaturfestival 2015
  14. ↑ "George R.R. Martin Reads Winds of Winter Chapters At Mysticon". Winter is Coming.
  15. 1 2 "A Taste of This, A Taste of That". Archived from the original on May 11, 2016.
  16. 1 2 Martin, George R. R. (July 31, 2010). "Dancing". grrm.livejournal.com. Archived from the original on April 4, 2012. Retrieved February 4, 2012.
  17. ↑ "6 Things We Learned From the New Winds of Winter Chapter".
  18. ↑ "The Winds of Winter: Theon Chapter". georgerrmartin.com. Archived from the original on June 3, 2012. Retrieved January 8, 2012.
  19. ↑ Sacks, Ethan (December 30, 2011). "George R.R. Martin surprises Song of Ice and Fire fans with free chapter of next book". nydailynews.com. Retrieved January 21, 2012.
  20. 1 2 "EasterCon – Eat, Drink and talk SFF!". harpervoyagerbooks.com. April 10, 2012. Archived from the original on April 19, 2012. Retrieved April 11, 2012.
  21. ↑ Schwartz, Terry (February 26, 2014). "Winds of Winter: Read a new excerpt from George R.R. Martin's next Game of Thrones novel". Zap2it.com. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
  22. ↑ "New Winds of Winter Chapter Coming Out Today". Tor.com. March 20, 2014. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
  23. ↑ Martin, George R. R. (October 29, 2013). "The Dragons Are Here". grrm.livejournal.com. Archived from the original on December 27, 2014. Retrieved November 2, 2013.
  24. ↑ "How Much of George R. R. Martin's The Winds of Winter is Out So Far?". March 27, 2014.
  25. ↑ Martin, George R. R. "A Taste of This, A Taste of That". Not A Blog. Retrieved November 25, 2016.
  26. ↑ Martin, George R. R. "A Taste of This, A Taste of That". Not A Blog. Retrieved November 25, 2016.
  27. ↑ JUEGOS DE TRONOS de George R.R Martin en la FIL de Guadalajara 2016 Event occurs at 27:22
  28. ↑ "Conventions and Cancellations". GRRM Not A Blog. April 1, 2015. Retrieved January 21, 2017.
  29. ↑ "George R.R. Martin teases the prologue and plotlines of 'The Winds of Winter'".
  30. 1 2 Brown, Rachael (July 11, 2011). "George R.R. Martin on Sex, Fantasy, and A Dance With Dragons". theatlantic.com. Retrieved February 2, 2012.
  31. ↑ Gevers, Nick (December 2000). "Sunsets of High Renown – An Interview with George R. R. Martin". Infinity Plus. Retrieved January 21, 2012. (Interview approved by GRRM Archived February 4, 2012, at the Wayback Machine..)
  32. ↑ Harte, Bryant (July 12, 2011). "An Interview with George R. R. Martin, Part I". indigo.ca. Archived from the original on April 4, 2012. Retrieved February 15, 2012.
  33. ↑ Kepler, Adam W. (January 1, 2012). "'Game of Thrones' Treat". The New York Times. Retrieved January 2, 2012.
  34. ↑ "A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin". Random House. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
  35. ↑ "A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five". amazon.de. Retrieved February 9, 2012.
  36. ↑ Martin, George R.R (April 8, 2012). George R.R. Martin Interview. Eastercon. Event occurs at 58:00. Retrieved April 12, 2012.
  37. ↑ "The Lands of Ice and Fire (A Game of Thrones)". randomhouse.ca. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  38. 1 2 "The Winds of Winter: release date, news, plot, chapters and returning characters". NME. 2017-01-15. Retrieved 2017-01-17.
  39. ↑ "FIRE & BLOOD : On The Way - Not a Blog". georgerrmartin.com.
  40. ↑ Hibberd, James (July 12, 2011). "EW interview: George R.R. Martin talks A Dance With Dragons". ew.com. Retrieved January 21, 2012.
  41. ↑ "FIRE & BLOOD : On The Way - Not a Blog". georgerrmartin.com.
  42. ↑ Flood, Alison (April 13, 2011). "George RR Martin: Barbarians at the gate". guardian.co.uk. Retrieved January 21, 2012.
  43. ↑ Miller, Laura (April 11, 2011). "Just Write It! A fantasy author and his impatient fans". newyorker.com. Retrieved April 23, 2010.
  44. ↑ Guxens, Adrià (October 7, 2012). "George R.R. Martin: "Trying to please everyone is a horrible mistake"". adriasnews.com. Retrieved October 9, 2012.
  45. ↑ Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin Interview. YouTube. April 1, 2013.
  46. ↑ Griffin, Bryant (June 13, 2012). "Martin Talks 'Game Of Thrones,' 'The Winds Of Winter'". Airlock Alpha. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
  47. ↑ Johnson, Jane (January 24, 2014). "Twitter / JaneJohnsonBakr: @bonefish914 Certainly not this year". Twitter. Retrieved 23 October 2018.
  48. ↑ "Jane Johnson on Twitter". Twitter.
  49. ↑ "Reading for Rockets". Archived from the original on March 12, 2016.
  50. ↑ "'Game of Thrones' author George R.R. Martin determined to finish book by 2016 - EW.com". Entertainment Weekly's EW.com.
  51. ↑ "Winds of Winter release date: Book to be out before Game of Thrones Season 6". Retrieved June 12, 2015.
  52. ↑ Hooton, Christopher (September 10, 2015). "The Winds of Winter release date 2016: George RR Martin's next book might finally be coming". The Independent. Archived from the original on September 12, 2015. Retrieved January 21, 2017.
  53. ↑ Jesús Baratheon. "Alejo Cuervo (Gigamesh): "Está previsto que Vientos de Invierno salga en 2016 (también en español)"". Los Siete Reinos.
  54. ↑ "Relacja z konwentu Kapitularz 2015". Pieśń lodu i ognia - Gra o tron.
  55. ↑ Christopher Hooton (October 2, 2015). "The Winds of Winter release date news: Polish translator slip suggests late 2015/early 2016 for next George RR Martin book". The Independent.
  56. ↑ Martin, George R. R. (January 2, 2016). "Last Year (Winds of Winter)". Archived from the original on January 2, 2016. Retrieved January 2, 2016.
  57. ↑ "'Game of Thrones' showrunners: Season 6 won't spoil the books - EW.com". Entertainment Weekly's EW.com.
  58. ↑ Selcke, Dan (February 17, 2016). "George R.R. Martin: "I am not writing anything until I deliver WINDS OF WINTER"". Winter is Coming. Retrieved February 18, 2016.
  59. ↑ Hickey, Walt. "Predicting When 'Game of Thrones' Author George R. R. Martin Will Come Out With His Next Book". Fivethirtyeight.com. Retrieved September 7, 2014.
  60. ↑ Ingraham, Christopher (June 16, 2014). "Predict when George R.R. Martin will finish 'Game of Thrones', using the magic of geometry". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 7, 2014.
  61. ↑ George R. R. Martin (January 9, 2017). "Doom, Despair, Defeat". Not a Blog. Archived from the original on 15 August 2017. Retrieved January 11, 2017.
  62. ↑ Hibberd, James (January 11, 2017). "George R.R. Martin on Winds of Winter release date: 'I think this year'". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved January 11, 2017.
  63. ↑ grrm (July 22, 2017). "The Swords Are Drawn".
  64. ↑ "HBO Greenlights Goldman Pilot". georgerrmartin.com. June 11, 2018. Retrieved August 15, 2018.
  65. ↑ Antonsson, Elio M. García and Linda. "Westeros: News - GRRM at SF in SF". www.westeros.org.
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