Summary
- George RR Martin is 13 years behind on completing The Winds of Winter, which is causing concern among fans.
- The final two books in the series, including A Dream of Spring, may experience significant publication delays.
- Martin's original plan was a trilogy, but the series was expanded, which may have affected the story's final resolution.
Winter is about to arrive at George RR Martin A song of ice and fire saga, but since it's been an agonizingly long 13 years since the last book was published, fans fear he may never be able to write an ending to the War of the Five Kings. Although the game of Thrones Although the TV series had its own ending in 2019, there is still a lot of the story to be told in book form.
Martin outlined his plan to write seven books A song of ice and fire series, with the last two being entries The winds of winter And A dream of spring. The author openly expressed that he was behind in his writing The winds of winter. Although he says he has no plans to retire, his advancing age and previous recordings have readers concerned about the last two entries.

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Where are the winds of winter?
Martin started writing The winds of winter in 2010 at the latest, probably from 2010 A dance with dragons' Cliffhanger ending. Book five ended with Daenerys fleeing the troubled Meereen on the back of Drogon, Jon Snow being stabbed by his own Night's Watch men, and Varys revealing his plan to put Aegon Targaryen on the Iron Throne. Although things have turned out differently in terms of missing characters in the series, these events are roughly consistent with the fifth season of the HBO series.
Martin's original plan was to write A song of ice and fire as a trilogy, with the only books A Game of Thrones, A dance with dragonsAnd The winds of winter. This again underlines the apparent importance of The winds of winter and the story it will tell. This would also have meant that the books were all previously published game of Thrones even started broadcasting. Instead, 28 years have passed since the first book was published and there is still no end in sight.
What's frustrating is the fact that… A dance with dragons runs parallel to 2005 A feast for crows This means that other open storylines, such as the fate of Brienne of Tarth at the hands of Lady Stoneheart and the blinding of Arya Stark at the hands of the Faceless Men, remain unresolved. Martin teased fans by releasing 11 chapters The winds of winter over the years, with one in which Theon is captured by Stannis Baratheon A dance with dragons'Paperback. He stopped publishing chapters in 2018 because he didn't want to reveal more.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Martin admitted that he was 13 years late The winds of winter, but don't know how it happened. He reiterated that the novel was a priority, stating:
“This is still a priority. Many people are already writing obituaries for me. [They’re saying] “Oh, he'll never finish.” Maybe they're right. I don't know. I'm alive right now! I seem pretty energetic!”
This has led to further complaints from readers, again pointing out how The winds of winter was not the priority he had previously promised. I also took the time to write the sixth book Fire and bloodhe worked on that House of the Dragonhelped with development A knight of the Seven Kingdomsand is working on a film based on the late Howard Waldrop The ugly chickens.
All of this comes with building the world for FromSoftware Elden Ringto which some claims have been made The winds of winterThe costs. Considering he had written four chapters by June 2010, it shows how slow progress has been over the past 14 years. The hopeful 2014 and 2016 release dates are long gone, and Martin's critics will point to his infamous quote from February 2016, when he promised readers of his website “Not a Blog”:
“I'm not writing anything until I've delivered Winds of Winter. Teleplays, scripts, short stories, introductions, forewords, nothing.”
He once told fans they could lock him up if he wasn't finished by July 2020, but almost four and a half years later there is no trace of the mythical manuscript. Although Martin jokes that people think he might die sooner The winds of winter is published, others are looking even further ahead.

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Game of Thrones fans are still dreaming of spring
When the reader closes the book The winds of winter, A dream of spring It's expected to be even more epic. Even if The winds of winter got a surprise release in 2025 if Martin took that long to write A dream of springit wouldn't appear until 2039. Aside from George RR Martin being in his 90s, a large number of fans would probably miss out on seeing how the story ends.
In a 2022 update on his website, Martin explained how the books will change game of Thrones' controversial ending that makes sense due to the lack of seemingly important characters like Victarion Greyjoy, Arianne Martell and Jon Connington:
“But what I've noticed more and more recently is that my gardening is taking me further and further away from the TV series. Yes, some of the things you saw in Game of Thrones on HBO you'll see in The Winds of Winter (although perhaps not quite in the same way)… but the rest will be very different.”
That's no secret game of ThronesThe ending was controversial, with more than 1.5 million people signing a petition to remake the eighth season The winds of winterThe release is even more important because it will give critics their first real taste of where things could be heading.
In Martin's original plan, the final book would have focused on the Others, who are the book version of the White Walkers. They were portrayed as the true threat to Westeros, but the series failed to capitalize on them. Many were critical of Season 8, saying it should have focused on Cersei and the battle for King's Landing in the first half before moving on to an epic battle with the White Walkers at Winterfell in the final episodes. Martin hasn't revealed how he plans to end the books, but many assume the Others will be the de facto big bad. However, that doesn't mean Daenerys Targaryen won't get her Mad Queen arc.
As both The winds of winter And A dream of spring Although the books will be longer than the previous books, it gives insight into how long they will last. There are rumors that Martin has thought up something special and possibly even written something The winds of winter And A dream of spring at the same time. In a more recent post on his blog from July 2024, Martin cryptically warned:
When Winds of Winter is finished, the news won't leak, there will be a big announcement… where and when, I can't say.
Optimists hope that even if the last two books are not published at the same time, Martin secretly wrote the ending of the story in case something happened to him. Meanwhile, disgruntled readers are taking to ChatGPT to create examples of how they think Martin will round out the sordid saga. The man himself warns the fan favorites who died game of Thrones will live to fight another day, and some who survived will not make it A dream of springReaders are looking forward to the final pages A song of ice and fireThe latest posts from “are just as shocking as HBO’s live-action adaptation.