George RR Martin, who inspired HBO’s Game of Thrones with his A Song of Ice and Fire book series, has been frustrating fans of the series by delaying the penultimate book in the series, “The Winds of Winter.” However, we now have an idea of when we can expect the book to release.
In his most recent blog post, Martin vowed to finish the book by 2020 and even gave himself an ultimatum.
“I tell you this,” Martin wrote on his blog. “If I don’t have THE WINDS OF WINTER in hand when I arrive in New Zealand for worldcon, you have here my formal written permission to imprison me in a small cabin on White Island, overlooking that lake of sulfuric acid, until I’m done. Just so long as the acrid fumes do not screw up my old DOS word processor, I’ll be fine.
“I fear that New Zealand would distract me entirely too much. Best leave me here in Westeros for the nonce. If you’d care to fly, say, twenty or thirty or fifty of them to Wellington in place of me. I have no doubt they would instantly accept, and fall in love with Middle Earth.. er, New Zealand… just as I have.”
Martin will be heading to New Zealand next summer for the World Science Fiction Convention.
Let’s hope Martin follows through on his promise.
After “The Winds of Winter,” the final book of the series will be titled “A Dream of Spring!”
The Martin-inspired Game of Thrones series officially came to an end on Sunday, May 19 with a highly controversial finale. Of course, showrunners were on their own for the final few seasons of the series because of Martin’s constant delay of “The Winds of Winter.”
Now, we will have to see how he ultimately decides to end the series and just how different of a direction he chooses to pivot from the HBO hit show.
