'Game of Thrones’ Author Offers Depressing Update on Long-Delayed Next Book

Fans of A Song of Ice and Fire, the fantasy book series that HBO's Game of Thrones is based on, are used to bleak updates about when the next book in the series will be released. Readers have been waiting for The Winds of Winter to come out for nearly a decade and a half. The latest news about the status of George R.R. Martin's writing progress is no different, though if anything it's even more depressing because the author himself seems pretty burnt out about the whole thing. 

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter—a long conversation that also touched on Martin's frustration with the House of the Dragon TV series—the 77-year-old author revealed that he's not really in the mood to finish the long-awaited book. Martin recalled a conversation he once had with Dune author Frank Herbert. 

"He didn’t like Dune anymore and he didn’t want to write any more Dune books,” Martin recalled. “But he felt locked in by the success of Dune, so he kept writing them.”

When THR's reporter asked if Martin related to Herbert, he answered. 

"I’m not necessarily tired of the world [of Ice and Fire],” he says. “I love the world and the world-building. But, yes, I do."

Winds of Winter Is Perennially Delayed

Winds of Winter is slated to be the sixth and penultimate book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. The fifth book, A Dance With Dragons, came out in July 2011, just a few months after the premiere of the first season of Game of Thrones. The HBO series has since ended, but book-readers are still waiting. Martin explained in the THR interview that a large part of the delay is how complicated the story has become and how frequently he finds himself dissatisfied with what he's written so far, or that he'll stumble upon a new idea that requires him to change a lot of what he'd already put on the paper. 

Another issue is that Martin has a lot on his plate. Even though his relationship with House of the Dragon is rocky, he's heavily involved with HBO's latest Game of Thrones spin-off series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. That show is based on his Dunk and Egg novellas, which Martin would like to write more of. There's also a second volume of his Targayen history, Fire and Blood, that needs finishing.

"I have to write more Dunk and Egg. There’s supposed to be another Fire and Blood book, too. I do think if I can just get some of these other things off my back, I could finish The Winds of Winter pretty soon," Martin said. "It’s been made clear to me that Winds is the priority, but … I don’t know. Sometimes I’m not in the mood for that."

George R.R. Martin Says He Does Want to Finish the Series

Even though Martin admitted to being tired of writing The Winds of Winter (at least some of the time), the good news is that he doesn't want to give up on it. 

“I would hate that,” Martin said. “It would feel like a total failure to me. I want to finish."

If the 77-year-old does not get around to finishing Winds—to say nothing of A Dream of Spring, the seventh and final book in the series—he won't be handing over the reins to another author. In the THR story, Martin recalled how offended he was during an appearance at WorldCon in August when a fan asked if he would ever let another writer finish the series because, as the questioner bluntly put it, Martin was probably going to die soon.

"They say, ‘He lied to us, he is going to die soon, look how old he is,’” Martin said. “I really didn’t need that s--t. Nobody needs that s--t.”

However, in the event that Martin does die before the final books are finished, that'll be it. 

“If that happens, my work won’t be finished," Martin said, making a comparison to Charles Dickens’ unfinished final novel. "It’ll be like The Mystery of Edwin Drood.”