The last novel in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice & Fire" series, "A Dance with Dragons," was published in 2011, mere months after the premiere of the first season of HBO's Game of Thrones series. Needless to say, fans have been waiting for the next installment of Martin's long-running series for quite some time, but the author recently wrote on his blog that he's hopeful the "The Winds of Winter" will finally be complete next year.
"I am spending long hours every day on 'The Winds of Winter,' and making steady progress," Martin wrote. "I finished a new chapter yesterday, another one three days ago, another one the previous week. But no, this does not mean that the book will be finished tomorrow or published next week. It’s going to be a huge book, and I still have a long way to go." Martin also added that he was "heartbroken" when he had to cancel his plans to travel to Wellington, New Zealand to attend the 78th World Science Fiction Convention due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but said, "I can always visit Wellington next year, when I hope that both Covid-19 and 'The Winds of Winter' will be done." Martin continued:
Of late I have been visiting with Cersei, Asha, Tyrion, Ser Barristan, and Areo Hotah. I will be dropping back into Braavos next week. I have bad days, which get me down, and good days, which lift me up, but all in all I am pleased with the way things are doing. I do wish they would go faster, of course. Way way back in 1999, when I was deep in the writing of 'A Storm of Swords,' I was averaging about 150 pages of manuscript a month. I fear I shall never recapture that pace again. Looking back, I am not sure how I did it then.
While Game of Thrones may have come to an end last year, the franchise will continue on HBO in the form of House of the Dragon, a prequel series which will be set 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones and will track the beginning of the end for House Targaryen. The ten-episode series is based upon George R.R. Martin's "Fire & Blood," a Targaryen history book which chronicles the history of House Targaryen, starting off with "Aegon the Conqueror, creator of the Iron Throne, and [going on] to recount the generations of Targaryens who fought to hold the throne, all the way up to the civil war, known as the Dance of the Dragons, that nearly tore their dynasty apart." While George R.R. Martin didn't provide any major update on the prequel series, he did say that it is "still flying along wonderfully" despite the COVID-19 shutdown "thanks to Ryan Condal and his writers, and the tireless Ti Mikkel."