After almost half a decade, George R. R. Martin's update on The Winds of Winter continues to intrigue

The Winds of Winter, the sixth novel in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, is still under development. While the HBO series Game of Thrones concluded with a disappointing Season 8 in 2019, the book series hasn't yet ended.

The sixth book, The Winds of Winter, will be the longest in the series so far, with over 1,500 pages. That makes it considerably longer than the fifth novel, A Dance with Dragons, which is 1,056 pages long.

The last book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series was released simultaneously with the first season of the HBO series. However, the series took over the books when the sixth season released its finale.

Fans gave up hope of getting the sixth novel, and even Martin seemed to acknowledge similar sentiments in his blog entry published on May 28, 2025. The author wrote:

“I know, I know. Some of you will just be p*ssed off by this, as you are by everything I announce here that is not about Westeros or THE WINDS OF WINTER. You have given up on me, or on the book. I will never finish WINDS, If I do, I will never finish A DREAM OF SPRING.

However, in October 2022, Martin had confirmed that he had written approximately 1,200 pages.

Martin has acknowledged that The Winds of Winter is a massive book

Over the years, A Song of Ice and Fire series author George R.R. Martin has hinted through his blog that the sixth novel is unusually long.

A rough estimate is over 1,500 pages, and it might be even longer once Martin manages to resolve Daenerys Targaryen’s and other characters' converging storylines in Meereen. Martin said this in October 2022:

“It’s a big, big book, I’ve said that before. It’s a challenging book. It’s probably gonna be a larger book than any of the previous volumes in the series.”

As mentioned above, the most recent update about The Winds of Winter came in Martin's blog entry on May 28, 2025. The author revealed that he was producing A Dozen Tough Jobs, a book written by the late Howard Waldrop. In the same entry, Martin addressed the much-delayed sixth book.

He began on a much harsher note but softened later:

“I know, I know. Some of you will just be p*ssed off by this, as you are by everything I announce here that is not about Westeros or THE WINDS OF WINTER. You have given up on me, or on the book. I will never finish WINDS, If I do, I will never finish A DREAM OF SPRING. If I do, it won’t be any good. I ought to get some other writer to pinch hit for me… I am going to die soon anyway, because I am so old. I lost all interest in A Song of Ice and Fire decades ago.

He continued:

I don’t give a sh*t about writing any longer, I just sit around and spend my money. I edit the Wild Cards books too, but you hate Wild Cards. You may hate everything else I have ever written, the Hugo-winners and Hugo-losers, “A Song for Lya” and DYING OF THE LIGHT, “Sandkings” and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, “This Tower of Ashes” and “The Stone City,” OLD MARS and OLD VENUS and ROGUES and WARRIORS and DANGEROUS WOMEN and all the other anthologies I edited with my friend Gardner Dozois, You don’t care about any of those, I know. You don’t care about anything but WINDS OF WINTER. You’ve told me so often enough”

The message culminated with Martin saying:

"Thing is, I do care about them. And I care about Westeros and WINDS as well. The Starks and Lannisters and Targaryens, Tyrion and Asha, Dany and Daenerys, the dragons and the direwolves, I care about them all. More than you can ever imagine."

It should also be noted that the final two seasons of Game of Thrones were received negatively, unlike the rest of the series. Thus, it might be in the best interest of the fans not to rush Martin.

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