A Song of Ice and Fire’s penultimate book The Winds of Winter has been in the works for the best part of a decade. Game of Thrones came and went and George RR Martin is still writing the novel. However, it really does now look like the 72-year-old author is finally approaching the finish line.
Over the weekend, Martin shared a detailed update on his writing progress for The Winds of Winter titled Back to Westeros.
Now respected ASOIAF expert BryndenBFish has posted an extensive analysis of the blog update, stating that he believes Martin really and truly is finally reaching the end.
He highlighted that the author wrote: “No, sorry, still not done, but I do inch closer.
“It is a big big book. I try not to dwell on that too much.”
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But the ASOIAF expert pointed out that just two months before he completed A Dance with Dragons, the last book in the series, Martin used the same language.
The author quoted from Martin’s blog in February 2011: “And on other fronts… it’s still snowing on Skull Island, but one of the krakens is done and t’other is down to the last tentacle.
“Closer and closer… inch by inch, word by word, step by step…”
With this in mind, could Martin be just a couple of months from completing The Winds of Winter?
It’s certainly possible given that Martinr hopes to release The Winds of Winter in 2021, which we’re now very close to.
BryndenBFish concluded: “George is reordering the book and moving things around.
“What this indicates is that George has a better sense of the narrative thrust of the book, and that he’s ordering chapters to fall in the best thematic, plot or character order.
“That also again underlines the point that George has enough finalized material that he feels like he can do this now and may also be closer to completion than previously thought.”
The ASOIAF expert feels that Martin’s progress with A Dance with Dragons is a reliable benchmark for just how fast he’s writing The Winds of Winter.
BryndenBFish wrote: “What I discovered was that as George got closer to finishing ADWD, he began to write faster, writing some seven hundred-plus manuscript pages between January 2010 and April 2011.
“GRRM’s steady and picking up steam progress may be data points which show that George is truly, and I know you’ll sigh and accuse me of not being the hypeslayer anymore (No, I will not change my flair) inching towards the finish line.”
Assuming Martin publishes The Winds of Winter next year, which he says will be a big book, he won’t start writing A Dream of Spring right away.
Martin first plans to have a palate cleanser in a fourth Dunk and Egg short story.
The 73-year-old will then get started on his conclusion to A Song of Ice and Fire in A Dream of Spring.
After that, he will pen a fifth Dunk and Egg before tackling Fire and Blood Volume 2.
The Winds of Winter is currently set for release at some point in 2021.
