A Song of Ice and Firefans rejoiceGeorge RR Martinfinally has an update on the long-long awaitedWinds of Winterbook. The renowned author recently appeared onThe Late Show with Stephen Colbertto promote his new bookThe Rise of the Dragon: An Illustrated History of the Targaryen Dynasty, Volume Onewhere he shared the progress on the upcoming book among other things.
During their conversation, Colbert joked that he’s “legally required” to ask Martin about the status ofWinds of Winterto which Martin revealed that the book isn’t finished yet as the book is even longer than aStorm of SwordsandA Dance with Dragons. On further probing by the host he revealed, “I think it’s going to be a very big book [more than 1500 pages] and I think I’m about three-quarters of the way done.” Further adding, “The characters all interweave and I’m actually finished with a couple of the characters, but not others. I have to finish all that weaving.”
Upon getting the response Colbert quickly did the math asking, “So [it’s taken] 10 years to go 75 percent of the way through … which means about … three more years?” To which Martin jokingly replied, “That’s depressing,” though he further jabbed saying that onceWinds of Winteris published, he’ll get the first tweet the next day asking, “where’sA Dream of Spring?” Fans have been long waiting forWinds of Winteras Martin’s last bookA Dance with Dragonscame out in 2011, the yearGame of Thronesoriginal series launched. The HBO series finished in almost a span of a decade, in 2019, moving past the original material.
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HBO recently concluded Season 1 of the prequel seriesHouse of the Dragonwhich is based onFire and Bloodand leads up to the Targaryen Civil War dubbed,Dance of the Dragons. The author briefly discussed various dragons that are involved in the series revealing “some will die, and new ones are born,” along with his vision for the fearsome creatures in the series. His new bookThe Rise of the Dragontakes the core story fromFire & Bloodand adds illustrations. Martin explained, “Fire & Bloodis about 300,000 words of Targaryen history. This one is about a quarter of that length in terms of words, but we added 150 original illustrations by some of the finest fantasy artists in the world.”
