TV

13 Years Later, George Martin Gives a Genuine Timeframe for Winds of Winter

13 Years Later, George Martin Gives a Genuine Timeframe for Winds of Winter
Image credit: HBO

We’re also tired of clickbaits about this, so here’s a friendly heads-up: this is real. George Martin actually shared his expected TWoW release window.

George Martin ’s low fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire blew up with the premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones, but that sudden popularity had a curious side effect. The author completely stopped releasing new books in the main continuity, focusing entirely on prequels, spin-offs, adaptations, and other projects… For 13 years now.

The Winds of Winter has been sitting on Martin’s desk for so long that most fans already gave up all hope of ever seeing that book. But that’s where they were wrong!

GRRM Shared The Winds of Winter Release Window

In the past many years, whatever George Martin was doing, he was always getting angry comments about The Winds of Winter. Many even decided that he’d opted for simply dropping ASoIaF after seeing the massive backlash the Game of Thrones’ finale caused — but apparently, the author has actually been writing all this time.

13 Years Later, George Martin Gives a Genuine Timeframe for Winds of Winter - image 1

In his recent Not A Blog post, Martin gave an unexpected update on his TWoW progress and even shared a release window for the long-anticipated book!

“[A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight] will make its debut next year… And if it does well, The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight will follow. By which time I hope to have finished some more Dunk & Egg stories (yes, after I finish The Winds of Winter),” the author wrote in the post.

What does it mean, you may be wondering?

What Is Martin’s New Release Window for TWoW?

From GRRM’s latest Not A Blog update, we can see that the author’s finally feeling relatively confident in his progress. Seeing how he didn’t give us an exact date and rather a window, it’s up to us to deduct the timeframe — fortunately, it’s quite easy to do since we’re all about movies and TV shows and know how their production works.

The Hedge Knight premieres in 2025. If it’s renewed, another season (either The Sworn Sword or The Mystery Knight) will be made. Seeing that The Hedge Knight will have taken about 2 years to complete since its April 2023 announcement, we should expect Season 2 some time in 2027. So far so good, but what about TWoW?

13 Years Later, George Martin Gives a Genuine Timeframe for Winds of Winter - image 2

By the time A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 2 drops, George Martin hopes to have finished a few more Dunk & Egg stories, but only after The Winds of Winter. This leaves us with a relatively small window for the TWoW release, and the safest bet would be between the end of 2025 and 2026. That’s… Relatively exact.

Now, all we have to do is hope, believe, and pray that George Martin is able to complete the notorious book in the promised timeframe. In GRRM we trust, folks.

Source: George Martin via Not A Blog