Winter in sight

> George R.R. Martin’s latest instalment in his A Song of Ice and Fire saga may finally be in bookstores by end of 2017

A Song of Ice and Fire saga by the end of the year.

“Not done yet, but I’ve made progress,” Martin wrote on Not a Blog.

“But not as much as I hoped a year ago when I thought to be done by now.

“I think it will be out this year. (But hey, I thought the same thing last year.)”

The last update Martin gave on the book’s process was last January,

when he informed fans The Winds of Winter would not be finished before the sixth season of Game of Thrones hit HBO.

Speaking at a recent Q&A at the Guadalajara International Book Fair in Mexico, as picked up by Entertainment Weekly, the author teased the sixth part in the A Song of Ice and Fire saga once more.

“There are a lot of dark chapters right now in the book that I’m writing,” Martin told the audience. “It is called The Winds of Winter, and I’ve been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming.

“Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fill the world, so this is not going to be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places.

“In any story, the classic structure

is, ‘Things get worse before they get better’, so things are getting worse for a lot of people.”

When asked about the saga’s final novel, A Dream of Spring, Martin once again spoke about the ending he has planned.

He said: “I’m not going to tell you how I’m going to end my book, but I suspect the overall flavour is going to be as much bittersweet as it is happy.”

The author also joked about how the books are now a much more difficult undertaking than he originally intended.

“Sometimes I look back and say: ‘Did it really have to be Seven Kingdoms?’ The Five Kingdoms of Westeros, that would have been good, right?” he added.

Meanwhile, HBO recently released the first footage from season seven of the Game of Thrones, starring Jon Snow, Sansa Stark and the girl who previously had no name, Arya. – The Independent