George R.R. Martin once hinted that ‘The Winds of Winter’ is at least “a dozen novels” long

The Winds of Winter, George R. R. Martin‘s follow-up book, has been eagerly anticipated by readers of his novel series, A Song of Ice and Fire. 2011 marked more than ten years since the publication of the final book in the Game of Thrones series. Even though he periodically updates his followers, many of them are getting impatient since he is taking too long to finish. Martin has acknowledged that his primary focus is still the Game of Thrones book.

The Winds of Winter is much longer than typical novels

Though Martin has clarified on a number of occasions that he is indeed writing The Winds of Winter, fans don’t seem to believe him. In an interview with The Guardian, he once explained, “I’ve been struggling with it for a few years.”

“The Winds of Winter is not so much a novel as a dozen novels, each with a different protagonist, each having a different cast of supporting players and antagonists and allies and lovers around them, and all of these weaving together in an extremely complex fashion. So it’s very, very challenging. Fire and Blood by contrast was very simple. Not that it’s easy, it still took me years to put together, but it is easier.”

How George R. R. Martin was influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien

Martin recalled, “Tolkien had an enormous influence on me, but after Tolkien, there was a dark period in the history of epic fantasy where there were a lot of Tolkien imitations coming out that were terrible,” he says. “I didn’t necessarily want to be associated with those books, which just seemed to me to be imitating the worst things of Tolkien and not capturing any of the great things.”

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