George R. R. Martin had paused Winds of Winter to finish Fire & Blood for House of the Dragon release

George R.R. Martin has been writing the fantasy series A Song of Ice And Fire since 1996. There are still two more books left to go before the epic series reaches its end. The next book in the series, Winds of Winter, has been in the works for 11 years so far. The author is under tremendous pressure to release the books from the fans and his publication house, Random House. But, for the first time, the officials at Random House publishing advised the author to put the book aside.

In a conversation with David Anthony Durham to announce his new book, The Rise of the Dragon, Martin says, “When it became clear that we were going to do the Dance of the Dragon show, but that ultimately became House of the Dragon […] we wanted a book to go with that, and I already had the seeds of the book from material that was in the world of Ice and Fire and from the novellas I’d written.” 

So the author says he went to the officials and asked them if he should ignore the new show and focus on Winds of Winter. He suggested that he finish Fire & Blood, publish it, and then go back to A Song of Ice and Fire, to which they said yes. “So I put Winds of Winter aside for a while and I concentrated on finishing Fire and Blood. There was a lot of it already there but I had to expand it and polish it.”

Fire and Blood: A Song of Ice and Fire

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04/25/2024 06:13 pm GMT

Fire & Blood was published in 2018, and we’re thankful for the book to give the show much more fleshed-out characters. Are you happy with Random House’s advice to keep Winds of Winter aside for a while? Let us know on our discord server.

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