Today has certainly been a roller coaster day for Game of Thrones fans. First, HBO released the season five trailer, but now George R.R. Martin’s publisher has confirmed that the next book in the A Song Of Ice And Fire series isn’t coming this year.
In a statement to The Guardian, publisher Jane Johnson of HarperCollins confirmed that she does not know when Martin will deliver the complete The Winds of Winter.
“I have no information on likely delivery,” Johnson said. “These are increasingly complex books and require immense amounts of concentration to write. Fans really ought to appreciate that the length of these monsters is equivalent to two or three novels by other writers.”
Instead, fans will have to buy A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms a collection of novellas set a century before the events in the Ice and Fire novels. They have never been collected in a single volume before and will also feature illustrations.
Readers have been waiting for Winds since 2011, when Martin released the sixth book in the series. He did share a chapter from the book in March 2014, but recently stressed on his blog that he is not finished yet.
In the meantime, fans will just have to watch GOT. The trailer for the fifth season surfaced online and can be seen in select IMAX theaters this weekend, along with the last two episodes of season four. It returns on April 12.
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