George R.R. Martin believes his next book could be out this year

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george rr martin

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The INSIDER Summary:

• Author George R.R. Martin has been working on his next book for the "A Song of Ice And Fire" series since 2011.
• After a year with no updates, he finally told one fan that he thinks "The Winds of Winter" will be out in 2017.
• He also admitted that he thought the same thing one year ago.



George R.R. Martin has broken his year-long silence regarding his next "A Song of Ice and Fire" book, "The Winds of Winter. After a fan commented on a recent blog post, asking for any sort of update, Martin obliged.

"Not done yet, but I've made progress," the author wrote. "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)."

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Here's a look at the original comment and Martin's reply below it:

It's been a full year since fans last had a concrete estimate from Martin about "The Winds of Winter."

In January 2016, Martin also gave a vague and non-committal ETA for the book. After admitting that "The Winds of Winter" was not completed, he tried to give some details about how far along the novel was.

"Yes, there's a lot written. Hundreds of pages. Dozens of chapters [...] But there's also a lot still left to write," he explained in a blog post. "I am months away still ... and that's if the writing goes well. (Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't.) Chapters still to write, of course ... but also rewriting. I always do a lot of rewriting, sometimes just polishing, sometimes pretty major restructures."

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Fans were beginning to get extremely impatient with the wait, so this mini-update and Martin's optimism about the book being published in 2017 will be a welcome news. But as Martin admitted, and as his past publishing history shows, his own assessment of expected finishing rates isn't always totally reliable. We'll just have to hope that this time is different, and we really will see "The Winds of Winter" on bookshelves this year.

And who knows - we could even have the book in hand before "Game of Thrones" season seven airs. But that might be a hope best left for the sweet summer children of the world.

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