At this point, it feels like we’ve all quietly entered the final stage of Winds of Winter grief: acceptance.
Last May, we reported that George R. R. Martin had written about 1,100 pages of The Winds of Winter – the same number he claimed to have completed the year before. Despite originally estimating in 2011 that the book would take him three years to finish, it remains stubbornly incomplete over a decade later. Martin himself has acknowledged the pace is glacial, but insists he’s still chipping away at it. And yet, every time he announces something new, it becomes harder to believe that this mythical sixth installment in A Song of Ice and Fire will ever materialize.
The Winds Of Whatever: George R. R. Martin’s Latest Project Signals What Fans Feared
Martin is now attached as a producer on A Dozen Tough Jobs, an animated adaptation of Howard Waldrop’s novella. It’s a 1920s Mississippi retelling of the twelve labors of Hercules, scripted by Bubba Ho-Tep author Joe R. Lansdale and animated by the studio behind Blue Eye Samurai. Sounds inventive, genre-blending, and tailor-made for Martin’s Southern Gothic sensibilities.
What it does not sound like is a man sitting down to finish a doorstop fantasy novel he started in 2010.
We’ve been here before – many, many times. At some point, it’s hard not to feel like the punchline in an elaborate long-con joke. Every new Martin project stokes a flicker of hope that maybe, just maybe, The Winds of Winter is next. And every time, it’s not.
A Decade And A Half Of Waiting
It’s been 15 years since Martin started writing The Winds of Winter, and 13 since A Dance with Dragons came out. In that time, a Game of Thrones TV show was born, rose to global domination, and flamed out spectacularly. Entire streaming empires have risen and fallen. The Red Wedding became a meme. And still, no new book.
Back in December, Martin even admitted that finishing the novel may not happen at all. Not because he doesn’t want to – he says he does – but because the project has simply become too big, too unwieldy. "Unfortunately, I am 13 years late," he said. "Every time I say that, I’m [like], ‘How could I be 13 years late?’ I don’t know, it happens a day at a time."
And if that sounds like someone who is both weary and bewildered, well… that tracks. He also referred to The Winds of Winter as "the curse of [his] life." Not exactly the energy you want from someone tasked with wrapping up one of the most sprawling fantasy epics ever written.
Hollywood Comes Calling
Martin has always dabbled in TV and film, but in recent years, it’s become clear where his creative energy is going. He’s a hands-on producer on several Game of Thrones spinoffs (including House of the Dragon), is co-helming Dark Winds with Robert Redford, and now has multiple animated and live-action projects in the pipeline. Dark Winds, in fact, even poked fun at Martin’s own delays in a recent season. Self-awareness is nice. But it doesn’t move the manuscript forward.
Between the adaptations, new productions, and ever-growing commitments, it’s obvious that Martin has found a second creative life in Hollywood. And to be fair, he seems energized by it. If The Winds of Winter feels like a burden, the screen seems to offer the opposite: momentum, collaboration, and faster gratification.
Maybe He Shouldn’t Finish It
Maybe we need to reframe the whole thing. Maybe the idea that George R. R. Martin has to finish this book is just another fan fantasy – one more illusion we’ve collectively bought into. But if the spark is gone, or the story too knotted to untangle, then forcing an ending could do more harm than good.
We’ve seen what a rushed conclusion to this saga looks like. We don’t need a redux. And frankly, if Martin’s heart isn’t in it anymore, I’d rather have him writing what excites him than limp through something that used to matter.
Could someone else finish it someday? Sure. Estates have licensed stranger things. And if that happens, maybe we’ll get a satisfying finale. Maybe not. Either way, we’ll still have the world he built – the maps, the houses, the betrayals, the prophecies that led nowhere but were fun while they lasted.