George R.R. Martin discusses The Winds of Winter and Lady Stoneheart

George R.R. Martin is on the cover of the new issue of the Chinese version of Esquire magazine, a fact that seems to tickle the author. “Hot damn,” he wrote on his Not a Blog. “I’m a cover boy. An ESQUIRE cover boy!” Indeed he is:

Per Martin, there are some “fun pictures inside,” as well as “lots of text I cannot read.” We can’t read it either, but BryndenBFish, the proprietor of the Wars and Politics of Ice and Fire blog, helpfully ran the interview through Google Translate and pulled out some choice bits.

Martin doesn’t give a ton of interviews, and when he does, he doesn’t tend to talk about A Song of Ice and Fire. He seems to be a little looser when speaking with foreign language publications, like this one or the Russian media outlet Meduza. Let’s take a look at what he told Chinese Esquire, keeping in mind that Martin gave this interview approximately six months ago and that Google Translate isn’t perfect.

The first juicy bit involves the fate of Lady Stoneheart, the woman Catelyn Stark becomes after she’s resurrected by Beric Dondarrion. She may have been cut from the show, but she’s still going strong in the novels:

"After Catelyn’s resurrection, it was Lady Stoneheart who became a vengeful and merciless killer. In the sixth book, I still continue to write her. She is an important part of the entire book."

Lady Stoneheart has been around since the epilogue of A Storm of Swords, but has so far appeared in only one chapter between A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. By the sound of it, she’ll play a bigger part in The Winds of Winter.

Next, Martin talked about his work schedule, which includes juggling a total of six projects, at least at the time of the interview.

"I work every day, like jumping between six different projects. Of course, the most important, most difficult, most ambitious and [the one that’s taking the] longest time is The Winds of Winter."

What are the six projects? Besides Winds, one has to be the first volume of Fire and Blood, Martin’s history of the Targaryen dynasty, which should be coming out soon. Then there’s Martin’s editing work on the Wild Cards series of books, which almost always has a new release around the corner (Low Chicago is coming this June). Besides that, we know that Martin is involved to some extent in all five of the Game of Thrones prequel projects in development at HBO. Or at least, there were five at one point. We’ve always expected the network to weed a few out over time, and it’s anyone’s guess how many Martin is working on now, or to what degree. (He’s dropped some adorable/infuriating hints himself.)

But Winds, as ever, is “the most important.”

Next: Game of Thrones is filming scenes in Italica (the Dragonpit) for longer than expected

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