George R.R. Martin shoots down The Winds of Winter rumor

Okay, here’s what seems to have happened. Recently, video surfaced of actor Ian McElhinney, who played Ser Barristan Selmy on Game of Thrones, speaking at a convention. The conversation eventually turned towards A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin’s as-yet unfinished magnum opus, and McElhinney said this:

"I dunno if you know more than me about this, but what I’ve been told is that George has already written book six (The Winds of Winter) and seven (A Dream of Spring), and far as he is concerned there are only seven books. But he struck an agreement with [Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss] that he would not publish the final two books until the series is completed. So, all goes well, in another month or two, we might get book six and seven."

This is a pretty well-worn conspiracy theory that pops every once in a while among A Song of Ice and Fire fans. It has never had any basis in reality, as Martin has continually said that he’s working on Winds and that it’ll be done when it’s done.

Apparently, this latest flare-up was hot enough for Martin himself to feel it, and he felt compelled to address the issue on his Not a Blog, shutting it down but good. “[N]o, THE WINDS OF WINTER and A DREAM OF SPRING are not finished,” he wrote. “DREAM is not even begun; I am not going to start writing volume seven until I finish volume six.”

"It seems absurd to me that I need to state this. The world is round, the Earth revolves around the sun, water is wet… do I need to say that too? It boggles me that anyone would believe this story, even for an instant. It makes not a whit of sense. Why would I sit for years on completed novels? Why would my publishers — not just here in the US, but all around the world — ever consent to this? They make millions and millions of dollars every time a new Ice & Fire book comes out, as do I. Delaying makes no sense. Why would HBO want the books delayed? The books help create interest in the show, just as the show creates interest in the books."

Unfortunately, in the case of the world being round, that is something we may have to say now.

“So… no, the books are not done,” Martin continued. “HBO did not ask me to delay them. Nor did David & Dan. There is no ‘deal’ to hold back on the books. I assure you, HBO and David & Dan would both have been thrilled and delighted if THE WINDS OF WINTER had been delivered and published four or five years ago… and NO ONE would have been more delighted than me.”

Now, this sounds like the final word on this topic, but we all know that there are fans who will subscribe to it anyway, up to and until Winds is actually on store shelves. That’s the thing about conspiracy thought, which is currently in something of a golden age: whether it’s flat-Earthers or Winds of Winter truthers, it rarely concerns itself with the facts.

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Really, the best way to combat a wacky rumor like this is to come with an even wilder one. So I’m announcing here that not only has Martin completed work on The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring, but that those books are merely a prelude to his new series, A Tune of Snow and Sand, set on Westeros thousands of years after the events of the mainline series, after the Seven Kingdoms have discovered the secret of space travel. Let’s see if that takes off.

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