George R.R. Martin is taking a long time to finish The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. The last book in the series, A Dance With Dragons, came out back in 2011. Many reasons have been proffered for why it's taking so long, but for fans, the why may not matter. A lot of them are tired of waiting, and you can feel frustration when you bring the topic up online.
Personally, I think it's easy to laugh the wait off; Martin will finish when and if he finishes, and we'll pick things up then. But it's hard to sustain a level of optimistic hype for a long time, and I get why some of the fans who haven't moved on are feeling frustrated.
But it wasn't always so! Weird as it to think about, there was a time when fans were flooding Martin with encouraging messages about how he should take his time with the book, even if HBO's Game of Thrones TV show was about to overtake the published material.
In 2016, before the sixth season of Game of Thrones aired, Martin wrote a blog post where he admitted that the book wasn't done, nor was it likely to be done in the near future. "I won't make excuses. There are no excuses," he wrote. "No one else is to blame. Not my editors and publishers, not HBO, not David & Dan. It's on me. I tried, and I am still trying...I can't tell you when it will be done, or when it will be published...I am not going to set another deadline for myself to trip over. The deadlines just stress me out."
If you read the comments on that blog post, most fans are very supportive. "Love your work, George! Get it done when it's done. I'll be there," wrote one. "'It'll be done when it's done' is good enough for me and should be good enough for the rest of your fans," chimed in another. Martin was so touched he thanked the commenters in another blog post. "The outpouring of support in response to my post on THE WINDS OF WINTER has been astonishing. Thank you all, so very much," he wrote. "I cannot tell you how much I appreciate all the kind words and good wishes."
At this point, back in 2016, it had been five years since the publication of A Dance With Dragons. That was actually less time than had to wait after the publication of A Feast for Crows in 2005 to read Dragons in 2011. Here in 2025, when the wait for The Winds of Winter has stretched out to last 14 years and counting, it's hard to imagine commenters giving Martin the same kind of response in a similar post. These days, comments are Martin's blog are mostly disabled.
But I don't think the situation has changed that much. I know some fans doubt whether Martin will ever complete The Winds of Winter, but I think he will. And when that happens, I'll be happy to crack it open. And if not, well, there are other things to read:
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