Fifteen years. That is how long readers of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series have been waiting for the next instalment. In that time, the entire HBO television adaptation of Game of Thrones has aired, run its course and generated two spin-off series. The world has moved on.
Readers have aged. Some have given up entirely. Yet Martin persists in the painstaking process of completing The Winds of Winter, and now, at last, he has offered a glimpse into his progress.
