George RR Martin is facing renewed calls from fans and commentators to abandon The Winds Of Winter altogether, as impatience over the long‑delayed novel boils over in the wake of HBO's acclaimed A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms series in the UK and beyond. Nearly 15 years after A Dance With Dragons came out in 2011, the sixth main instalment in A Song Of Ice And Fire remains unfinished, with no confirmed publication date.
Readers have been stuck on the same cliffhangers since that 2011 release, when Martin's fifth volume landed just as Game Of Thrones debuted on television. At the time, many assumed the books would keep pace with the show or even overtake it. Instead, the HBO series not only caught up but sprinted past the existing novels, finishing its controversial eighth season in 2019 while The Winds Of Winter remained in limbo. The promise was always that the author's ending would be the definitive one. Fifteen years on, that reassurance is starting to feel like wishful thinking.
