George RR Martin has now gone 20 years without delivering The Winds of Winter, the long-promised sixth novel in his A Song of Ice and Fire series, leaving readers worldwide still waiting in 2025 for a book first teased in 2006 and trailed through countless blog updates, hints and half-measures.
Martin's epic saga began at a fairly brisk pace by fantasy standards. A Game of Thrones arrived in 1996, followed by A Clash of Kings in 1999 and A Storm of Swords in 2000, each bigger and bloodier than the last. The rhythm faltered with A Feast for Crows, which took five years and landed in 2005, and then again with the 2011 release of A Dance with Dragons. Since then, for more than a decade, there has been no new mainline instalment, only the hovering promise of The Winds of Winter somewhere on the horizon.
