The wait for George R.R. Martin's long-awaited novel The Winds of Winter has now exceeded the entire period it took the author to publish the first five books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series.
According to a comparison highlighted by Culture Crave, the gap between the release of A Dance With Dragons and the still-unreleased The Winds of Winter reached 5,458 days on June 21, 2026. By comparison, the first five novels in the fantasy saga—from A Game of Thrones in 1996 to A Dance With Dragons in 2011—were published over a span of 5,457 days.