George R.R. Martin's The Winds of Winter has hit a grim milestone this week, as the gap since his last A Song of Ice and Fire novel was published has now grown longer than the time it took him to release the first five books, leaving fans to wonder if The Winds of Winter will ever actually arrive. The fifth instalment, A Dance with Dragons, came out on 12 July 2011, and as of yesterday more days have passed since that date than between the first novel, A Game of Thrones, and A Dance with Dragons combined.
Martin's saga began in print on 1 August 1996, when A Game of Thrones was first published. From that moment to the release of A Dance with Dragons spanned 5,458 days. According to Collider's calculation, we have now crossed day 5,459 since A Dance with Dragons hit bookshops.
