George R.R. Martin has news on two Game of Thrones books
Winds of Winter won't be out this year, but a massive Targaryen history will hit bookstores before the end of 2018.
- Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year" award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
George R.R. Martin is releasing a Game of Thrones book in 2018. But maybe not the one fans have been longing for.
The author of the book series A Song of Ice and Fire, upon which the hit HBO fantasy series is based, posted some book news to his blog on Wednesday.
"No, winter is not coming... not in 2018, at least. You're going to have to keep waiting for The Winds of Winter," Martin wrote. "You will, however, be able to return to Westeros this year."
While the planned sixth novel in the series, the long-awaited Winds of Winter, still has no publication date, Martin revealed that Fire & Blood, the first volume in his history of the Targaryen kings of Westeros, will be published Nov. 20.
Fire & Blood is 989 pages long, and will cover the Targaryen kings "from Aegon I (the Conquerer) to the regency of Aegon III (the Dragonbane), along with their wives, wars, siblings, children, friends, rivals, laws, travels, and sundry other matters," Martin writes. "Oh, and there are dragons too."
The book will feature 75 black & white illustrations by artist Doug Wheatley, Martin writes. A second volume will follow, but no date's been given for that.
For those who care more about Martin's Game of Thrones novel series and the HBO show, two tidbits came out of this post:
First, fans now know not to expect Winds of Winter before 2019 at the earliest, which is hardly a surprise to those used to Martin taking his own sweet time to write these thousand-page tomes.
And for those following the planned Game of Thrones prequels being developed by HBO, the author hinted that there might be some overlap.
"HBO is presently developing a number of different prequels to Game of Thrones," Martin writes. "I know I am going to be asked whether those shows are going to be based on material from Fire & Blood. It's a logical question. The only answer I can give is… ah, well, no one is sure yet, and anyway, I am not allowed to say."
HBO's final season of Game of Thrones is coming sometime in 2019.
