George R. R. Martin tells his fans not to expect a happy ending from his next book

Culture
06 Dec 16

George R. R. Martin, author of the world famous book series A Song of Ice and Fire, made an appearance at Mexico’s Guadalajara International Book Fair this December and talked about the next novel of his series. But, bad news for the fans – there probably won’t be a happy end.

Some readers of The Song of Ice and Fire series were feeling like George R. R. Martin was doing literally anything else but working on the new Game of Thrones book. The reason: The best-selling author already missed several deadlines for his sixth book The Winds of Winter.

Since his last novel A Dance with Dragons, which was published in 2011, fans were looking forward to Winds of Winter. The bad news is that Martin is still not able to give a date for the publication of his next book. He admitted that the long writing process sometimes isn’t a lot of fun for him either. “Sometimes I look back and say ‘Did it really have to be Seven Kingdoms? The Five Kingdoms of Westeros, that would have been good, right?’”

And now, after a long time of waiting, his avid fans will probably have to face a rather bleak book. Martin told his readers on the Guadalajara International Book Fair “not to hold their breaths for martial bliss or rainbows.”

“There are a lot of dark chapters right now in the book that I’m writing,” Martin revealed. “It is called The Winds of Winter, and I’ve been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fill the world, so this is not going to be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places.
In any story, the classic structure is, ‘Things get worse before they get better,’ so things are getting worse for a lot of people.”

So, a happy reunion with the Game of Thrones Characters? Probably not!

But fans may hope for some light relief in the seventh novel, which will be titled A Dream of Spring. In Mexico, Martin hinted that the final ending of his saga won’t be as gruesome as many probably expect: “I’m not going to tell you how I’m going to end my book but I suspect the overall flavour is going to be as much bittersweet as it is happy.”

The novels of George R. R. Martin inspired the hugely successful HBO series Game of Thrones, which will probably air its new season before Winds of Winter is released in the bookstores.