'Winds of Winter' Release Date: George RR Martin Vows To Focus On WoW, Avoid Distractions

While he may enjoy writing anthology stories, "Game of Thrones" author George RR Martin will steer clear of them until he completes the much awaited sixth book "Winds of Winter" in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" saga. Martin confirmed this through his online journal but he did not make any mention of when the book will actually come out, much to the fans' dismay.

In a recent post, Martin shared that while he may have a lot of materials about the history of Westeros which his publisher is planning to release as a fake history book called "Fire and Blood," the sixth installment to the series is still not done, dashing the fans' hopes that it would be released in the early part of the year.

"The anthologies, much as I loved them, were taking too much of my time, so I stepped back from them... until I finish 'The Winds Of Winter', at least," he said, addressing fans' curiosity on his participation in "Book of Swords," an anthology series set for release on October 10. He said that after he finishes the much-anticipated book, he may find time to sneak in writing a few more short stories. 

Martin contributed the story "The Sons of the Dragon," a "Game of Thrones" story, to the collection of short stories edited by his good friend and acclaimed sci-fi writer and editor Gardner Dozois. Apart from Martin, other authors who contributed to the tome were K.J. Parker, Robin Hobb, Ken Liu, Matthew Hughes, Kate Elliott, Walter Jon Williams, Daniel Abraham, C.J. Cherryh, Garth Nix, Ellen Kushner, Scott Lynch, Rich Larson, Elizabeth Bear, Lavie Tidhar and Cecelia Holland.

In an earlier entry to his blog, Martin remained noncommittal on when "Winds of Winter" will actually be published, even jokingly addressing a fan that he's not even sure whether the book will come out this year. He did, however, say that he has made progress on the novel, Screen Rant reported.

The release date of the sixth book in "A Song of Ice and Fire" saga remains a very sensitive issue among fans of the book series and HBO series "Game of Thrones," which is based on Martin's books. In an unprecedented event, the television series last year overtook the events of the book when it released its sixth season before "Winds of Winter" came out.

HBO has since decided to split the events of the last chapter "A Dream of Spring," into two seasons. It remains unclear if the decision is intended to buy Martin some time to work on the final book or if it's a move to deviate from the source material altogether.