When’s Winds of Winter coming out? Let me tell you… oh wait, nobody knows. Nobody except George R. R. Martin, his editor, and some suits at HarperCollins… if even that many people. And what’s there to do in the meantime? For most of us, the solution to the wait for the next Game of Thrones book is simple… keep googling when The Winds of Winter release date is, and read articles that don’t and won’t have an answer. But is that really our only option?

Winds Of Winter Release Date: Just Go Read Some Other Books, Geez

I am as excited for Winds of Winter as anyone. Trust me. But I’m getting sick of the endless speculation about when the book will come out, and whether Jon Snow will come back to life in it. As you can see by those links, I am as guilty of this as anyone; more than most, in fact. Long have I hung on every crumb of news or non-news that dripped from George’s lips, or elsewhere. No longer.

The Winds of Winter release date has become an obsession of, like, half of the entire Internet. I don’t think any article about any book in the world can get more hits than a Winds of Winter article. Old Man Internet, he has his habits, that’s for sure. But instead of spending all our time reading about Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire on the Internet… why don’t we just, y’know, read other fantasy books?

Okay, I get it. I do still firmly believe that A Song of Ice and Fire is the best fantasy series—ever (sorry, LotR… Storm dethroned you). Note: The Silmarillion isn’t a series! But our obsessive attention isn’t making Winds come out any faster. Let’s all make a pact: Let’s read one other fantasy series this year that isn’t Game of Thrones. I’m already up to two: I read The Magicians trilogy and I finished Wheel of Time. Neither was as good as a new trip to Westeros. But both were very enjoyable.

Honestly, it felt freeing to read fantasy books that aren’t written by George R. R. Martin. For a lot of us, A Song of Ice and Fire immediately eclipsed all its predecessors and contemporaries. It was just so different, so much better. And it remains that way, but the truth is, there’s lots of other good fantasy out there. Maybe you’ve already read all the famous modern stuff too—Kingkiller Chronicle comes to mind, or other Brandon Sanderson books besides Wheel of Time. And that’s just the really famous stuff. More fantasy books are coming out all the time. None of them equal Game of Thrones—If they did, we’d hear about it soon enough.

But there’s so much out there for us to enjoy. And we aren’t doing it. Instead, we’re obsessing about Game of Thrones. And seriously, I am more guilty of this than most. And I’m not saying it’s time to move on. I will read Winds of Winter the day it comes out, finish it in a day or two, and think about it and write about it obsessively for months. But until that day comes, I’m moving on. I’m reading other fantasy books, and you should too. And hell, keep reading about Game of Thrones online—I’m certainly going to keep writing about it. I love it too much to stop. But it’s time to reopen my mind to other fantasy books.