Everybody settle down: the Winds of Winter release date hasn’t been cancelled, despite what you might read on the Internet. That doesn’t mean there’s any concrete news about Winds of Winter right now—there isn’t, and probably won’t be until the book is done. But that doesn’t mean we can let the Internet run roughshod over the truth. The Winds of Winter release date is still a mystery, but it’s still coming… sooner or later.
Winds Of Winter Release Date: Still Coming, Sooner Or Later
It’s unclear exactly where the rumors that Winds of Winter has been cancelled originated; nevertheless, that dreadful notion seems to be all over the Internet right now, almost entirely on sites you’ve never heard of before. The most absurd notion is that George R. R. Martin lost the manuscript for the book, which is total nonsense; he may write on a DOS word processor, but it backs up automatically every day to a remote server. Winds of Winter isn’t going anywhere, and it certainly hasn’t been cancelled.
The real issue is just that, well, George R. R. Martin doesn’t write very quickly, and he doesn’t get much time to write between his commitments to conventions, his theatre, other projects, and the show itself (which he doesn’t write for anymore). He really wanted to have Winds of Winter done before Game of Thrones season 6 came out, and tried really hard to get it done. In a long mea culpa in January, he revealed he didn’t quite make it. The book wasn’t done; it had, evidently, been close enough to being done that he kind of almost made the deadline. Of course, no release date has since been announced, which means he still isn’t done. And there won’t be any sudden surprises.
Truth is, it’s always like this with GRRM’s books. He’s always super slow, people always wonder if he’s working on it at all, it always takes longer than the last time, and some publisher “leaks” a fake placeholder release date by accident, and it’s never right. It’s just sort of how it goes. Don’t read anything into the long, long Winds of Winter release date delay. The book will come out sooner or later (all signs point to ‘later’). Just be patient and don’t listen to the rumors.
