George R.R. Martin's upcoming novel, "The Winds of Winter," is unfortunately still in the works. As eager fans wait for a a new and solid development, one of Matin's pulishers has spoken up to address the book's delay after the author missed a deadline in December of last year.
Newsweek recently asked for a comment from Martin's US publishing editor (Random House) and his UK editor (HarperCollins' Voyager) about the extended release of "The Winds of Winter" - but his UK publisher, Jane Johnson only responded with an ambiguous email.
"I'm like Jon Snow: I know nothing!" Johnson wrote.
"All I do know is that George is working very hard. And as soon as we possibly can after he delivers, we'll publish the book."
While avid readers of the novel series have already waited long enough, Johnson took the opportunity to also defend Martin for not delivering the follow-up story to his epic saga on time. "It's worth saying he's written the best part of two million words of this series in the past 20 years," Johnson continued. "So given the average length of a novel is around 100,000 words, that's 20 novels in most writers' worlds."
Back in May, Entertainment Weekly reported that the highly-acclaimed author gave his fans an update about his progress on "The Winds of Winter." At that time, Martin released a new chapter which touched on the characters of the Sand Snakes, Prince Doran, Areo Hotah, Ellaria Sand and Darkstar. As for the rest of the characters, Martin encouraged his million followers to just hang in there.
"For the rest, you will need to wait," Martin said.
"And no, just to spike any bullsh- rumors, changing the sample chapter does NOT mean I am done."
