Sorry Girls, The Winds of Winter Won't Be Released in 2018

In this week's least shocking news, George R.R. Martin confirmed everyone's sneaking suspicion that the next novel in A Song of Ice and Fire will not be released this year. Plaster on your best surprise face and try to make it convincing!

In a blog post, Martin revealed that while The Winds of Winter, the planned follow-up to 2011's A Dance With Dragons, will not be released in 2018. However, Martin's history of House Targaryen -- you know, the one with the dragons -- will come out this year.

No, winter is not coming... not in 2018, at least. You're going to have to keep waiting for The Winds of Winter.

You will, however, be able to return to Westeros this year, as I suggested back over on Live Journal.

Archmaester Gyldayn has at last completed and delivered the first half of his monumental history of the Targaryen kings of Westeros, Fire & Blood, and Bantam Spectra and HarperCollins Voyager will be releasing the hardcover on November 20, I am thrilled to say.

I've seen the archmaester's manuscript. Since it was handwritten on vellum with a quill pen, he required my help in transcribing the text to a more modern format: WordStar 4.0, on a DOS computer. Took a while, but a few weeks ago I was able to ship it off to my editors on both sides of the Atlantic, and to my foreign representatives for all my publishers around the world. Some of my foreign publishers will be releasing their editions simultaneously with the US and UK hardbacks; others may need to wait for translation from the Common Tongue.

Yeah George, your book about the Targaryen dynasty is definitely our priority, not finding out how Martin's epic fantasy saga deviates from HBO's Game of Thrones, which will conclude next year -- likely before Winds of Winter ever sees the inside of a bookstore. And Winds of Winter isn't even the final novel in Martin's series: he's planned A Dream of Spring as the epic conclusion, and who knows when -- if ever -- that will be released. At this point it's certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that Game of Thrones will reveal the fates of Daenerys, Arya, Sansa, Jon and Tyrion long before Martin himself does.