George R.R. Martin is a notoriously slow writer. Referred to as "The Great Bearded Glacier" by some fans for his methodical writing pace, it's finally coming to bite him in the butt. HBO's Game of Thrones, which is based on Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book saga, has officially caught up to the books. Come season six, the show will move ahead of Martin's storyline and begin to finish the tale he began way back in 1996.
Unless Martin releases the next book, The Winds of Winter, before then. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, the author seems optimistic that he can make it happen. Finishing his saga ahead of the show has always been Martin's goal, he says.
"I wish it was out now," Martin tells EW. "Maybe I'm being overly optimistic about how quickly I can finish. But I canceled two convention appearances, I'm turning down a lot more interviews-anything I can do to clear my decks and get this done."
That's good news for fans, and it seems like Martin's words might have some weight behind them. He recently released a new excerpt from The Winds of Winter on his website, proving that he is indeed making progress.
That progress is coming with some interesting twists, it seems. Martin says he recently came up with the idea of a big new twist in the next book for a longtime character that he previously never considered.
"I'm still weighing whether to go that direction or not," Martin says. "It's a great twist. It's easy to do things that are shocking or unexpected, but they have to grow out of characters. They have to grow out of situations. Otherwise, it's just being shocking for being shocking. But this is something that seems very organic and natural, and I could see how it would happen."
It's a twist that won't be seen on the show. Martin says changes made to the character's story in the show would make this new development impossible.
Will we see the next book, and this shocking new twist, before spring of next year? It could happen, but taking a line from Martin's books "Words are wind." We will believe The Winds of Winter is coming out when it's firmly in our hands. In the meantime, best not get your hopes up.
Be sure to read up on some of the biggest changes from Martin's books to the show so far, as well as a preview of some of the changes to except going into season five.
Game of Thrones returns to HBO on April 12.
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