Some of the characters in very dark places. Things get worse before they get better, so things are getting worse for a lot of people.' Viewpoint characters Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fill the world, so this is not going to be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. 'I've been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. At Guadalajara International Book Fair 2016, Martin gave some clues about the dark nature of The Winds of Winter. Arianne Martell sample chapters that Martin released on his website showed her heading for Griffin's Roost to see the young man who is calling himself Aegon Targaryen. And then take it from there.' A Victarion Greyjoy chapter will begin five minutes after the end of A Dance with Dragons, taking place on the eve of the Ironborn's arrival in Slaver's Bay.

Martin intends to resolve these storylines 'very early' in The Winds of Winter, saying 'I'm going to open with the two big battles that I was building up to, the battle in the ice and the battle at Meereen - the battle of Slaver's Bay. The previous installment, A Dance with Dragons, covered less story than Martin intended, excluding at least one planned large battle sequence and leaving several character threads ending in cliffhangers.

Martin stated in a 2012 interview that The Winds of Winter and the following book A Dream of Spring will take readers farther north than any of the previous books, and the Others will appear in the book. subsequently estimating that he had written approximately 1,100 to 1,200 pages of the novel, and had roughly 400 - 500 pages left. In October 2022, Martin stated he had completed approximately three-quarters of the novel.

Martin has refrained from making hard estimates for the novel's final release date after several delays. Martin believes the last two volumes of the series will total over 3,000 manuscript pages. The Winds of Winter is the planned sixth novel in the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire by American writer George R.

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