George R.R. Martin Finished With 'The Winds of Winter'? HBO, Author to Produce 'Who Fears Death'
George R.R. Martin might be done writing the long-awaited novel "The Winds of Winter" and a release announcement could come by the time "Game of Thrones" season 7 premieres on Sunday, July 16. The famed author, meanwhile, confirmed he's on board a new HBO show called "Who Fears Death."
Speculations that Martin is secretly finished with "The Winds of Winter" have been floating for a while now. Vanity Fair cited that the author himself might have been dropping clues about its release on his recent blog posts.
Martin wrote on LiveJournal on July 8 that he has been "working so much" that he is missing out on a lot of things. Fans assumed the author has been burning the midnight oil to finally finish his novel in time for the premiere of "Game of Thrones" season 7.
Fans tied this to what actor Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth) hinted back in February, when he said, "There's going to be a launch and something special happening this year for the premiere."
It's no secret that Martin's "The Winds of Winter" is long overdue. As part of the "A Song of Fire and Ice" book series that "Game of Thrones" is adapted from, its story should have been published before the events on the show. The series, however, has been ahead of the books since season 6, which was about "The Winds of Winter."
Even then, Martin did not give in to the pressure of speeding up writing the novel for the TV show.
"Worrying about it isn't going to change it one way or another," he told Geekwire in 2015. "I still sit down at the typewriter, and I have to write the next scene and the next sentence ... I'm just going to tell my story, and they're telling their story and adapting my books."
Meanwhile, despite his busy schedule, Martin will be helping out with the new HBO series, "Who Fears Death." It is based on a sci-fi fantasy novel published by Nnedi Okorafor in 2010.
Martin will be one of the show's executive producers but he clarified that he won't be part of the writing team.
"I probably won't be writing episodes of ANY television shows until 'Winds of Winter' is done and delivered," he said.