George R.R. Martin Hopes to Release a New Westeros Book in 2018, But It Might Not Be The Winds of Winter

In a blog post published yesterday afternoon, George R.R. Martin revealed that he’s still working on The Winds of Winter. While this doesn’t come as a surprise (fans have been waiting on the sixth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series for over six years), it sounds like Martin believes a 2018 release date might be possible even though he’s “months away” from completing the manuscript.

But Martin’s biggest news from the blog post is that he’s planning to release a two-volume history of the Targaryen kings titled Fire and Blood:

[R]egulars here may recall our plan to assemble an entire book of my fake histories of the Targaryen kings, a volume we called (in jest) the GRRMarillion or (more seriously) FIRE AND BLOOD. We have so much material that it’s been decided to publish the book in two volumes. The first of those will cover the history of Westeros from Aegon’s Conquest up to and through the regency of the boy king Aegon III (the Dragonbane). That one is largely written, and will include (for the first time) a complete detailed history of the Targaryen civil war, the Dance of the Dragons. My stories in DANGEROUS WOMEN (“The Princess and the Queen”) and ROGUES (“The Rogue Prince”) were abridged versions of the same histories.

No publication date has been set yet, but it’s likely that we will get the first volume of FIRE AND BLOOD out in late 2018 or early 2019. The second volume, which will carry the history from Aegon III up to Robert’s Rebellion, is largely unwritten, so that one will be a few more years in coming.

Martin concluded the post by writing that it’s “hard to say” whether The Winds of Winter or Fire and Blood: Volume 1 will be released first. But he does believe at least one Westeros book will be released in 2018.

“And who knows, maybe two,” he writes. “A boy can dream…”