By AJ Willingham, CNN
(CNN) — George RR Martin has spoken. And like everyone else who loves “Game of Thrones,” the author of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” books is in his feelings about the show ending. But he also has lots of news to share!
In a post on his personal blog, Martin updated fans on when he thinks he will finish the highly anticipated next novel in the ASOIAF series (on which “Game of Thrones” was based).
Well, kind of.
“Winter is coming, I told you, long ago… and so it is,” Martin wrote. “THE WINDS OF WINTER is very late, I know, I know, but it will be done. I won’t say when, I’ve tried that before, only to burn you all and jinx myself… but I will finish it, and then will come A DREAM OF SPRING.”
For the record, the show long eclipsed the books around season four or five, which of course begs the question: Will the ending to the books, the urtext of “Game of Thrones,” be different than the show?
Martin’s answer is just as cryptic.
“How will it all end? I hear people asking. The same ending as the show? Different? Well… yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes.”
Martin goes on to point out that books, especially his lengthy 500-plus-page tomes, are a very different medium than TV, and there are plenty of characters between his pages that never made it on to screen.
“[I]f nothing else, the readers will learn what happened to Jeyne Poole, Lady Stoneheart, Penny and her pig, Skahaz Shavepate, Arianne Martell, Darkstar, Victarion Greyjoy, Ser Garlan the Gallant, Aegon VI, and a myriad of other characters both great and small that viewers of the show never had the chance to meet,” he wrote.
Book readers have been waiting faithfully for “The Winds of Winter,” which will be the sixth installment of a planned seven books. The fifth book, “A Dance with Dragons,” was released in 2011.
The-CNN-Wire
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