George R.R. Martin's next book in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, "The Winds of Winter," is scheduled to release in March 2017, according to a listing found on Amazon France. Fans may be excited about this piece of information but Martin's publisher, Random House, has already cleared out the rumors.
According to the statement from the publisher given to Entertainment Weekly, the release information of "The Winds of Winter" is "inaccurate." At this point, the release date of the sixth book in the series remains unconfirmed but Random House made sure that once the date has been decided, "the world will know."
The official "The Winds of Winter" release date continues to make the rounds. Given that the listing was found on a website as big as Amazon, fans would easily assume that the date is accurate. As explained in Entertainment Weekly's previous report, releasing the book in March would also make sense since distributors know the date before the world does. In addition, March seems to be an appropriate release month since the novel will be out before HBO series "Game of Thrones" Season 7 premieres.
As plausible as it may seem, fans should note that George R.R. Martin himself did not address the listing found in Amazon. The 67-year-old "The Winds of Winter" author is known to provide updates via his LiveJournal blog. The latest news from him stated that he is currently working on the sixth book.
Martin was supposed to complete the sixth installment by the end of 2015. This would have made "The Winds of Winter" book available for fans to read before the sixth season of "Game of Thrones," which released and ended this year, Huffington Post reported.
However, the author himself had admitted his weakness in meeting deadlines. Unless George R.R. Martin announces "The Winds of Winter" release on his blog, fans should take the information circulating online with a pinch of salt.