Co-executive producer George R.R. Martin arrives for the season premiere of HBO's "Game of Thrones" in San Francisco, California March 23, 2015. (Photo : REUTERS/Robert Galbraith)
George R.R. Martin still has no updates on "Winds of Winter," the sixth book in his "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. The book is getting a fresh round of clamor since "Game of Thrones" Season 5 ended Sunday (June 14) on HBO.
Martin told fans via his blog that he would be in Germany with Sibel Kekilli, who portrayed the role of Shae in "Game of Thrones." Fans are becoming even more impatient, even as Martin has repeatedly said he did not intend for the sixth book to be delayed.
"They're making television shows a lot faster than writing novels, so I need to speed up a little," Martin was earlier quoted as saying in this Zap2It report. The fifth book in the ASOIAF series, "A Dance With Dragons," was released in July 2011.
Spoiler alert: The following contains spoilers on the ASOIAF adaptation on HBO. Read on at your own risk.
"Game of Thrones" Season 5 was largely based on the fourth book, "A Feast for Crows" and "A Dance With Dragons." The death of Jon Snow (Kit Harington), which was the last visual on GOT 5, is expected to have a different development in the books. This is partly one of the reasons for the renewed appeal for the sixth book.
Another "Game of Thrones" character who already died in the series has a different fate in the books. Ser Barristan Selmy (Ian McElhinney) died in the hands of Sons of the Harpy earlier in GOT 5. But in the books, Ser Barristan is a P.O.V. character with more stories to tell the readers after Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) has flown away with her largest dragon.
"I'm disappointed. But I think you have to accept-as I have accepted-that the demands of TV are different than the demand of book writing," McElhinney told Entertainment Weekly, adding GOT showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have to deliver "the surprise element, the shocks. They've got to keep that up because people expect that."
At this point, bookworm fans are keeping their fingers crossed to get to the pages of "Winds of Winter" before "Game of Thrones" Season 6 premieres on HBO. The sixth season is expected to air in the spring of 2016 in the U.S.
