Martin believes the two last volumes of the series will be big books of 1500 manuscript pages each.[45] The sixth book is going to be called The Winds of Winter,[46] taking the title of the last book of the originally planned trilogy.[36] By the middle of 2010, Martin had already finished five chapters of The Winds of Winter from the viewpoints of Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Arianne Martell and Aeron Damphair, accumulating to around 100 completed pages.[46][47] The Winds of Winter will resolve the Dance with Dragons cliffhangers early on and "will open with the two big battles that [the fifth book] was building up to, the battle in the ice and the battle [...] of Slaver's Bay. And then take it from there."[48] After the publication of A Dance with Dragons, Martin announced he would return to writing in January 2012.[15] He spent the meantime on book tours, conventions, and continued working on his The World of Ice and Fire companion guide that he wanted to have finished before 2012. He also worked on a new Tales of Dunk and Egg novella that will appear in an anthology called Dangerous Women.[49][50]
In December 2011, Martin posted a chapter from The Winds of Winter from the viewpoint of Theon Greyjoy at his website and promised to include another sample chapter in the paperback version of A Dance with Dragons.[51] International paperbacks had no new sample chapter,[52] whereas the North-American paperback version, originally expected to be released in summer 2012,[48] has been pushed back to March 2013.[53] 400 pages of the sixth novel have been written as of October 2012, although Martin considers only 200 as "really finished"; the rest needs revising.[25] Martin hopes to finish The Winds of Winter much faster than the fifth book.[41] He gave three years as a realistic estimate for finishing the sixth book at a good pace,[1] but said ultimately the book "will be done when it's done",[36] acknowledging that his publication estimates had been too optimistic in the past.[15] Martin does not intend to separate the characters geographically again but said that "Three years from [2011] when I'm sitting on 1,800 pages of manuscript with no end in sight, who the hell knows".[19]
Displeased with the provisional title A Time For Wolves for the final volume, Martin ultimately announced A Dream of Spring as the title for the seventh book in 2006.[11] Martin is firm about ending the series with the seventh novel "until I decide not to be firm",[15] leaving open the possibility of an eighth book to finish the series.[36] With his stated goal to tell the story from beginning to end, he will not truncate the story to fit into an arbitrary number of volumes.[30] Martin is confident he will publish at least The Winds of Winter before the TV series overtakes him,[19] although he has told major plot points to the two main Game of Thrones producers in case he should die.[19] (Age 62 in 2011, Martin is by all accounts in robust health.)[54] However, Martin indicated he would not permit another writer to finish the series.[41] He knows the ending in broad strokes as well as the future of the main characters,[19] and will finish the series with bittersweet elements where not everyone will live happily ever after.[28] Martin hopes to write an ending similar to The Lord of the Rings that he felt gave the story a satisfying depth and resonance. On the other hand, Martin noted the challenge to avoid a situation like the finale of the TV series Lost, which left some fans disappointed by deviating too far from their own theories and desires.[36]
Regarding A Song of Ice and Fire as his magnum opus, Martin is certain to never write anything on this scale again and would only return to this fictional universe in context of stand-alone novels.[33] He prefers to write stories about characters from other Ice and Fire periods of history such as his Tales of Dunk and Egg project, instead of continuing the series directly.[55][33] Martin said he would love to return to writing short stories, novellas, novelettes and stand-alone novels from diverse genres such as science fiction, horror, fantasy, or even a murder mystery. However, he will see if his audience follows him after publishing his next project.[21][27]
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