‘The Winds of Winter’ Release Date, Latest Update, Spoilers: 1,500 Pages of ‘Very Complex’ Story Await Fans

“The Winds of Winter” is expected to be the longest installment yet in George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” saga. Unfortunately, fans will have to keep guessing when they can start reading it.

A quick glance at the publication timeline of the book series — where the HBO series “Game of Thrones” is based on — will suggest that the page count for “The Winds of Winter” will most likely be higher than its predecessor. From close to 700 pages in the first book, the latest title, “A Dance with Dragons,” has more than a thousand pages.

For the record, there is no official word yet whether or not Martin has finished writing or editing “The Winds of Winter.” But there are speculations that once he is done, it will have around 1,500 pages.

While significant details are still under wraps, Martin has provided some interesting bits of information recently. For one, the critically acclaimed author confirmed that “The Winds of Winter” will surely offer a “very complex” story.

"I'm working on [‘The Winds of Winter’], and I wish I'd been done four years ago,” Martin previously told The Hollywood Reporter, “But I'm slow and the book is very complex, although there are a lot of great distractions out there."

While responding to fan comments on his official website, Martin also gave another clue that “The Winds of Winter” will have much more contents than the previous “ASoIaF” books. Martin confirmed that there was a consideration to release “The Winds of Winter” in multiple volumes like his other works.

“Some of my publishers have suggested breaking up [‘The Winds of Winter’] as we did with [‘A Feast of Crows’] and [‘A Dance with Dragons’]. I am resisting that notion,” the author revealed. The fourth and fifth titles in the “ASoIaF” saga were originally planned as a single book.

Aside from the volume of contents in “The Winds of Winter,” Martin has also given away juicy spoilers about the unreleased book. For example, Lady Stoneheart, a.k.a. the zombified Lady Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley), still has an important role in the future book. Meanwhile, Lady Stoneheart was never introduced in the TV series adaptation.

Fans can stop hoping for “The Winds of Winter” to come out this year, Martin has also confirmed. But the waiting game continues in 2019.