George R.R. Martin's U.S. publisher, Random House, finally broke their silence after the rumors about the March 2017 release date of George R.R. Martin's highly anticipated novel "The Winds of Winter" spread because of an Amazon France listing.
According to a statement from Random House released via Entertainment Weekly, there is no truth to the report that the 67-year-old novelist is ready to release the sixth installment of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" book saga in the first quarter of the upcoming year, based on the now-deleted listing.
"As his publisher, we support George RR Martin as he works hard to finish The Winds of Winter. Any on-sale dates currently listed online for the novel are incorrect," the publisher said. "Once we have a publication date for The Winds of Winter, the world will know," the statement continued.
HarperCollins, Martin's U.K. publisher, also revealed in an interview with RadioTimes that "nothing has been finalised regarding the publication or the date" at the moment.
Martin himself announced in his LiveJournal blog during the 20th anniversary of "Game of Thrones's" publication in August that he is still working on the sixth book, and he has no other updates about its progress. He also told his fans early this year that the book will not be available in time for the season 6 premiere of the books' TV adaptation from HBO.
"I am not going to set another deadline for myself to trip over," Martin wrote in January. "The deadlines just stress me out. I am going back to my stance from last March, before all this. It will be done when it's done. And it will be as good as I can possibly make it," he added.
Martin was also busy with his other projects like the latest Wild Cards novel, titled "High Stakes," aside from his writing job for "The Winds of Winter."
