The wait for Winds of Winter just passed a surprising milestone

The wait for The Winds of Winter has now outlasted the time George R.R. Martin took to publish the first five A Song of Ice and Fire books. Culture Crave recently pointed out on X that the gap between A Dance With Dragons and The Winds of Winter has exceeded the interval between A Game of Thrones and A Dance With Dragons.

The first five books were released over a span of 5,457 days — nearly 15 years — culminating with A Dance With Dragons on July 11, 2011. As of June 21, 2026, it has been 5,458 days since A Dance With Dragons hit store shelves. Martin has stayed busy in the meantime, writing other books set in the A Song of Ice and Fire universe and contributing to multiple television shows, including Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

That work has kept the franchise widely known outside the book world, but many readers who disliked the ending of the Game of Thrones HBO show and who have followed the series since 1996 remain eager for the next mainline novel.

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