'The Winds of Winter' release date news, rumors: Novel will not drop at WorldCon 2016; to launch alongside 'A Dream of Spring'?

Contrary to previous rumors, George R.R. Martin's long-awaited novel, "The Winds of Winter," the sixth in his bestselling "A Song of Ice and Fire" saga, was not released at this year's WorldCon.

Despite the fact that the highly anticipated novel, which has twice been delayed, was unlikely to be unveiled, thousands of fans still flocked to the event in the hopes of seeing and meeting the "Game of Thrones" author.

Contrary to previous rumors, George R.R. Martin's long-awaited novel, "The Winds of Winter," the sixth in his bestselling "A Song of Ice and Fire" saga, was not released at this year's WorldCon.

Despite the fact that the highly anticipated novel, which has twice been delayed, was unlikely to be unveiled, thousands of fans still flocked to the event in the hopes of seeing and meeting the "Game of Thrones" author.

According to the Kansas City Star, more than 7,000 passes were sold for this year's WorldCon, which has been dubbed as "MidAmeriCon II." Martin was at the event over the weekend to meet fans and sign books. He was, however, decidedly silent about the upcoming "The Winds of Winter."

Earlier this month, the author announced on his personal blog that he had nothing new to share about "Winds of Winter" and that he is still hard at work on the upcoming novel.

Apart from the rumor that "The Winds of Winter" would drop at WorldCon, there has also been some talk of late about the possibility of the sixth installment being released alongside "A Dream of Spring," the seventh and final novel in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. Over on the "A Song of Ice and Fire" subreddit, fans have been speculating that perhaps the reason "The Winds of Winter" is yet to be published is because Martin is writing it and "A Dream of Spring" simultaneously.

However, "Game of Thrones" fan website Winter Is Coming has already pointed out that at the rate Martin is writing (based on the speed with which he wrote the first five novels in the series), "The Winds of Winter" won't be finished until sometime in 2017. If he is indeed writing two novels at the same time, the sixth and seventh installments in "A Song of Ice and Fire" won't be out for many, many years, which will surely make fans very, very unhappy.

In an interview with Newsweek earlier this month, Jane Johnson, Martin's editor, said that she has no idea when the sixth installment will be finished and defended the author's output.

"I'm like Jon Snow: I know nothing!" Johnson wrote in an email to the outlet. "All I do know is that George is working very hard. And as soon as we possibly can after he delivers, we'll publish the book."

"It's worth saying he's written the best part of two million words of this series in the past 20 years," Johnson explained. "So given the average length of a novel is around 100,000 words, that's 20 novels in most writers' worlds."

"The Winds of Winter" is currently without an official release date.