'The Winds of Winter' release date, rumors, spoilers; GRRM's next novel to be released early 2017

For the past several years, there have been talks regarding the renowned author George R. R. Martin's upcoming novel. The sixth installment in the highly successful "A Song of Ice and Fire" book series, "The Winds of Winter" was first rumored to be released earlier in 2016, coming in before the sixth season premiere of HBO's "Game of Thrones." As the fantasy epic TV series is heavily based on GRRM's original work, it was first thought that Season 6 would be based on "The Winds of Winter," and its premiere would go after the book's launching. Unfortunately, Season 6 had passed and there is still no news about The Winds of Winter."

There are only a few months left for 2016 but until now, there are no confirmed reports leading to a possible release of "The Winds of Winter" before the year ends. According to Yibada, it is getting more and more likely that the novel will be released sometime next year, contrary to the earlier rumors that "The Winds of Winter" will have a 2016 release date.

It was first reported that GRRM has already finished writing all the chapters of "The Winds of Winter." Many also believed that the book was ready to be published and be released in the shelves in the last quarter of 2016. However, Entertainment Weekly reported the Random House, the known publishing house of the previous "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels, denying all the rumors about the anticipated release of the book this year.

If anything, the fans can expect "The Winds of Winter" to be released before the Season 7 premiere of "Game of Thrones" in June 2017. After this novel, Martin still has one more installment left in "A Song of Ice and Fire" series tentatively titled as "A Dream of Spring."

The extended and indefinite period of waiting for the sixth book might be too much for the fans, but GRRM may have another surprise in store. In an interview with Deadline, Martin revealed that he has enough materials to support a "Game of Thrones" spin-off, even if the HBO series was announced to have the seventh and eighth seasons as the show's last remaining chapters.

"I do have thousands of pages of fake history of everything that led up to 'Game of Thrones,' so there's a lot of material there," said Martin.