'The Winds of Winter' release date, news: Prequel created for 'A Song of Ice and Fire;' no release date set yet for title

It has been a while since novelist George R.R. Martin released a book from his "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, but a prequel short story will be published soon to preview the Targaryens in early times. Meanwhile, there is still no release date set for "The Winds of Winter."

Martin's sixth novel in his "A Song of Ice and Fire" novel series has yet to gain a final release date. Although Martin still cannot commit a date for "The Winds of Winter," he did offer his fans that a prequel short story to his novel will be published this year, which bears the title: "The Sons of Dragons."

According to The National, the events of the short story are set in Westeros, and they take place 250 years before the time of "A Song of Ice and Fire." The prequel will be focused on Aenys I and Maegor The Cruel, the second and third Targaryen rulers in Westeros.

"The Sons of Dragons" is set to be released this October, and in addition, it will be part of another novel series called "The Book of Swords."

Meanwhile, The Insider suggests that part of the reason why Martin has been delayed in keeping up with his deadlines is because of his writing style.

In reference to Martin's interview with The Guardian, Martin describes two different types of writers as gardeners and architects, and distinguishes himself as the former, which indicates that the author's writing process really takes a long time.

"The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. ... The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows," Martin explained.

"The Winds of Winter" is anticipated to be launched before 2017 ends.