Fans of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire — and of the mega-popular TV series that it spawned, Game of Thrones — have been waiting quite a long time for the next volume in the series, The Winds of Winter. It’s now been nearly six years since the publication of the most recent full-length book, 2011’s A Dance With Dragons. Now it's been more than a year since Martin announced, in January 2016, that Winds of Winter wouldn’t be ready before the sixth season of Game of Thrones, which began airing last spring. Martin said a few weeks ago that he hopes the book will be out this year.

In the meantime, fans have had to make do with the series itself — which outstripped the timeline to date of the books — as well as the occasional short story or other bit of ancillary material from Martin. We learned earlier this week that Martin would be releasing a new Game of Thrones story this year, and now we know a bit more about it.

Martin, as is his custom, revealed on his LiveJournal blog that the new story is called “The Sons of the Dragon,” and also revealed additional details about what to expect. The story will be published as part of a multi-author anthology called The Book of Swords, which is being curated by Gardner Dozois; throughout the post, Martin complains that the news got out before he announced it and was misreported by various outlets. Martin revealed that the story is set in the Thrones universe, but not within the timeline of the TV series:

If you're fascinated by the politics of Westeros, as many of my readers seem to be, you should enjoy it. As the title suggests, "The Sons of the Dragon" chronicles the reigns of the second and third Targaryen kings, Aenys I and Maegor the Cruel, along with their mothers, wives, sisters, children, friends, enemies, and rivals

Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones

As if to preempt the natural question of what he’s doing putting out other new Thrones material instead of the new book itself, Martin explains that the story, like several others released as part of anthologies over the years, is adapted from Martin’s unfinished World of Ice and Fire project, which he plans to eventually publish as Fire and Blood.

Not mentioned in Martin’s post, however, is any clue as to how close he is to finishing Winds of Winter, or a potential release date. And enlightening as the new story might be about the world of Westeros, I think most of us are looking forward to the real thing.

Next: Game of Thrones Spinoff: Why The First Men Should Be the Focus

The Book of Swords will be released October 10. Game of Thrones season 7  in the summer of 2017 on HBO.

Source: GRRM LiveJournal