George R.R. Martin’s Winds of Winter Should Just Be Two Books at This Point

Providing a percentage update is unusual for Martin and it represents our strongest signal yet that The Winds of Winter could actually one day exist. That’s undoubtedly the most thrilling part of his discussion but if you listen closely, there is also another bit of disconcerting information contained within it.

In addition to saying that The Winds of Winter is almost done, Martin reveals that he anticipates it to be the longest book in the series. Both A Storm of Swords and A Dance with Dragons came in at a spine-busting 1500 manuscript pages and The Winds of Winter is apparently on track to eclipse that. So what’s the problem here, you ask? More A Song of Ice and Fire is great news! Make the book as long as it needs to be. The problem, unfortunately, is that some books are actually too long to be published.

George R.R. Martin described this phenomenon himself on his LiveJournal blog right before A Dance with Dragons was published, writing:

At one point late in the process DANCE was considerably longer. The page count had gone beyond 1600 and was creeping up toward 1700, to my alarm. (At 1700 pages the book could not have been published in a single volume). Several things happened to bring it back down. 

Did you catch the relevant portion there? “At 1700 pages the book could not have been published in a single volume.” Even in our modern era, book-binding reminds an ancient technology. The spine of a hardcover book can’t accommodate more than 1600 or so pages while still being mass produced and shipped across the world in bulk. In fact, in some areas the paperback version of A Dance with Dragons had to be published in two parts, titled Dreams and Dust and After the Feast.