'Winds of Winter' release date delay: It's a good thing says fan

The delay in the release date of “Winds of Winter” may actually be a good thing, according to a fan. George R. R. Martin is yet to announce the completion of the book, which many were hoping to read this year. Now, everyone hopes it will be out in 2017.

The reason for the delay, according to one fan on Reddit is that the book is too long. The fan believes that the next book will be well over the 1,500 page mark. The first book in “A Song of Ice and Fire” is 1,000 pages long, and this number kept increasing with each subsequent book. “A Clash of Kings” is 1,100 pages, “A Storm of Swords” is 1,400 pages, “A Feast for Crows” is 1,100 pages and “A Dance with Dragons” is 1,500 pages long.

While it may seem that “A Feast for Crows” has fewer pages than the other books, the fan points out that that is only half the book with fewer point of view characters. The rest appeared in “A Dance with Dragons.” So, essentially the sequel to the 1,400 pages “A Storm of Swords” is actually 2,600 pages.

What does that mean for “Winds of Winter”? The book can be at least 2,600 pages if not more. But, the publishers can’t have that in one novel, and may ask for cuts. Martin will have to drastically change his approach if he wants to meet the publishing requirements.

One way to go is reduce the number of point of view chapters and combine them together. As the storylines are all converging; most of the major characters are in the same location. So, the author can focus more on the events in these locations rather than focus on the characters’ individual motivations.

However, the fan believes that Martin may not be interested in cutting chapters, pages, or the point of view characters. So, after doing a lot of math to factor in the page count of major characters, and factoring in a possible increase for some characters and reducing the ones for dead characters, the fan suspects that “Winds of Winter” will be 2,100 to 2,300 pages long.