George R.R. Martin’s releasing a book this year (No, it’s not what you think it is)

Before you get excited — no, George R.R. Martin is not releasing the book that you want him to release this year. But he is releasing a book.

Another year will go by without any new material in the main storyline of A Song of Ice and Fire. Quelle surprise, right? Both George R.R. Martin himself and The Hollywood Reporter have the story.

Basically, we now know we’re not getting The Winds of Winter until next year at the very earliest. Place your bets now on a special limited edition that will mark the end of Game of Thrones as a series, as THR notes that the show will now beat the books in terms of completion.

However, note the wording up there. We’re not getting the main storyline updated this year. We’re just getting more backstory.

Check out the manuscript for Fire & Blood … volume 1:

If the title isn’t enough indication — or if you’re a bit out of the loop — this is the first part of Martin’s in-universe history of the Targaryen dynasty. His blog post even acts as though Archmaester Gyldayn is a real person, which, hey, Martin’s written a lot of books, we probably shouldn’t be concerned about this.

It does come with illustrations, and although the manuscript itself might be shorter than A Game of Thrones per Martin himself, it could be that Fire and Blood may rival it in size just because of all those illustrations.

Martin also revealed the American cover, which has a sigil that doesn’t look like either the one we recognize from the books or the show:

It does look fancy, though, doesn’t it?

If anything, this book might have an extra advantage. There’s no Game of Thrones this year to distract away from it. Even if there were, Fire & Blood actually releases in November when the show has usually been off the air for a few months at least.

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Will you be reading this book this fall?