Game of Thrones writer George RR Martin has dropped some hints about his upcoming book The Winds of Winter, and he's preparing his fans for some grim times ahead.
The author was speaking at the Guadalaraja International Book Fair where he said that winter has finally arrived in the book, and it won't be pretty.
Speaking about the sixth instalment of the Song of Ice and Fire series, he said: "There are a lot of dark chapters right now in the book that I’m writing. It is called The Winds of Winter, and I’ve been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming.
"Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fill the world, so this is not going to be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places.”
He added, “In any story, the classic structure is, ‘Things get worse before they get better,’ so things are getting worse for a lot of people.”
The novelist also spoke about the conclusion of the series, A Dream of Spring, which he said won't have a traditional happy ending.
"I’m not going to tell you how I’m going to end my book, but I suspect the overall flavor is going to be as much bittersweet as it is happy," he explained.
Martin poked fun at the ordeal of writing the highly-complex series of books, joking: "Sometimes I look back and say, ‘Did it really have to be Seven Kingdoms?’ The Five Kingdoms of Westeros, that would have been good, right?’”
HBO's TV adaptation of Game of Thrones has now overtaken Martin's books, with season seven due to air in summer 2017.
