Warning: contains spoilers for A Dance With Dragons and plot details released as excerpts from The Winds Of Winter.

Appreciating that the one thing anyone really wants to know about the sixth book in George R.R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire series is when it’s coming out – information that we, sadly, aren’t yet privy to – here’s everything that’s been announced so far about The Winds Of Winter, gleaned from sample chapters, convention appearances, interviews with Mr Martin and more.

So, when is it coming out?

“I’ve actually given up answering the question when it will be done. In the early days, especially after the third book – because the fourth book took a really long time – I kept being wrong. People said ‘when will it be done?’ and I would give an answer and then it would not be done by then – I would run into some problem or I would decide to rewrite or I would change course – and once you give a date and then you miss that date, there’s an element of the audience that thinks you’re doing it deliberately.” George R.R. Martin, in conversation with Focus on New Mexico KNME, 2014.

Ask Martin the how he’s getting on with The Winds Of Winter and when it will be finished, and he’ll have two answers for you: “I’m working on it” and “When it’s done”. You can’t really say fairer than that.