It's going to be a while before The Winds of Winter comes out. Some suggestions for what to do in the meantime.

After years of waiting, fans of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books burned through the latest in the series, A Dance with Dragons, when it was released last month. It had been five years since the previous book, A Feast for Crows, was released. A Storm of Swords, the third novel in the seven-book series, came out six years before that. Suffice to say, those of us who plan on reading the next book, The Winds of Winter, have resigned ourselves to a long wait. Winter is coming, just not any time soon.

HBO's adaptation of the series will continue to air during the interim, but with the second season nearly a year away, we are very much in a Game of Thrones drought.

Fortunately, there are plenty of good fantasies to occupy readers while they wait. Martin may get all the press and the lucrative television contracts, but some other series waiting in the wings are just as good, if not better, than the Song of Ice and Fire books:

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Perhaps that's the lesson we can draw from all of these books. Magic is not simple. It's not safe or comforting. Even in magical worlds, more often than not magic only complicates matters or makes things worse.