Are The 'Game Of Thrones' Books Finished? Everything We Know So Far

Fans of "Game of Thrones" may have a long while to wait for Season 8 to premiere on HBO, but they do know for certain that whenever the final season airs, it will be the last one for the mega-hit series. One thing they can't be certain of however, is when the last books from George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series will be published.

Martin's series serves as the basis for "Game of Thrones," and the show has outpaced the books for several seasons now, officially eclipsing any and all events from the books during Season 7. However, those who want to know how things turn out in the novels will likely need to keep waiting, as there's no indication that the author has any intentions of releasing his next novel any time soon.

Martin first updated fans about the state of the highly anticipated "The Winds of Winter" on his blog in January 2016, admitting at the time that he wasn’t finished with the book, and likely wouldn't be for some time.

"'The Winds of Winter' is not finished. Believe me, it gave me no pleasure to type those words. You're disappointed, and you're not alone. My editors and publishers are disappointed, HBO is disappointed, my agents and foreign publishers and translators are disappointed...but no one could possibly be more disappointed than me," he wrote. "But the book's not done. Nor is it likely to be finished tomorrow, or next week. Yes, there's a lot written. Hundreds of pages. Dozens of chapters...But there's also a lot still left to write. I am months away still...and that's if the writing goes well."

Since then, the novel still hasn't appeared, and Martin once again took to his blog in July of this year to further address the novel's status, saying that while it may not seem like he had written anything because the book still wasn't finished, he had been—but he just didn't feel like he was quite there.

"I've seen some truly weird reports about WOW on the internet of late, by 'journalists' who make their stories up out of whole cloth. I don't know which story is more absurd, the one that says the book is finished and I've been sitting on it for some nefarious reason, or the one that says I have no pages," he wrote.

"Bot 'reports' are equally false and equally moronic. I am still working on it, I am still months away (how many? Good question), I still have good days and bad days, and that's all I care to say. Whether 'Winds' or the first volume of 'Fire and Blood' will be the first to hit the bookstores is hard to say at this juncture, but I do think you will have a Westeros book from me in 2018... and who knows, maybe two. A boy can dream...".

Whether or not that means the book will be released in 2018 is still unconfirmed.