It has been over a decade since A Dance with Dragons was published, and George RR Martin is still writing The Winds of Winter.

The penultimate novel in fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, which was adapted into the Game of Thrones TV show, is expected to be his biggest book in the series to date.

The writer, who turns 77 this year, also has the final book A Dream of Spring to pen and fans are starting to doubt he will complete his magnum opus.

Hopes continued to drain after his latest blog post suggested Martin is nowhere near completing The Winds of Winter, let alone starting A Dream of Spring.

It all started when he teased a big announcement on April 8 and confessed his frustration with the internet expecting a publication date.

Martin wrote on his blog: “No, I am not announcing the completion of THE WINDS OF WINTER, the sixth volume of A SONG OF ICE & FIRE. Please don’t start any rumours to that effect. I am so tired of having to issue denials every time some offhand comment of mine, most having nothing to do with WINDS,  somehow convinces half the internet that the book is imminent. It’s not. No. (Maybe I need to stop making offhand comments) So calm down. (Until April 8, anyway. Then you can get excited all over again, but for an entirely different reason.”

Then came the date.

On April 8, he posted an extremely long post about the dire wolves that feature in Game of Thrones being “back from extinction”.

Martin started the posts: “Big news coming on April 8, I said, and no, it was not going to be the delivery of THE WINDS OF WINTER, don’t go there, had nothing to do with that. But it was going to be something very cool, something astonishing.”

No doubt, “don’t go there” will not exactly fill fans with hope.