The Winds of Winter Delayed Release: Statistician Predicts Who Will Probably Die In Last Two Books Of George R.R. Martin’s “A Song Of Ice And Fire” Saga

By Kara Michelle Oct 11, 2014 12:24 AM EDT

The Winds of Winter Delayed Release: Statistician Predicts Who Will Probably Die In Last Two Books Of George R.R. Martin's "A Song Of Ice And Fire" Saga

The Winds of Winter is taking way too long to finish that a statistician named Richard Vale has decided to use a Bayesian mathematical prediction model to get some indication as to which of the characters will likely still be heard of in that book as well as in the next and final book (A Dream of Spring) which make up George R.R. Martin's seven-book "A Song of Ice and Fire" saga. Based on his analysis of the number of the point-of-view chapters they've already had in the five previous books, there's a good chance that Arya Stark, Tyrion Lannister, Aeron Greyjoy and Melisandre will already have few to zero chapters told from their viewpoint in the remaining books. Now, as to the question 'Is Jon Snow Dead?,' Vale's analysis says: "The model suggests that the probability of Jon Snow not being dead is at least 60% since this is less than the posterior probability of his having at least one POV chapter in book 6 [The Winds of Winter]."

Anyway, The Winds of Winter release date is really still unknown at this time. The author himself admitted he doesn't know when he will finishthe much anticipated sixth installment in his "A Song of Ice and Fire" seven-book fantasy epic. "I don't know," George R.R. Martin told Digital Spy. "I have days where I make lots of progress, I have days where I make next to no progress, I have days where I think I'm going backwards because I don't like what I wrote yesterday. So I've given up making any predictions on that. I'm just writing it and when it's done, it'll be done."

Martin who has been contributing one "Game of Thrones" script per season for the last four seasons has even decided he won't write one for Season 5. Neither will he make any set visits this year. He will finish writing "The Winds of Winter" book first. "I'm not writing a script for season 5, but I'm still a co-executive producer, so I'm still involved on that level, he said to Digital Spy. "It takes me about three weeks to a month to write a script, and with all the pressure to finish and deliver The Winds of Winter, I decided my time was better spent finishing the book than taking off three weeks to a month to get a script done."

Commenting on "The Winds of Winter" progress, Martin's UK publishers, HarperCollins Voyager, reportedly "confirmed that the novel will definitely not be published in 2014, but that a 2015 release is possible" according to The Wertzone.

Meanwhile, fans can visit the "A Song of Ice and Fire" blog post at Tor.com to go over a compilation of "The Winds of Winter" sample chapters and preview pages that have already been made available by the author at various occasions and at various places in the past, including his 'The Winds of Winter' pdf on Google docs. For those after 'The Winds of Winters' spoilers, James Walker at The Artifice has an interesting article which lines up twelve major plot points which they can anticipate to find in Martin's upcoming novel. Or, like Vale, they can just use Bayesian math to test their own pet hypothesis as to what will happen next in Westeros and Essos.