Now 11 years on and there’s still no sign of The Winds of Winter’s release date. George RR Martin is keeping coy about his progress but has admitted the Game of Thrones novel will be a big one. Taking a break from writing, the 73-year-old said he can’t stand some of the mean comments on social media towards him.

Speaking on Idris Elba’s podcast Coupledom, Martin said: “I get [that] Winds of Winter, the sixth book is late. I can get a hundred good comments, but there’s still gonna be a few fans out there who are gonna remind me of it on my blog or whatever. I say, ‘Happy Thanksgiving!’ And they say, ‘Never mind Thanksgiving, where’s the book?!'”

The Game of Thrones creator blamed aspects of the internet for the nastiness that he doesn’t recognise from his early career.

Martin wrote: “Lots of things going on. Good things, bad things, big things, small things.”

After mentioning a number of projects he’s working on, he said: “THE WINDS OF WINTER is going to be a big book. The way it is going, it could be bigger than A STORM OF [SWORDS] or A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, the longest books in the series to date. I do usually cut and trim once I finish, but I need to finish first.”

In comparison, A Storm of Swords was 973 pages long and A Dance with Dragons is the biggest in the series yet at 1056 pages long.