Apparently July 12th, 2011, is now a hard date for the publication of George R. R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons, the 5th book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. Martin has confirmed the date on his website: “Barring tsunamis, general strikes, world wars, or asteroid strikes, you will have the novel in your hands on July 12. I hope you like it.” He even has a late-1990s style countdown going. For what it’s worth, the first book, A Game of Thrones, came out in the summer of 1996. That means that a 10 year old starting the series in 1996 would be 25 now. In all probability this is going to be ~10 books, so who knows how old that 10 year will be when it’s all done.

Personally, I found that the last book was kind of a let down. Amazon reviewers seem to agree, as books 1-3 got 4.5 stars, but book 4 only 3. If Martin can’t bounce back, I assume that this series going to go the way of The Wheel of Time (before it was resurrected ...