George R.R. Martin Pushes For 'Winds Of Winter' Release Date In Time For 2016 Hugo Awards?

Will George R.R. Martin push for the "Winds of Winter" release date so it could be eligible for the 2016 Hugo Awards?

The Hugo Awards will only consider science fiction and fantasy novels that are released a year prior, and that means George R. R. Martin must announce the "Winds of Winter" release date before Dec. 31, 2015.

The Latin Times noted that the author mentioned in his blog that his latest opus won't be eligible for the 2016 Hugo Awards "thus indicating that it will be published in 2015."

"That same month Martin interviewed with Entertainment Weekly and said he would like to have Winds published before the sixth season of the HBO series airs in 2016 (which will contain info from the novel)," the report added.

Previously, George R.R. Martin mentioned the lengths he has to go through in order to push for the "Winds of Winter" release date.

"I wish it was out now," he told the magazine. "Maybe I'm being overly optimistic about how quickly I can finish. But I canceled two convention appearances, I'm turning down a lot more interviews-anything I can do to clear my decks and get this done."

The "Game of Thrones" season 6 wouldn't air until April of next year, and with George R.R. Martin having a lot on his plate right now, it wouldn't be surprising if the release date of the "Winds of Winter" won't be announced at the last minute.

He wrote in his blog, "Life is impossibly busy right now. I am wrestling with the Son of Kong (that is, working on THE WINDS OF WINTER), trying to wrap up a final round of edits and revisions on the twenty-third Wild Cards book (HIGH STAKES), developing three new series concepts for HBO and Cinemax, hiring writers and directors for three short low-budget films I am hoping to produce based on some classic SF short stories (more on that in the months to come)."