Isolation Forces George R R Martin To Finish Novel

George R R Martin is finishing writing The Winds of Winter in isolation.

The 71-year-old author has taken himself somewhere "remote" amid the COVID-19 pandemic and admitted he's found it very productive as he's getting a lot of work done on the much-delayed next installment of the Song of Fire and Ice saga, which the Game of Thrones series was based on.

He wrote on his blog: "For those of you who may be concerned for me personally... yes, I am aware that I am very much in the most vulnerable population, given my age and physical condition.

"But I feel fine at the moment, and we are taking all sensible precautions. I am off by myself in a remote isolated location, attended by one of my staff, and I'm not going in to town or seeing anyone.

"Truth be told, I am spending more time in Westeros than in the real world, writing every day.

"Things are pretty grim in the Seven Kingdoms... but maybe not as grim as they may become here."

Martin — whose most recent book in the series was 2011's A Dance With Dragons — compared the current climate, where people are being advised to minimise physical interaction to combat the spread of the disease, to a science fiction story and urged his fans to "stay well".

He wrote: "Some days, watching the news, I cannot help feeling as if we are all now living in a science fiction novel.

"But not, alas, the sort of science fiction novel that I dreamed of living in when I was a kid, the one with the cities on the Moon, colonies on Mars, household robots programmed with the Three Laws, and flying cars. I never liked the pandemic stories half so well...

"Let us hope we all come through this safe and sound. Stay well, my friends. Better to be safe than sorry." — BANG