While George R.R. Martin may be the most pestered man in media — everyone wants to know when the next entry in his A Song of Ice and Fire series, The Winds of Winter, will be released — his fanbase is nearly matched in rabidity by Rick and Morty-heads, frothing for the premiere of Season 3 after delays prevented its planned 2016 release date. So Rick and Morty’s official social media account did the only sensible thing: jokingly try and redirect their own impatient fans to the Game of Thrones writer, tweeting, “Where’s the Game of Thrones book, George RR Martin?”
Here it is, emotional transference at its purest levels of nerdery:
Where's the new Game Of Thrones book, George RR Martin? Making us wait this long is TORTURE. SHAME SHAME SHAME ON YOU. WRITE FASTER.
— Rick and Morty (@RickandMorty) March 8, 2017
But now a challenge of sorts has been issued. An official Rick and Morty organ has lashed out at GRRM, tacitly directing us to consider his The Winds of Winter release date in relation to the premiere of Rick and Morty Season 3. This just became a race.
And what a smart race for Rick and Morty Season 3 to pick — it’s one they might actually win. Our best guess for the Rick and Morty release date was the first Sunday in April, but the closer we get without an official announcement, the less likely that premiere date becomes (though Adult Swim only began advertising Rick and Morty Season 2 about a month before its release date).
The Winds of Winter, on the contrary, isn’t likely to land anytime in the first half of this year. GRRM has confirmed he’ll let people know when the new ASOIAF novel is complete and with the publisher. Fair warning, publishers typically take over a year to turn around a book. For something like a new Game of Thrones novel that timeline will be dramatically compressed, but we’re still talking months between Martin finishing The Winds of Winter and Random House putting it on shelves.
If The Winds of Winter makes a 2017 release date it will be a squeaker, whereas Rick and Morty Season 3 is definitely coming this year. That makes this a pretty lopsided race. Still, by the laws of Aesop, George R.R. Martin would be the turtle, teams of Canadian Rick and Morty animators the hare, so don’t count GRRM out just yet.
