George R. R. Martin has a message for those who are concerned that he'll die before completing his work on the Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novels: "Fuck you."
"I find that question pretty offensive, people speculating about my death and health," Martin, 65, said in an interview with Swiss newspaper Tagesanzeiger. "So fuck you to those people." He flipped the bird for emphasis.
Martin is currently working on The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in the series A Song of Ice and Fire. A release date for the book has not yet been announced. The seventh and final book in the series, A Dream of Spring, is expected to follow. The first book in the series, A Game of Thrones, was first released in the U.S. in 1996.
"I need to write faster," Martin said in a separate interview with Mashable. "[But] I make no promises. I found out long ago that when you look at the overall task, the cathedral you have to build, it looks so daunting that you just give up and sit down and play a video game."