How long do you think the Winds of Winter will be? It's been so long since ADWD that sometimes I think we'll eventually be getting a +1500 page book but I'm not sure how realistic that idea is.
I really have no idea where to begin estimating book lengths, not least of which because it’s irrelevant to me. I’m much more interested in the emotional depths to which GRRM plans to take us.
You don’t know how eager I am to feel that sharp stab of grief at the death of Cersei’s next child, to be in Cersei’s POV and explore her pain at the next “He has Jaime’s eyes. Only he had never seen Jaime look so scared” moment. I want Tyrion’s depression. I want Jaime’s anger. I want passages as haunting and heart-wrenching as “In the dream his friends rode with him, as they had in life.” I want more lemon cake mountains for Sansa. I want to look through Sam’s eyes with wonder at all the mysteries the Citadel has to offer. I want to let go and drift on Bran’s psychedelic acid trip beyond the Wall like “Bright and many colored are the webs the dream spiders weave” (Dreamsongs).
I want to feel the terror as the Wall collapses, all 300 miles of it, I want to hear it the way only GRRM can make you hear it. I want to hear the screaming, and even more I want to hear the deafening silence that comes as we turn the last page.
Whether that last page is numbered 200 or 2000, it doesn’t matter to me, as long as GRRM takes us on a beautiful emotional journey. There are other people who calculate this type of thing, but I’m just not one of them, sorry.
