It’s been 14 years since George RR Martin last published a Game of Thrones novel in his A Song of Ice and Fire series.
The 76-year-old has been writing the penultimate instalment of The Winds of Winter on and off ever since then.
However, what with all his other projects, the author continues to get sidetracked.
And now, instead of working on the long-delayed novel, he’s completed his first peer-reviewed paper for the American Journal of Physics.
Published this month in Volume 93, Issue 2 is Ergodic Lagrangian dynamics in a superhero universe.
Martin co-wrote the paper with Ian Tregillis, an author and theoretical physicist based in Martin’s home state of New Mexico. Together, the pair have developed a teaching exercise for advanced physics undergraduates. The Game of Thrones author himself is involved because it’s based on Wild Cards.
Wild Cards is a series of anthologies and novels by over 40 authors set in a shared sci-fi superhero universe. Martin is one of the editors alongside Melinda M. Snodgrass, and Tregillis is one of the contributing authors. Here’s hoping that now that it’s out of the way, the Game of Thrones writer can finally finish The Winds of Winter.