Is "The Winds of Winter" being delayed even further? According to sources, the sixth book in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series may not be released in 2017 as expected.

An Amazon listing alleging that "The Winds of Winter" will hit books stands on March 9, 2017 is confirmed "incorrect" by Martin's publisher. As a consequence, there are now doubts as to whether or not a novel will really come out in 2017. There are speculations that Martin might be tied up with other projects and is too busy to focus working on "The Winds of Winter."

Martin's "Wild Cards" novel series has been picked up for a television adaptation by Universal Cable Productions. According to MTV, "Wild Cards" is nothing like HBO's "Game of Thrones" as the former is about a dystopian world.

In the words of Martin, "The shared world of the Wild Cards diverged from our own on September 15, 1946 when an alien virus was released in the skies over Manhattan, and spread across an unsuspecting Earth."

The story centers on the Aces, which comprise 1 percent of the human population who were blessed with extraordinary abilities after the viral outbreak.

Although Martin is not directly involved with "Wild Cards" due to his contract with HBO, his long-time assistant editor, Melinda Snodgrass, is executive producing the series.

There are also theories that Martin is also working on a different novel series narrating the history leading up to the "Game of Thrones" timeline. In an interview with Deadline, Martin said, "I do have thousands of pages of fake history of everything that led up to Game of Thrones, so there's a lot of material there and I'm writing more."

Writing on a "Game of Thrones" prequel will definitely put "The Winds of Winter" momentarily on hold; however, nothing has been confirmed at this point.

Meanwhile, rumors about "The Winds of Winter" release date continue to swirl. It is said that an ISBN has reportedly been assigned to the book, indicating that it will be released soon. His publishers, however, shot down the rumors saying that "nothing has been finalized regarding the publication or the date."