George R.R. Martin’s 2019 joke that fans could imprison him if he had not completed The Winds of Winter by the 2020 World Science Fiction Convention has resurfaced, six years after that deadline passed. The continued delay matters because the novel is the long-awaited sixth instalment of A Song of Ice and Fire, the series that inspired Game of Thrones.

Martin said he could be held in a cabin on New Zealand’s White Island until he finished the book if it was not ready for the convention. The Winds of Winter was announced after A Dance with Dragons, published in 2011, and Martin has repeatedly said he remains working on it without setting a firm release date.