User blog comment:Zaralyyth/The Sad Truth/@comment-5014364-20120605154952

1 - that's absurd, the White Walker doesn't look particularly like Benjen Stark.

2 - Martin kept saying that Book 5, A Dance WIth Dragons, would be released "one year" after the fourth book but he kept getting sidetracked what with work on the TV series and such. Further, he refers to it as the "Meerenese knot" -- by this point in the story, characters who were spread out are beginning to run into each other again, and he had to figure out this crucial, crucial impasse.

I don't particularly doubt that the next book will be released before they run out of material on the TV series.

Book 3 is being split into two seasons due to its length. There is enough material to last until "Season 6" with no further books. We have a four year window.

(I was logged out when I said this the first time)