News Digest

Oh, Snow! Fans will have to wait a little longer for next Game of Thrones series

Game of Thrones fans are going to have to wait a little longer for their next fix of the sword and sex fantasy, it seems. The premiere of the sixth season of the hit show is likely to be delayed, according to schedules put out by US TV company HBO. Previous seasons have usually begun in March or April but, with viewers on a knife-edge over whether hero Jon Snow survived a traitorous attack by his own men, it looks like the programme will not air until at least May.

So many characters. So many strands. You have to have large sections where the plot is explained, just have to sit there and be told what’s going on. This is very, very dull. So they put a lot of naked women behind it all.

Author Bernard Cornwell on GoT

However, the delay could be good news for fans of the books on which the show is based. The fifth TV series had all but exhausted the material available in George RR Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire books. But the delays means his long-awaited sixth book could be released before the new season begins. Martin has already teased viewers with an appearance as a book-signing zombie in another TV series, Z Nation, a stunt seen as an apparent nudge and wink to diehard fans.