Question: when did the game of thrones books end

title: A Song of Ice and Fire
text: A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of epic fantasy novels by the American novelist and screenwriter George R.R. Martin . He began the first volume of the series , A Game of Thrones , in 1991 and had it published in 1996 . Martin , who initially envisioned the series as a trilogy , has published five out of a planned seven volumes . The fifth and most recent volume of the series published in 2011 , A Dance with Dragons , took Martin five years to write . He is still writing the sixth novel , The Winds of Winter . 

Answer: answer: George R.R. Martin is still writing the sixth novel , The Winds of Winter .