George R.R. Martin promises he won't touch the Game Of Thrones spin-off until his book is done
Earlier this week, WarnerMedia announced a whole bunch of content for its HBO Max streaming service, including a whole new Game Of Thrones prequel that has nothing to do with the other prequel that HBO quietly canceled earlier that day. Titled House Of The Dragon, the show will be based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood and will focus on the adventures of the Targaryen family a few centuries before the events of Game Of Thrones and the A Song Of Ice & Fire series that the show show was based on. Speaking of, Martin still hasn’t released the next book in that series, Winds Of Winter, despite the fact that he was supposed to be locking himself up in a cabin until he finished it—and that was almost a year ago.
But there’s no need to worry, A Song Of Ice & Fire fans! Martin has promised—promised—on his blog that he won’t be touching any scripts for House Of The Dragon until he has “finished and delivered” Winds Of Winter. “Winter is still coming,” he says, “and Winds remains my priority, as much as I’d love to write an episode of House.” Martin wrote a number of big episodes in the early half of Game Of Thrones’ run, back when it was still cute that he kept doing things other than writing his books, but we’ll have to wait a bit before he does the same for this new show. Or at least that’s what we assume. Maybe he’ll just Beyoncé-drop the book tomorrow and immediately start writing House Of The Dragon episodes? That’d be fun.
Elsewhere in his post, Martin mentions that HBO Max’s decision to move forward with this project doesn’t mean it’s the only Game Of Thrones spin-off that’ll happen. He reasons that, “if television has room enough for multiple CSIs and Chicago shows,” then it should be able to handle more than one series about a fictional world with thousands of years of established history.