George R. R. Martin has just revealed that he won’t be writing scripts for the “House of the Dragon,” the recently-announced “Game of Thrones” prequel show, until he is done with the long-awaited sixth installment of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, “The Winds of Winter.”
The famous author shared a post, on his "Not A Blog," addressing the news that HBO has ordered a full season of the Targaryen prequel, “The House of the Dragon.”
In the post titled “The Dragon Take Wing,” Martin shared a few details about the new show which will be based on “Fire & Blood,” the author’s most recent book.
He also offered an update on “The Winds of Winter.”
George R.R. Martin on ‘The House of the Dragon’
George R. R. Martin revealed that “House of the Dragon” was the first concept he pitched to HBO when they talked about the eventual successor show to “Game of Thrones” back in the summer of 2016.
He also urged fans to read the two anthologies titled “Dangerous Women” and “Rogues,” before moving on to “Fire & Blood.”
For those uninitiated, “Dangerous Women” is an anthology series edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois.” It features stories by some of the biggest fantasy/sci-fi authors including Martin’s “The Princess and the Queen” a.k.a.
“The Blacks and the Greens” that tells a story of the Targaryen civil war better known as the Dance of the Dragons.
“Rogues,” on the other hand, features 21 original short stories including “The Rogue Prince,” a prequel to “The Princess and the Queen.”
This seems to suggest that “House of the Dragon” will tell the story of the Dance of the Dragons, but nothing has been confirmed as of yet.
Martin also talked about the progress they’ve made so far. He said that the showrunner Ryan Condal has done “a considerable amount of writing” on the prequel, but that there’s still a lot of work to do.
On ‘The Winds of Winter’ and the canceled ‘Long Night’ prequel
The author said that he’ll be involved in the prequel to some extent.
He may be able to write scripts for a couple of episodes, just like he did in the first four seasons of the main series.
Martin then goes on to say that he won’t be taking any scripts until he delivers the Winds of Winter, a book that still remains his absolute priority.
This, coupled with his earlier statements about finishing the book before the New Zealand WorldCon which takes place from July 29th to August 2nd next year, seems to suggest an early 2020 release date for “The Winds of Winter.”
In the end, Martin also addressed the prequel about the Long Night that HBO has just canceled, saying that he doesn’t know why HBO decided not to pick up the series, but he thinks it had something to do with “House of the Dragon.”