George R.R. Martin Reveals He Has Enough Stories for a Century of Game of Thrones Spinoffs

George R.R. Martin is a complicated guy to be the face of epic fantasy on TV. He gave us Game of Thrones, which basically changed the DNA of HBO and Geekdom at large — but it also branded him 'the Thrones guy' with a level of intensity that's likely given lesser mortals some sleepless nights.

What most folks don’t know: that label has bugged him for years. Martin didn’t want to be a Hollywood one-hit wonder, and he’s got more stories than just dragons and Starks sitting in his notebooks. But for a while? HBO didn’t seem interested.

Martin’s 'Please Don’t Let Me Be the Thrones Guy' Era

Here’s the awkward bit, courtesy of Martin’s chat with The Hollywood Reporter: The author admitted one of his biggest fears was HBO giving him the cold shoulder on anything outside of the original Thrones saga.

To be specific, Martin said he had 'material for 100 other shows' — not just enough to bore a network exec, but a whole programming block’s worth. But back in 2015, the suits weren’t exactly keen on his non-Thrones work. That’s enough to make anyone worry they’ll forever be the author version of a one-hit single.

Fast-forward, though, and HBO did finally gamble on more Martin. House of the Dragon (thankfully not just a Thrones copy-paste) proved people still love Targaryens and bad family drama, and now they’re doubling down again with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

The Winds (and Writer’s Block) of Winter

Now, the pitchfork mob might forgive me for bringing this up, but you can’t talk Thrones without mentioning the two missing final books — yes, The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring. Why didn’t the show’s ending make sense? Because Martin hadn’t finished those books, and the writers had to wing it. That’s...not a great scenario for a show beloved for its complicated plotting.

The latest news? Well, Martin told THR he’s written 1,100 pages of The Winds of Winter, but it’s still unfinished. If that number sounds familiar, it should. He’s been giving the same count since at least 2022.

Fourteen years after he started, Martin openly admits he’s got a bad case of writer’s block. But the man can still multitask. His latest 'holiday plan' was, literally, to stay home and write more Dunk and Egg stories — plus, there’s supposed to be another Fire & Blood volume eventually.

Here’s how Martin put it:

'I think I’ll stay home. I have to write more Dunk and Egg. There’s supposed to be another Fire and Blood book, too. I do think if I can just get some of these other things off my back, I could finish The Winds of Winter pretty soon. It’s been made clear to me that Winds is the priority, but … I don’t know. Sometimes I’m not in the mood for that.'

Can’t really blame him. Anyone would get sick of staring at the same 1,100-page epic.

Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Where Does HBO Go From Here?

HBO’s latest Martin adaptation is A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, based on the Dunk and Egg stories. What’s fun here is it’s giving us a look at Westeros before the world turned into a festival of treachery and dragons roasting people alive. Consider it a slightly more optimistic prologue to the Thrones era.

The show follows Ser Duncan the Tall — aka Dunk — who’s basically the inverse of every backstabbing noble you know from the main series. The first episode, The Hedge Knight, drops viewers a couple of generations before House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones and lets us wander through the countryside (before all those big castles stew in political drama).

Quick breakdown of the episode schedule, if you want to set your calendar:

• Sunday, January 18 – The Hedge Knight
• Sunday, January 25 – Hard Salt Beef
• Sunday, February 1 – Episode 3 (title TBA)
• Sunday, February 8 – Episode 4 (title TBA)
• Sunday, February 15 – Episode 5 (title TBA)
• Sunday, February 22 – Episode 6 Finale (title TBA)

The cool thing about Dunk and Egg is Martin already published three novellas, so the writers have a clear path for at least three seasons — hopefully with less chaos than the original show’s finish.

So yeah, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is now streaming on HBO Max. If you watched the first episode and have opinions, you know where the comment box is.