George R.R. Martin spills some ambitious details on A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight
Martin promises to write more stories for the show… just as soon as The Winds Of Winter comes out
We like to kid George R.R. Martin around here from time to time, mostly on account of that whole “It has been 12 god damned years since the last A Song Of Ice And Fire book came out” thing. But we have to admit that it’s genuinely nice that Martin is way more communicative with his fans than a lot of authors in his position might be, often disseminating new tidbits of information through his famed “not-a-blog.”
Thus a new post from the author today, spilling some new details about new “Max” series A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. (Martin notes that the creators really wanted to get the word “knight” in the title: They succeeded!) Among other things, Martin confirmed that the first season has been fully green-lit by HBO, hypothetically running for six episodes, and covering the entirety of the novella of the same name. Martin also re-iterated that, under no circumstances was the series ever going to be referred to by its frequent name among readers, Tales Of Dunk & Egg, because, “If you don’t know the characters, DUNK & EGG sounds like a sitcom. LAVERNE & SHIRLEY. ABBOTT & COSTELLO. BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD. So, no.”
The real Martin move here, though, comes when the author asserts that he’ll also be writing more stories about Ser Duncan The Tall and his squire Egg (whose true identity HBO is apparently currently treating like a spoiler, which, fair enough) in order to provide more material for the show. Here’s Martin, whose optimism remains apparently unabated:
Before we reach the end of the published stories, I will need to find time to write all the other Dunk & Egg novellas that I have planned. There are… gulp… more of them than I had once thought. There’s “The Village Hero” and the Winterfell story, the one with the She-Wolves, and maybe I need to write that Dornish adventure too to slip in between “The Hedge Knight” and “The Sworn Sword,” and after that there are… ah… more. I just need to finish THE WINDS OF WINTER, and then do either A DREAM OF SPRING or volume two of FIRE & BLOOD, and slip in a new Dunk & Egg between each of those in my copious spare time…
(Westeros nerds: That “ah… more” has to finally be The Tragedy At Summerhall, right? One of these days, George…)
There are three Dunk & Egg novellas at present, published in 1998, 2003, and 2010, so Martin has at least a little bit of time here…especially since Max has yet to set an official premiere date for The Hedge Knight.