George R.R. Martin has shared an update on HBO's A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight while also saying he hopes to write more Dunk & Egg stories after he finally finishes The Winds of Winter.
Martin took to his Not a Blog to say that auditions for the series are mostly done and that the project has its "Tanselle, Steely Pate, Baelor Breakspear, the Laughing Storm, a couple of Fossoways, Aerion Brightflame (boo, hiss), Prince Maekar, and the rest." Furthermore, "lists are being built on Ashford Meadow" and the first table read has already happened.
He continued to say that The Hedge Knight will be "a lot shorter than Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon, with a much different tone." However, this is still Westeros, which means "no one is truly safe."
Next, he said if A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight does well, The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight will "follow" in its footsteps. By that time, Martin hopes to "have finished some more Dunk & Egg stories (yes, after I finish The Winds of Winter)."
That last bit should come as a relief to those who have been waiting for The Winds of Winter for many... well... winters! Martin said in 2011 that The Winds of Winter would take about three years to finish if he could keep up a good pace, but that obviously didn't happen.
As of November 20, 2023, Martin announced that he'd written about 1,100 pages of the final A Song of Ice and Fire book, which was the same number of pages he had written in 2022.
"The main thing I'm actually writing, of course, is the same thing... I wish I could write as fast as [The Last Kingdom author Bernard Cornwell] but I'm 12 years late on this damn novel and I'm struggling with it," Martin said.
"I have like 1,100 pages written but I still have hundreds more pages to go. It's a big mother of a book for whatever reason. Maybe I should've started writing smaller books when I began this but it's tough. That's the main thing that dominates most of my working life."
As for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, which very well may just be called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, it is a prequel to Game of Thrones that is being adapted from the Tales of Dunk and Egg novella The Hedge Knight from 1998. Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell are set to play Ser Duncan the Tall and Egg, respectively.
"A century before the events of Game of Thrones, two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros… a young, naïve but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his diminutive squire, Egg,” the official longline says. “Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne, and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes, and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends.”
HBO is eying a three-season run for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and we already know that Season 1 will feature six episodes. The first three episodes will be directed by Black Mirror's Owen Harris, who led the San Junipero, Be Right Back, and Striking Vipers episodes.
While we still have a bit to wait before A Knight of the Seven Kingdom, fans will be able to return to Westeros on June 16 as House of the Dragon will be returning for its second season on HBO.
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Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/george-rr-martin-hopes-to-write-more-dunk-egg-stories-after-he-finally-finishes-the-winds-of-winter