George R.R. Martin says he has 'a lot of work left to do' on Game of Thrones books

Game of Thrones may be coming to an end in two months, but George R.R. Martin's work is far from over.

The novelist continues to toil away on the last two books in his series, The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring, and he told Entertainment Weekly on Wednesday that he has "mixed feelings" about Game of Thrones' last season. While saying it's "been an incredible ride," he explained that he "never anticipated" that he wouldn't be done with the books before the series was over.

Indeed, HBO's adaptation was forced to pass the published source material years ago, as Martin hasn't released a new book in the series since 2011, the year Season 1 began airing. The show has since started covering material that Martin plans to get into in his next two books, meaning it's spoiling key plot points that he has had planned for decades and hoped to be the first to reveal.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss acknowledged this problem, telling EW they plan to minimize it by not tell anyone what the differences are between the upcoming final season and Martin's books; that way, no one will know for sure what plot points have been spoiled until they read Martin's version. In fact, it sounds like Martin won't even know for sure until he sees the finished episodes, since he told EW he's been too busy to read the scripts in advance.

When Martin's version of the ending will come out — if it will at all — is anyone's guess, but he said on Wednesday that he's still "deeply in it," with the 70-year-old author adding, "I better live a long time because I have a lot of work left to do."