George RR Martin Has Another Show Coming To TV, As If He Wasn’t Busy Enough

Good news Game of Thrones fans! As one series winds down, another is heating up.

We may only have 13 episodes left in Westeros, but soon we'll get a look at George R.R. Martin's vision of Earth just before the destruction of our planet in his new series Nightflyers.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Syfy, which is part of NBC Universal, put the project into development only a month or so ago. Based on what the network is seeing, it's now greenlit the show to go straight to pilot for next year.

For those who are unfamiliar with the 1980 novella, and subsequent short story collection that makes up the series, here is the synopsis SyFy has put out to describe the project.

Nightflyers is set in the future on the eve of Earth's destruction and follows a crew of explorers who journey on the most advanced ship in the galaxy, The Nightflyer, to intercept a mysterious alien spacecraft that might hold the key to their survival. As the crew nears their destination, they discover that the ship's artificial intelligence and never-seen captain may be steering them into deadly and unspeakable horrors deep in the dark reaches of space.

In other words, this is much less a fantasy series and much closer to a science fiction drama with horror elements. This fits in with SyFy's recent push to focus more on what is known as "hard sci-fi" instead of the more comic Sharknado type films and reality TV fare like Face Off.

But for those who are worried this will cut into Martin's writing time or that we'll never see The Winds of Winter now, take heart. Just because another of his works is being adapted does not mean he's working directly on it.

Much like his Wild Cards series which is also being adapted by NBC Universal, Martin isn't directly involved with this production. In fact, he can't be. Martin has an exclusive contract with HBO, which states any show he's directly involved in much be produced through them. Other channels are free to make deals to the rights of his other works, but he is unable to work on them.

The only upcoming productions he'll be directly involved in over the next few years are the multitude of potential spin-offs that are currently mucking about at HBO as they look for their heir to Game of Thrones when it ends in 2019. So he has all the time in the world to be writing. Right George?