George R.R. Martin Has a New TV Series in the Works

While Game of Thrones fans are dreading the longer than usual delay before next season begins, the series’ creator has a new television project in the works. George R.R. Martin announced on his Livejournal that his long running Wild Cards anthology is being adapted into a television series.

First published in 1987, the Wild Cards anthologies have seen contributions from genre luminaries including Melinda Snodgrass, Chris Claremont, Roger Zelazny, and many others.

From Martin’s announcement:

“Universal Cable Productions (UCP) has acquired the rights to adapt our long-running Wild Cards series of anthologies and mosaic novels for television. Development will begin immediately on what we hope will be the first of several interlocking series. Melinda M. Snodgrass, my assistant editor and right-hand man on Wild Cards since its inception, the creator of Dr. Tachyon, Double Helix, and Franny Black, and a seasoned television writer/ producer whose credits include Star Trek: The Next Generation (“Measure of a Man”), Reasonable Doubts, The Profiler, and Star Command, is attached as an executive producer on the project, together with Gregory Noveck of Red, Slow Learner, and SyFy Films.”

Martin went on to detail the plot of Wild Cards, for those unfamiliar with the series.

“The shared world of the Wild Cards diverged from our own on September 15, 1946 when an alien virus was released in the skies over Manhattan, and spread across an unsuspecting Earth. Of those infected, 90% died horribly, drawing the black queen, 9% were twisted and deformed into jokers, while a lucky 1% became blessed with extraordinary and unpredictable powers and became aces. The world was never the same.”

Martin closed by specifying that he won’t be directly working on the series himself as he’s in the midst of writing the oft-delayed newest chapter in the Thrones saga The Winds of Winter. However, the author says Wild Cards is in good hands thanks to Snodgrass and Noveck, and should be broadcast within the next two years.