With the recent announcement that Game of Thrones will be ending after two more abbreviated seasons, many fans of the George R.R. Martin adaptation may be looking for a new addictive fantasy series to sink their teeth into. My first suggestion would be Preacher, Outlander, or The Magicians, all of which are similarly adapted from major fantastical works. If none of those suit you, however, today brings news that may bring you some solace, or make you hugely impatient. Martin took to LiveJournal to announce that an adaptation of his superhero anthology novels, Wild Cards, is in the works under the Universal Cable Productions banner.
In all honesty, I've never delved into this series but have heard quite a lot about it from colleagues who got hooked around the time Game of Thrones hit its third season. It's a vast, strange collection of stories about superheroes in anthologized volumes, one that explores a variety of heroes and villains with a boundless variety of powers and perspectives. This was, in fact, the project that Martin started in 1987 that preceded A Game of Thrones, the first novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, which would go on to spawn HBO's most profitable and beloved series to date. Wild Cards writer Melinda Snodgrass and Syfy Films' Gregory Noveck are in charge of bringing the series to life, as Martin is under contract with HBO and is busy writing The Winds of Winter, the anticipated next novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series.
I'm certainly excited to see where all this goes, especially if Snodgrass and Noveck can wrangle a good visual artist to envision the series beyond what's written on the page. That, more than anything, is what keeps me coming back to Game of Thrones season after season, even when I find the storytelling and turns of the plot insipid. The show looks and sounds amazing, and here's hoping that Wild Cards ends up being similarly striking in its aesthetics and sound design or, to use a phrase, world building.
