We have a fresh report on George R. R. Martin’s remarks while at C2E2 in Chicago, courtesy of Trebla, at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum. There’s some spoilerish material for A Dance with Dragons and “The Mystery Knight”, so beware.
For those who just want the news relating to HBO’s Game of Thrones, see the extended section. Mild spoilers for the TV show follow.
Regarding episode 8, which he is writing, Martin stated that Daenerys Targaryen will appear. I had earlier speculated that this episode may skip Daenerys, but that does not seem to be the case. Regarding the series as a whole, he remarked that he “might” be an extra but one will have to look closely. He’s also stated that the first season will cover the entirety of A Game of Thrones, as previously reported. He did add that A Clash of Kings will be more difficult to translate into the second season, because characters are in so many far flung directions, and cites Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings for the kinds of hard decisions that will have to be made to make it work. To quote Trebla, GRRM’s “point on the series is that if you loved how Peter Jackson did LOTR, you will like the series. If you were one of the ones that hated it because there was no Tom Bombadill, you won’t like the series!”
Finally, GRRM did remark that he’s going to look into whether he can use any of David J. Peterson’s