George R.R. Martin Developing New HBO Series CAPTAIN COSMOS

George R.R. Martin is committed to finishing The Winds of Winter, the next book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series — in fact, he's even cancelled appearances at conventions and won't be writing any episodes of the HBO series Game of Thrones in order to hunker down and try to get it done.

In a new interview with EW, the author indicates that he's hoping to finish the newest book quickly:

“I wish it was out now. Maybe I’m being overly optimistic about how quickly I can finish. But I canceled two convention appearances, I’m turning down a lot more interviews—anything I can do to clear my decks and get this done.”

And fans of the books may be in store for an even bigger treat than previously thought. Martin teased a huge twist that he just came up with, but it something that will only work in the books and won't translate to the HBO series:

“I’m still weighing whether to go that direction or not. It’s a great twist. It’s easy to do things that are shocking or unexpected, but they have to grow out of characters. They have to grow out of situations. Otherwise, it’s just being shocking for being shocking. But this is something that seems very organic and natural, and I could see how it would happen. And with the various three, four characters involved… it all makes sense. But it’s nothing I’ve ever thought of before. And it’s nothing they can do in the show, because the show has already—on this particular character—made a couple decisions that will preclude it, where in my case I have not made those decisions.”

I'm definitely intrigued at that prospect. You know what might be another intriguing prospect? An entirely new show from Martin being developed at HBO. What's that, you say? He has one in the works already?

Martin does have one other previously undisclosed project on his plate, but it’s not one that will take up too much of his time. We can exclusively reveal that the author is developing a new series at HBO called Captain Cosmos. The pitch: “At the dawn of the age of TV in 1949, a visionary young writer creates a science fiction series that tells stories no one else will dare to tell.” The pilot is being written by Michael Cassutt (Z Nation).

That does sound cool, but because it won't "take up too much of his time," we have to wonder just how involved Martin will actually be with that series. I think it's safe to say that most fans are probably hoping he just finishes A Song of Ice and Fire as quickly as possible, but I understand the need for him to branch out and do other things creatively; it will allow him to take a break and look back on his books with fresh eyes, and hopefully come up with new exciting things (like that twist he mentioned above) that he wouldn't have dreamed up otherwise.