New George RR Martin adaption: After ‘Game of Thrones’, stand by for ‘Wild Cards’

The creator of Game Of Thrones, George RR Martin, has announced that his Wild Cards series of books, graphic novels, and games is being adapted for television with work beginning on it “immediately”.

The author’s sci-fi superhero anthology is made up of 22 volumes with thousands of characters.

In a post on his Not A Blog site, (grrm.livejournal.com) the author wrote that: “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.”

Mr Martin’s post went on to state that Star Trek writer Melinda M Snodgrass — who has been assistant editor on the Wild Cards world since its inception — is attached to the project as an executive producer, together with Syfy Films’ Gregory Noveck.

While fans of the author will of course be well aware of the books already, Mr Martin gave a summary of Wild Cards’s fictional universe.

“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.”

He said the series’ universe is “as large and diverse and exciting as the comic book universes of Marvel and DC (though somewhat grittier, and considerably more realistic and more consistent)”.

Martin, 67, saidhe hopes the first of several interlocking series will be coming to screens within the next two years.