'House of the Dragon': Planning for Seasons 3 and 4 Is Already Underway

House of the Dragon Season 2 is still months away but author George R.R. Martin just gave us some hopeful updates on the future of the show. In a new blog post on Wednesday, Martin described his recent visit to England, where House of the Dragon is shot. He worked with showrunner Ryan Condal and the other screenwriters, saying that they are already planning ahead for two additional seasons.

Martin was in the U.K. for multiple reasons in October, but the bulk of his post is about visiting the set of House of the Dragon. He raved about the castles now standing in for his Red Keep and Dragonstone, but said that his real contributions came in the writers' room. He wrote: "I spent two days locked in a room with Ryan Condal and his writing staff (Sara Hess, Ti Mikkel, David Hancock, and Philippa Goslett) talking about the third and fourth seasons of House of the Dragon. They were lively, fun discussions, and we got some good work done... though two days was not nearly enough. There is so much ground to cover that I am not sure twenty days would have been enough."

In interviews last year, Condal said that he expects to tell the story of House of the Dragon within three or four seasons. After the episode count for Season 2 was reduced from 10 to eight, many fans expected the show to get shortened much like Game of Thrones, but it sounds like Martin and Condal are planning for four seasons. That will give the story much more time to play out, especially after the time skips in Season 1 handled so much of the setup.

Martin wrote that he also got to see rough cuts of the first two episodes of Season 2. He wrote: "Of course, I am hardly objective when talking about anything based on my own work... but I have to say, I thought both episodes were just great. (And they are not even finished yet). Dark, mind you. Very dark. They may make you cry. (I did not cry myself, but one of my friends did). Powerful, emotional, gut-wrenching, heart rending. Just the sort of thing I like."

Martin explained to readers that he has not been to London since the 2019 World Science Fiction Convention, so he had a lot of work to catch up on there. He met with the team working on the Game of Thrones stage play spinoff, which will be about the Tourney at Harrenhal a few years before A Game of Thrones. For many, the most exciting update was a single sentence about his next book, saying: "I also found time to meet with my British publisher, and my other British publisher, to talk Wild Cards and A Song of Ice & Fire, and (of course) The Winds of Winter."

The author did not give an update on his progress in writing The Winds of Winter, though some fans on social media speculated that it must be getting closer to finished if he has reached the point of contacting his publishers. Either way, it's clear that the world of Westeros is taking shape just as Martin hoped it would. House of the Dragon Season 2 premieres in early summer of 2024. Martin's books are available now in print, digital, and audiobook formats.