Around the time Game of Thrones came to an end on HBO Max there were several prequel ideas in the works, but over time most of these faded away or are currently sitting dormant. One prequel that was mentioned was Dunk & Egg, a potential prequel based on George R. R. Martin’s series of fantasy novellas, which now appears to have Steve Conrad tapped to write the series and executive produce it according to sources. While there has been no official word from HBO on the subject, this will be exciting news for Thrones fans who were quite disappointed as one by one the proposed prequels dropped off radar.

Working them around his A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Martin has written three “tales of” novellas featuring the duo, which are all set almost a century before the events of A Game of Thrones. Starting with 1998’s The Hedge Knight and being followed by The Sworn Sword in 2003 and The Mystery Knight in 2010, like his novels Martin has been teasing more stories to come in the series for many years but without a single additional story being put into print.

The stories featured the characters of Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk) and the future king Aegon V. Targaryen (Egg) and were originally published in the anthologies Legends, Legends II and Warriors. Later the books were illustrated by Gary Gianni and published in the Martin book A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms in 2015. A year prior to the release of that book, Martin spoke about a TV adaptation being in development but that was pretty much the only mention given to the project until a report in January suggested that the show was once again on HBO’s agenda.

While many fans of A Song of Ice and Fire have wanting nothing more than to hear the words “George R. R. Martin is releasing a new book”, the same could be said for those expecting new installments of the Dunk & Egg have been now waiting, with a sense of déjà vu, eleven years. In 2011, Martin revealed that he was working on new novellas and over the next five years would reveal plans for The She-Wolves of Winterfell, The Village Hero, The Sellsword, The Champion, The Kingsguard and The Lord Commander which he said in 2015 would complete a planned series of nine novellas. Considering we are still waiting on the fourth of these, which he said had been postponed while he worked on The Winds of Winter. This could well become another case of a TV show very quickly passing its available source material if the show gets the go ahead.

While we wait of developments on this latest series to pitched in the Game of Thrones universe, House of The Dragon will be heading to HBO next year as the first prequel series to make it to screens since the flagship series ended in May 2019. While critics, fans and Martin himself seemed to be hugely disappointed with the finale of Game of Thrones, it will be interesting to see if the prequels can go some way to vanquish the memory of how the show ended. This news comes to us from Deadline.