HBO's Game of Thrones finale was met with decidedly mixed reviews. Even George R. R. Martin, who writes the A Song of Ice and Fire book series of which the show was based on, admits he wishes things had ended differently.
Game of Thrones premiered on HBO in 2011, just as Martin published the fifth novel in the series. The 72-year-old author admits to WTTW in Chicago that he didn't expect the show to outpace his writing so quickly.
"Looking back," he remarked, "I wish I'd stayed ahead of the books."
"My biggest issue there was, when they began that series, I had four books already in print and the fifth one came out just as the series was starting in 2011," Martin explained. "I had a five-book head start -- and these are gigantic books! ...I never thought they would catch up with me, but they did."
Martin adds that once the show outpaced the novels, showrunners had to take matters into their own hands over how the series would end.
"That made it a little strange because, now, the show was ahead of me and the show was going in somewhat different directions," he remarked, but declined to reveal the ending he has envisioned.
"I'm still working on the book," Martin confessed, "But you'll see my ending when that comes out!"
It is currently unknown when the sixth novel of the series, The Winds of Winter, will be released, while Martin also has plans for a seventh and presumed final book, called A Dream of Spring. The author previously said it took him six years to write A Dance with Dragons, the series' fifth novel that was released in 2011.