Will George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones novels ever catch up to the TV series?

The first full trailer for the upcoming season of Game of Thrones was released earlier this week, and one of the many reasons I'm excited for the new batch of episodes is because we're in uncharted territory. When the show first started back in 2011 author George R.R. Martin was about to release the fifth book in the series, and while season 6 will feature elements of 'Winds of Winter' (and other novels) the book will not be published before it premieres next month.

So will Martin be able to finish his books before the show spoils everything in seasons seven, eight, and beyond? When asked by a fan on his live journal if there's "a chance that A Dream of Spring [the last book in the series] will beat the last season of the show", Martin replied "If the show runs ten seasons, maybe."

This isn't the first time that Martin has hinted the show could go on for 10 seasons, and although showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have always maintained that they want the series to end after seven, last year HBO programming president Michael Lombardo suggested that it could continue beyond that.

In any case, now that the show has caught up it's going to be really interesting to see how different Martin's novels are to the storylines we'll see on screen.

Game of Thrones season 6 premieres on HBO on April 24, 2016 in the US, and on Sky Atlantic a day later in the UK.

Images: HBO

Amon is a contributing editor and columnist for Empire magazine, but is also a Film and TV writer for GamesRadar+, Total Film, and others. He has also written for NME, Composer Mag, and more, along with being a film critic for TalkSport. He is also the co-host of the Fade to Black Podcast, and a video mashup creator. Can also do a pretty good Bane impersonation.