George R.R. Martin has stoked an exciting Game of Thrones rumour

There could be a whole lot more Game of Thrones on the way

Game of Thrones fans mourning the approaching season finale in 2018 have just been thrown a very exciting little nugget of news.

Author George R.R. Martin, who wrote the books on which the massive HBO show was based, has claimed he has 'thousands of pages of fake history' of The Seven Kingdoms which could be more than enough for an entire prequel spin-off.

'I do have thousands of pages of fake history of everything that led up to Game of Thrones, so there's a wealth of material there and I'm still writing more,' Martin told Deadline backstage at the Emmys on Monday night. Though he was quick to warn this won't be for a while - if at all. 'But at the moment we still have this show to finish and I still have two books to finish... so that's all speculation.'

Anyone familiar with the The Known World in which Game of Thrones is set - comprising the continents of Westeros (otherwise known as The Seven Kingdoms), Essos and Sothoryos – might not be surprised that Martin has plans for a history up his sleeve, given this world’s vast tapestry of people, places and cultures. Martin regularly dips into the history of these various realms in the books and a Silmarillion-style novel would have plenty of rich ground to build on.

This year fans of the series finally learned that the show would come to an end in 2018. The final two seasons, HBO have revealed, would also be shorter – and might be delayed later than the usual springtime release given the need to shoot in winter (because winter was coming, now it has definitely come).

Martin has also previously hinted that his next Game of Thrones book The Winds of Winter, which the series overtook storyline-wise this year, could be ready just before the next series. Though Martin’s reputation as a slow writer could scupper this - and might also mean we have a long wait before we see a prequel.