George R.R. Martin’s fantasy story “In the Lost Lands” is becoming a movie. Years ago, he had plans for several sequels, but never finished them. Hmm.
As George R.R. Martin himself admits, “I cannot seem to keep out of the news these days.” Just lately, we’ve heard about him producing an adaptation of Roger Zelazny’s novel Roadmarks for HBO, of Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski adapting his sci-fi story Sandkings for Netflix, and Resident Evil Paul W.S. Anderson bringing his fantasy story In the Lost Lands to the big screen.
Martin focused on that last one in a new post on his Not a Blog. The story, published in 1982, is about about a sorceress, Gray Alys, who is hired by queen to secure her the power of shape-shifting. To do this, Gray Alys, must venture into the wild Lost Lands, with the drifter Boyce as her guide.
According to Martin, this was one of the earliest fantasy stories he ever wrote, and he had big plans for it. “I meant to write a whole series of Gray Alys stories, I really did, I even began a second and penned a few of the opening pages… but one day I put it aside and I never got back to it.”
"So many years have passed, I no longer recall why I never finished that second story. I loved the character. Still do. And there were secrets I meant to reveal in those unwritten stories, and a whole complex backstory, and and and… sigh. Where do the years go?"
So Martin had plans for a fantasy series but never got around to finishing it…I’m sure that rings some discordant bells for fans of A Song of Ice and Fire still waiting for The Winds of Winter a decade on, but rest assured that Martin is hard at work on that particular book. Fingers crossed.
As for the In the Lost Lands movie, Milla Jovovich will play Gray Alys, with Dave Bautista as Boyce. There’s no word on when it will come out. “And who knows?” Martin writes. “If the movie is a big hit, maybe there will be sequels, and Gray Alys will finally get her series after all.”
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