The April 2014 issue of Vanity Fair is chock full of Game of Thrones goodies. Nearly all of the major players gathered in full costume to pose for the new feature, with Daenerys and Jon Snow joining the Lannisters for the cover shot. What’s even more tantalizing is some very telling words about the future of Game of Thrones from show runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, and the man who started it all, George R.R. Martin.

It’s been widely speculated that the television series is outpacing Martin’s writing speed, and will soon surpass his released work. So from the mouth of the man himself, are they catching up? “They are. Yes. It’s alarming.”

Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

Not to worry though, in the event that they do catch up, the show’s creators are prepared. Benioff reveals, “Last year we went out to Santa Fe for a week to sit down with him [Martin] and just talk through where things are going, because we don’t know if we are going to catch up and where exactly that would be. If you know the ending, then you can lay the groundwork for it. And so we want to know how everything ends. We want to be able to set things up. So we just sat down with him and literally went through every character.”

But this doesn’t mean that Martin is giving up quite yet, and is hopeful that he will be the first one to tell his story. “I can give them the broad strokes of what I intend to write, but the details aren’t there yet. I’m hopeful that I can not let them catch up with me.”

Benioff and Weiss also reveal that the show’s lifespan may be shorter than the public originally thought, or would like. They would like to wrap the show up after seven or eight seasons. Weiss says, “It doesn’t just keep on going because it can. I think the desire to milk more out of it is what would eventually kill it, if we gave in to that.”

In addition to the shop talk, the feature also includes interviews with the cast. Peter Dinklage discusses what drew him to the character of Tyrion Lannister. “It just seemed like something I had never come across before, especially in the fantasy genre, which I still refuse to call this, even though we have dragons. It is just something that I was so eager to embrace, because it turned the dwarf stereotype in the fantasy genre on its head. And he’s a hero at the same time. Even in The Lord of the Rings, which I really loved—I loved those books as a child and I adore Peter Jackson’s movies—but there’s just that thing with the dwarf stuff. That’s complete fantasy. I had done The Chronicles of Narnia, with the long beard and all of that, because I definitely wanted to explore that and have an opinion of it from the inside, but I just feel like this character, Tyrion, was a complete human being. Shock!”

Vanity Fair has also released two great behind the scenes videos from the cover shoot. The first video takes a look at the cast posing for their spread. Catch glimpses of the Lannisters, Dany and Jorah, Jon, Ygritte, and the Wildlings, Arya and Sansa, and more. The second videos sees the cast answer the question: which character belongs on the Iron Throne?

For some more teases from the feature, visit VanityFair.Com. The issue will be on newsstands and available for digital download on March 13!