Game of Thrones fans, time to get excited – or, perhaps, just conflicted: George R.R. Martin, the creator of the *Song of Ice and Fire *novels the series is based on (and occasional episode scriptwriter), has signed a new deal with HBO that will not only see him continuing as executive producer of the hit fantasy series for the next two years, but also developing and producing new series for the cable network.

The news comes ahead of the debut of the third season of GoT, which launches on March 31. Many fans of the novels are already reacting with mixed feelings about the announcement, complaining that these new duties will mean a longer delay for the next Game of Thrones novel; six years elapsed between the release of the fourth novel, A Feast for Crows, and the 2011 release of the most recent novel, Dance with Dragons, a delay that upset many readers.

Outside of his connection with the Game of Thrones show, Martin already has a long history in television. He worked on the 1980s incarnations of both The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast as writer and producer, and also created a science-fiction pilot for a potential ABC series called Doorways in 1993 that ended up going nowhere; the script was eventually published in the DreamSongs: A RRetrospective collection in 2006, and turned into a comic book in 2010 by IDW Publishing.

Whether or not his new HBO projects will consist of all-new ideas or adaptations of his earlier, non-Game of Thrones work remains to be seen. If nothing else, his super-hero shared world anthology series Wild Cards may be one of the more obvious candidates for translation to television, if the rights have returned to Martin following a seemingly abortive attempt to adapt the series to the big screen a couple of years ago.