', they have a roadmap and you've got devoted fans who want to know everything happens exactly the way it does in the books, but you want to make changes as a filmmaker or as a storyteller,' Buhler says. It was all about 'finding the story in the story,' and expanding it with an authenticity that still resonated with fans of Martin's original work.

'I wanted to dial the story back to the moment where we first kick the door open and glimpse through to see for the first time that we're not alone and that we don't necessarily have the tools as a species to understand what's out there,' Buhler explains. It's a heady and grandiose environment to throw an audience into, for sure, and especially for viewers who aren't familiar with the original novella, tackling such subject matter in that way could come off a bit overwhelming (the Game of Thrones' series premiere may have been exactly that for those unfamiliar with the books). According to show creator, Jeff Buhler, who adapted Clive Barker's Midnight Meat Train and penned the script for the upcoming Pet Sematary remake, the author asked him one simple question: 'How do you do a TV show if everybody dies at the end?' Though this bleak space saga had been made into a movie in 1987, adapting the 30,000-word story to the small screen is something Martin never thought would happen. As speculation continues running rampant about the final season of his hit HBO series - as well as the upcoming and shrouded prequels - SYFY has detoured into the world of the author's 1981 novella, Nightflyers.Īs the people of Earth are left ravaged by an unruly plague, Nightflyers follows the crew of a technologically savvy ship, aptly titled The Nightflyer, as they venture into the far reaches of space in hopes of finding a new home, and a cure to what ails humanity. Martin has become synonymous with his work dealing in fierce dragons and violent family drama, but long before he penned the first novel in the Game of Thrones book series, Martin made the science fiction genre his playground.

Nightflyers by George R.R. Martin