(train whistle blows)

Game of Thrones is back in early April.

More Game of Thrones means more violent sword play,

more abrupt cuts from scorching deserts

to Arctic snow scapes,

and more sexposition.

The HBO show is adapted from a series of books

by George RR Martin,

or as I like to call him, Grr,

because that's the sound I make

when I think of what he's doing to us.

Grr!

Does it really take seven books

and a zillion pages a pop

when it's been clear since book one, chapter 14,

that this series is building to a pitch battle

between ice zombies and fire-breathing dragons?

Cut to the chase already, Grr.

The pace of his book releases is slowing

from one every two years

to a gap of six years between books.

But, despite what some of you geeks are saying,

I'm okay with that.

Hey, Asimov spent three decades on the Foundation series.

That is, I was okay with that until

my calculations suggested

that the HBO series, the best show on television,

except for Arrow,

is going to run out of material before the saga concludes.

Oh, seven hells, no.

Nope, not okay.

If this trend line continues

the next book won't be out until 2018

and the concluding book won't be out until 2026.

Even if HBO continues splitting each book

into two seasons worth of episodes

they'll run out of material

six years before the last book appears.

We may reach a point where things happen on the show

before they happen in books.

That's just wrong.

Clearly HBO will have to slow

things down.

I suggest they dig deeper for more details,

Silmarillion-style.

They could devote an entire episode

to enumerating the 77 dishes

served at Joffrey Baratheon's wedding feast.

Or how about an episode-long refresher course

on the various royal sigils

found in the land of Westeros.

I mean, there's a golden kraken of House Greyjoy,

the flayed man of House Bolton,

the silver crowd of House Tully.

What's happening?

Hey, are you sexpositioning over me?

Not cool!

Well, fine then.

If menus and sigils are too boring

then the Game of Thrones TV show

needs to go full-on Swedish soft core.

10 minutes of plot per episode

followed by 45 minutes of nudity.

The series could run for decades

on Skinemax, sure,

but it would be worth it.

Is George RR Martin a master of detail

or a slave to it?

Did we really need to know

all of the ingredients in the mutton stew?

Let me know what you think in the comments.