George R.R. Martin actually likes the new Game of Thrones spinoff

In a new blog post, George R.R. Martin provided a brief update on his travels and thoughts from the last few months. But while most of them are pretty predictable, including an unsurprising lament about the New York’s abysmal football franchises, his big reveal is that he’s seen all six episodes of the new Game of Thrones spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and absolutely loves it.

While it’s tempting to write this off as a creator who’s always going to say nice things about the adaptations of his world, it’s important to remember that Martin has often been brutally honest about his opinions of the HBO versions of his work.

In fact, it’s easy to imagine that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms could end up as Martin’s favorite of the shows set in the Game of Thrones universe. The series is based on Martin’s Dunk and Egg stories, which are all prequels to the main A Song of Ice and Fire narrative. While Martin is most famous for the way his series plays with expectations around traditional fantasy tropes, Dunk and Egg is more straightforward: It’s high fantasy adventure, with tales of boyhood fantasies of honest bravery and courageous chivalry. They’re the kind of stories, as Martin has said, that made him fall in love with the fantasy genre to begin with, which is exactly why they’re some of his favorite works he’s ever written.

Alongside his enthusiasm for the first season of the show, Martin also noted that the production is moving on to season 2, which will the events of his story, “The Sworn Sword.” Martin also provides his obligatory mention of finishing The Winds of Winter — progress on which will hopefully be spurred thanks to the Jets new head coach and the fact that the Giants are probably going to draft a new quarterback in April.