George RR Martin’s ‘Skin Trade’ Heads to Cinemax Spinoff Online

George R.R. Martin fans will be thrilled to know that another of his creations, the novella Skin Trade, may be headed for a Cinemax series.

Martin made the announcement himself on his blog. Kalinda Vazquez (co-executive producer of Once Upon a Time) will adapt Martin’s work, which focuses on a young detective investigating a string of brutal murders in her small town (the victims are skinned).

And The Hollywood Reporter writes that Martin has “always thought there was a TV series” in the story, suggesting that there could be a lot of mileage in the concept.

Martin said while he “would have loved” to write and run the show, “that was never really in the cards”.

Over on his blog, Martin has announced that Cinemax has optioned the rights to The Skin Trade and ordered a pilot script. The novella appeared in the horror compilation Night Visions 5 (which has also been released under the title Dark Visions) in 1989, and Martin says he was pitching a Skin Trade TV show way back in 1991.

The 67 year old author stated recently that he is interested to write the series but has a big task to finish a book, which is obviously indicated towards “Games of Thrones” from “A Song of Ice and Fire” series.

Several years ago, Newbauer’s Mike the Pike Prods. acquired the rights to the novel and tried to develop it as a feature. Hailed as one of the best pieces of werewolf fiction, it went on to win the World Fantasy Award. A few third-party sellers on Amazon do have used copies available. It’s called Werewolves and Shapeshifters and also includes stories by Charlaine Harris, Chuck Palahniuk, Neil Gaiman, H.P. Lovecraft, and others. The graphic novel, at least, is widely available, though.