Lord Snow |
Sparked by an offhanded comment in another thread, I thought this could be a fun one.
You get to choose one book or series that was never adapted and isn't currently in development, and explain why you are right and everybody else is wrong and that book needs a TV adaptation.
I'm going to start out of left field here, and go with Pushing Ice (by Alistair Reynolds), to be adapted as a high budget miniseries. The book is great, and also very episodic in nature, and could easily be told in say 6 episodes, each two of them covering one of the sections in the book. It will be nothing like any TV show I ever heard of, vast in scope (the story sprawls across decades) and with strong elements of humans drama and SF over-the-top Big Ideas, incorporating many smaller stories. I think this will not merely be awesome to watch, but also could show the general public a kind of science fiction they've almost never encountered.
Lord Snow |
Well, I was going to say Altered Carbon, but it looks like it is in development for Netflix.
Yeah, many of my tops answers to my own question were ruled out because the books have been picked up already (The Dark Tower would have been a very emphatic number one, The Expanse a number two).
JakBlitz |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My first instict was The Wheel of Time but, that is in Development already. So given that I would like to see one of these made.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistborn_series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stormlight_Archive
Both have great stories, characters and worlds. However I really wish they just rebooted the Dresden Files tv series and did it right this time. It did not get the justice it deserved.
Imbicatus |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The Anita Blake books could be a decent series, if you stick to things before Obsidian Butterfly, focus on the detective mysteries and monster hunting.
I'm not a big fan of the books after Obsidian Butterfly, but before that one the series is a favorite of mine.
It depends. Some of the later books might win big at the AVN awards...
Balgin |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hmm. Hasn't already been done?
Can I say the The True Game trilogy by Terri S Shepper? That would certainly make for an interesting visual approach with characters being assigned classes within the game (which is formal and even more complicated than chess). The later developments change things up just enough to keep plot twists and audiences guessing.
Plus the chapter where Peter (as a Shapeshifter) does battle with the Shapeshifter Castle (by using another power to cause it to lash out at itself and tear itself to pieces) would practically be a season finale on it's own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Game
Tinkergoth |
Urban Magic by Kate Griffin
Easily my favourite urban fantasy series. I love the way the magic of the setting is entwined with aspects of modern society, and Matthew Swift is one of my favourite protagonists ever. If the four main books weren't considered enough to base it on, there are two spin-off novels following different characters in the same setting with Matthew showing up as well. The books are:
Urban Magic (also just referred to as Matthew Swift sometimes)-
A Madness of Angels
The Midnight Mayor
The Neon Court
The Minority Council
Magicals Anonymous -
Stray Souls
The Glass God
JoelF847 RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16 |
Greylurker |
Greylurker wrote:It depends. Some of the later books might win big at the AVN awards...The Anita Blake books could be a decent series, if you stick to things before Obsidian Butterfly, focus on the detective mysteries and monster hunting.
I'm not a big fan of the books after Obsidian Butterfly, but before that one the series is a favorite of mine.
oh yes.... like I said Obsidian Butterfly is my break point on that series. After that book everything kind of shifts and I didn't enjoy them any more.
oddly though I do enjoy the Merry Gentry books. The wierd sexy stuff just kind of fits better there.
and gad damn Fey can be scary people
Lord Snow |
Urban Magic by Kate Griffin
Easily my favourite urban fantasy series. I love the way the magic of the setting is entwined with aspects of modern society, and Matthew Swift is one of my favourite protagonists ever. If the four main books weren't considered enough to base it on, there are two spin-off novels following different characters in the same setting with Matthew showing up as well. The books are:
Urban Magic (also just referred to as Matthew Swift sometimes)-
A Madness of Angels
The Midnight Mayor
The Neon Court
The Minority CouncilMagicals Anonymous -
Stray Souls
The Glass God
I read your post, thought to myself, "Hey, the book names are pretty cool, let's check who this Kate Griffin is", then quickly discovered she is also Claire North, who's First Fifteen Lives of Harry August I've shifted higher and higher on my list the more I heard about it. Somehow, discovering the author has another pen name with a host of other books really intrigues me.
Do you know if her audiobooks are done well? I may pick Harry August as my next listen.
Werthead |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Kate Griffin/Claire North/Catherine Webb (her real name) is a pretty good writer. I'd be interested in seeing her stuff on screen. It's like a more literary version of Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE.
I think THOMAS COVENANT really is unfilmable. You can't not have him carry out the sexual assault he does in the books as that torpedoes the entire story (which is all about his redemption from that act), but it will also revolt and turn off viewers in droves (the same way it puts off enormous numbers of readers).
Tad Williams has indicated that there is renewed interest in MEMORY, SORROW AND THORN, especially since he has revealed that there will befive new novels in that world coming out in the next few years.
I did a list a couple of months back of all the books/series headed to the screen. In brief, it's a good time to be a Neil Gaiman fan:
Filming/In post-production
ANNIHILATION by Jeff VanderMeer (film)
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM by J.K. Rowling (film)
HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES by Neil Gaiman (film)
LIKELY STORIES by Neil Gaiman (TV series)
AMERICAN GODS by Neil Gaiman (TV series)
SHE WHO BRINGS GIFTS by Mike Carey (film)
STORY OF YOUR LIFE by Ted Chiang (film)
THE DARK TOWER by Stephen King (film)
MIDNIGHT, TEXAS by Charlaine Harris (TV series)
READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline (film)
LUKE CAGE (TV series)
IRON FIST (TV series)
PREACHER (TV series)
Pre-production
FORTUNATELY, THE MILK by Neil Gaiman (film)
WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams (TV series)
THE DEFENDERS (TV series)
Greenlit
100 BULLETS by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso (film)
ALTERED CARBON by Richard Morgan (TV series)
THE CITY AND THE CITY by China Mieville (TV series)
HIS DARK MATERIALS by Philip Pullman (TV series)
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE SILVER CHAIR by CS Lewis (film)
RED MARKS by Kim Stanley Robinson (TV series, recently delayed by still going forwards)
THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood (TV series)
DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS/FORGOTTEN REALMS (film)
THE PUNISHER (TV series)
Optioned
ANCILLARY JUSTICE by Ann Leckie (film)
ANANSI BOYS by Neil Gaiman (TV series, possibly cancelled and folded into AMERICAN GODS)
SANDMAN by Neil Gaiman (film)
GOOD OMENS by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (TV series)
DISCWORLD: THE CITY WATCH by Terry Pratchett (TV series)
DARKOVER by Marion Zimmer Bradley (TV series)
THE FOREVER WAR by Joe Haldeman (film)
FOUNDATION by Isaac Asimov (TV series, on the backburner at HBO)
GATEWAY by Frederik Pohl (TV series)
HORRORSTOR by Grady Hendrix (TV series)
THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN THE WALLS by Jonathan Bellairs (film)
HYPERION by Dan Simmons (TV series)
IN THE LOST LANDS by George R.R. Martin (film)
THE SKIN TRADE by George R.R. Martin (TV series)
THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE by Patrick Rothfuss (film and TV series, somehow)
THE LAST POLICEMAN by Ben H. Winters (TV series)
LOCK IN by John Scalzi (TV series)
LUNA by Ian McDonald (TV series)
MADADDAM by Margaret Atwood (TV series)
MAGIC KINGDOM OF LANDOVER by Terry Brooks (film)
THE MORGAINE CYCLE by CJ Cherryh (film)
THE GHOST BRIGADES by John Scalzi (TV series)
OTHERLAND by Tad Williams (film)
RED RISING by Pierce Brown (film)
REDSHIRTS by John Scalzi (TV series)
RIVERS OF LONDON by Ben Aaronovitch (TV series)
ROBOPOCALYPSE by Daniel H. Wilson (film)
SIX MONTHS, THREE DAYS by Charlie Jane Anders (TV series)
SPIN by Robert Charles Wilson (TV series)
THE STAND by Stephen King (film, TV series or some mix of the two)
TEMERAIRE by Naomi Novik (TV series)
UPROOTED by Naomi Novik (film)
TIME SALVAGER by Wesley Chu (film)
VICIOUS by V.E. Schwab (film)
THE WARLORD CHRONICLES by Bernard Cornwell (TV series)
WATCHMEN by Alan Moore (TV series)
Y: THE LAST MAN by Bryan Vaughan (TV series)
THE WHEEL OF TIME by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (TV series)
Sissyl |
Lord of Light. Warning, spoilers abound.
It's a pretty complicated story. In short, CIA wanted a plausible excuse for being in Iran due to the Iranian hostage crisis, and decided on a movie filming. The story to not be filmed was Lord of Light.
Recently, there was a film made about this, called Argo.
TimD |
I could see a crazy adaptation of the Simon Green books (Nightside, etc. - not the Deathstalker or Hawk & Fisher books) being pretty cool, but that might pull wind out of the sails of a good Dresden series.
Vampire Earth would be a good one.
Altered Carbon as a TV series is exciting. Wow.
Pretty sure Weber's Honor Harrington series has something in the works, but an adaptation of his Safehold series might be interesting as well.
Tinkergoth |
Tinkergoth wrote:Urban Magic by Kate Griffin
Easily my favourite urban fantasy series. I love the way the magic of the setting is entwined with aspects of modern society, and Matthew Swift is one of my favourite protagonists ever. If the four main books weren't considered enough to base it on, there are two spin-off novels following different characters in the same setting with Matthew showing up as well. The books are:
Urban Magic (also just referred to as Matthew Swift sometimes)-
A Madness of Angels
The Midnight Mayor
The Neon Court
The Minority CouncilMagicals Anonymous -
Stray Souls
The Glass GodI read your post, thought to myself, "Hey, the book names are pretty cool, let's check who this Kate Griffin is", then quickly discovered she is also Claire North, who's First Fifteen Lives of Harry August I've shifted higher and higher on my list the more I heard about it. Somehow, discovering the author has another pen name with a host of other books really intrigues me.
Do you know if her audiobooks are done well? I may pick Harry August as my next listen.
I'm afraid I haven't heard any of her audiobooks. Haven't checked out Harry August yet either.
Claire North is actually her second pseudonym, she writes children's fiction under her real name, Catherine Webb. Apparently her publishers keep insisting she needs a pseudonym for every time she shifts style significantly.
Abraham spalding |
I think THOMAS COVENANT really is unfilmable. You can't not have him carry out the sexual assault he does in the books as that torpedoes the entire story (which is all about his redemption from that act), but it will also revolt and turn off viewers in droves (the same way it puts off enormous numbers of readers).
That is the major point I am worried about too. As you said it is central to the second book especially. However with all the other things that have gotten through with GOT and other HBO series I think it could make it.
Though I would expect outcry about it, and honestly would be a bit disappointed if people just took it as "just another thing".
Abraham spalding |
It is what made me throw the book away in disgust and never open it again. And really, it is not actually the rape itself, but the way he whines about how unfair everything is, and how justified it is for him to do it. Bleah.
Absolutely understandable. The second book really drives home for him just how terrible of a person he is due to that one act. The third book is mostly him trying to find a reason to live with himself after the absolute havoc his actions have wrought on the world and trying to find a way to fix it.
I do not defend this man; this one action literally almost ruined the world (and in many ways did anyways). I mostly find myself recommending this series for males (especially MRA types), the message in my opinion is really about the absolute horror the act of rape is.
Lord Snow |
Seriously, though, don't read the spoiler if you are squeamish about the subject matter discussed in the last few posts!
Amoral characters are an interesting subject. They can be a serious turnoff - sounds like this Thomas dude is an example, since he appears to not only be guilty of horrible crimes but also unlikable.
However, done right, they can lead to great stories and an even stronger emotional involvement - Joe Abercrombie and George Martin are grand masters of that. Their characters are at fault for the whole gamut of immoral actions - ranging from vanity to incest to rape to mass murder - and yet many of them are also inherently likable people, or people with the strong potential and will to be good. It makes it all the more painful when they fail.
Lord Snow |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Speaking of which, The First Law could make for a seriously awesome TV show. It also seems to be very doable, even with a relatively small budget, since it is mostly character focused and less reliant on epic landscapes and clashing armies, at least for most of it's length. When the giant, expansive scenarios do come up, it's not even that important for them to look impressive because that's not really the point.
GreyWolfLord |
It is what made me throw the book away in disgust and never open it again. And really, it is not actually the rape itself, but the way he whines about how unfair everything is, and how justified it is for him to do it. Bleah.
I didn't have as many problems with that series to tell the truth. I see the first as him truly believing it is a dream, and that's one issue he still hasn't resolved by the end. The bigger question that the trilogy tries to answer is whether one is responsible for their moral actions within a dream, or whether they view it as merely a dream.
It tries to implicate that because he is a leper, falling for the illusion of reality in a dream, or allowing dreams to control him rather than what he knows is real, can literally be dangerous to his actual life. In the end, accepting dreams as reality, it nearly destroys him in the first trilogy, and it DOES kill him in the second trilogy.
Of course, then the trilogy heavily implies that it is NOT a dream, but instead is an alternate reality, complicating the entire thing.
What I truly had problems with and will not buy or read again (and threw away the book) was The Real Story. I don't find anything redeemable about that book.
SunstonePhoenix |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The child within me still wonders why Warriors hasn't been adapted yet. The story lines, the characters, the interpretation of a gritty feline society... I practically inhaled the book series when I was younger, and I feel like the story still holds quite a bit of appeal for both younger and older audiences. If the books were ever to be adapted into a television series, I'd watch it in a heartbeat.
JoelF847 RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16 |
Sissyl |
Amoral characters are an interesting subject. They can be a serious turnoff - sounds like this Thomas dude is an example, since he appears to not only be guilty of horrible crimes but also unlikable.
However, done right, they can lead to great stories and an even stronger emotional involvement - Joe Abercrombie and George Martin are grand masters of that. Their characters are at fault for the whole gamut of immoral actions - ranging from vanity to incest to rape to mass murder - and yet many of them are also inherently likable people, or people with the strong potential and will to be good. It makes it all the more painful when they fail.
For reference, I haven't had any problems with what happens in aSoIaF. I guess my problem is that I seek immersion in reading, and I don't want to immerse myself in thousands of pages of the life of a whiny, horrible person. You know, someone slightly more annoying than Creep from the Black Cauldron. Having him do what he did and then quickly face justice for it as a prelude character would have been fine.
Lord Snow |
Lord Snow wrote:For reference, I haven't had any problems with what happens in aSoIaF. I guess my problem is that I seek immersion in reading, and I don't want to immerse myself in thousands of pages of the life of a whiny, horrible person. You know, someone slightly more annoying than Creep from the Black Cauldron. Having him do what he did and then quickly face justice for it as a prelude character would have been fine.Amoral characters are an interesting subject. They can be a serious turnoff - sounds like this Thomas dude is an example, since he appears to not only be guilty of horrible crimes but also unlikable.
However, done right, they can lead to great stories and an even stronger emotional involvement - Joe Abercrombie and George Martin are grand masters of that. Their characters are at fault for the whole gamut of immoral actions - ranging from vanity to incest to rape to mass murder - and yet many of them are also inherently likable people, or people with the strong potential and will to be good. It makes it all the more painful when they fail.
Many, many characters in A Song of Ice and Fire are guilty of much worse crimes than rape, and yet are either likable or interesting, and so we the readers forgive them. Martin convinces us of their point of view, and makes us care, even if we do not approve. Heck, even the nearest things we have to "good guys" in the story are still lords and ladies who lead their people to wars and to death and to hunger because of the squabbling between houses. In every modern morality scale, that's pretty bad from the get go.
And, needless to say, characters in GoT are not "facing justice" for their horrible deeds. Some characters meet a bad end and some don't, regardless of their moral disposition. If anything, the scales normally skue the other way around - good deeds are often also displays of weakness in the brutal environment that is the courts of the Westeros nobility. Characters who try to do The Right Thing almost always get in trouble for it.
But that's what I've been trying to say, originally. Gritty storytelling and amoral characters are both strong tools an author can employ , and they can heighten the drama and emotional punch of the story, but they also have the potential to fizzle horribly if the balancing act of likability against immorality is mishandled even slightly.
LazGrizzle |
Valantrix1 wrote:I'd love to see The Black Company books done.Dang! Ninja'd!
It would make for a very deep series.
You know I tried to get into that series, but something was off to me. Maybe I started not with the first book or something, but narratively-speaking it seemed like a mess. Is there a specific starting point one should look for?
Then again, I tried it on the heels of reading Locke Lamora, so anything after that would be difficult to live up to. It's like starting your meal with a filet mignon appetizer.
Set |
Having just reread Startide Rising and the Uplift War, those books would be crazy intensive on special effects, but gosh, there's some sci-fi aliens in there that are wildly different than just bumpy-headed Trek aliens! And some fun concepts and characters, obviously.
Amoral characters are an interesting subject. They can be a serious turnoff - sounds like this Thomas dude is an example, since he appears to not only be guilty of horrible crimes but also unlikable.
[tangent]Having just read a bumper crop of Pathfinder Tales novels, I was amused how generally amoral the protagonists have been. They have goals, such as 'the perfect con' or 'make a name / home for my disgraced family' or, quite often, 'vengeance!' but few, if any, are necessarily *good.* Even those, like Torius Vin, who have some 'good' traits (loyalty to his crew, hates slavery) have specific in-character reasons for those traits, beyond just 'generic good-guy' (and he is a pirate, by profession, not a crusader or healer!).
But a genre based on the antics of Conan the Barbarian (not a nice man), Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (thieves and conmen) and Elric of Melnibone (the original whiny emo guy, accept no lesser whiners) is perhaps ideally suited to that sort of protagonist, who doesn't just have feet of clay, but is generally dragged unwillingly into 'heroism' and not exactly Captain America by default.
It's interesting how one-sided the fantasy genre tends to be on the alignment issue. There's evil, and boy howdy, but the 'good-guys' are quite often just people, not particularly 'good,' and, in some cases, pretty amoral or sketchy, and defined more by their being caught up in the fight for survival against evil, and general agreement that 'yeah, the end of the world is bad, I guess, now that it's affecting me personally...' than any broader concept of 'good.'
Same for sci-fi, for that matter. To pick the low-hanging fruit, Luke doesn't grow up wanting to fight the evil empire, he just sort of gets dragged into it when his moisture farm-family gets vaped. Ditto Han, with even more struggling to stay out of it. Leia's the only one of the original three to have actively chosen resistance.[/tangent]
Lord Snow |
Same for sci-fi, for that matter. To pick the low-hanging fruit, Luke doesn't grow up wanting to fight the evil empire, he just sort of gets dragged into it when his moisture farm-family gets vaped. Ditto Han, with even more struggling to stay out of it. Leia's the only one of the original three to have actively chosen resistance.[/tangent]
Wait, what? Luke very much wanted to go fight the empire, at least in a "some day when I get out of this nowhere planet I'm stuck on" kind of way. I guess you can say his motivation started out at 90% thrill-seeking and 10% actual heroism and the balance shifted over time - but right from the very start we know that Luke opposes the empire and would like to join the rebels.
Taking your point more generally, though, I'm not so sure I agree with you. Fantasy is full of heroism, self sacrifice and even supernatural forces of pure good. Sure, you get to see the doubts and fears and imperfections of the people doing the heroics, but that only serves to make them more believable. I'm not a particularly noble person, but I imagine even those with more of a brave heart and altruistic streak than me don't go around thinking about how good they are all the time.
Otherwhere |
Otherwhere wrote:Valantrix1 wrote:I'd love to see The Black Company books done.Dang! Ninja'd!
It would make for a very deep series.
You know I tried to get into that series, but something was off to me. Maybe I started not with the first book or something, but narratively-speaking it seemed like a mess. Is there a specific starting point one should look for?
Then again, I tried it on the heels of reading Locke Lamora, so anything after that would be difficult to live up to. It's like starting your meal with a filet mignon appetizer.
I didn't get hooked until the second book. Similar narrative style, but more character for the narrator than the first book. He wrote them as annals, but eventually the style became more prose.
I've not read Locke Lamora, so I don't have any comparison. But The Annals of the Black Company is really worth reading, and gritty for fantasy.
Matthew Morris RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8 |