Last week, I wrote about the new golden age of SFF adaptations and what, in my opinion, makes them work. This week, I’m going to delve into my personal wish list of Things I Want: five(ish) adaptations I wish existed, the forms they should take, and why I think they’d be awesome.
Let’s get to it, shall we?
Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series
I’m not going to preface this choice with an explanation of what Pern is or who the characters are: it’s been around for long enough now–since 1967, in fact–that I’m going to assume a base degree of familiarity. That being so, it doesn’t seem unfair to say that Pern’s great strength is the worldbuilding: Threadfall, Impression, dragonriders, flying Between, the holder system, telepathy, timing it, Harper Halls, firelizards, queen eggs, and the many attendant possibilities thereof. Which isn’t to slight the characters, per se—it has, after all, been many years since I first fell in love with Lessa, F’lar, F’nor, Brekke, Miriam, Menolly, Piemur and Master Robinton—but, well. Okay. There’s no delicate way to put this, so I’m just going to come right out with it: McCaffrey is weird about sex, where weird is a synonym for rapey and homophobic. Male green riders are frequently denigrated in text, dragon mating is used as a convenient way to handwave consent between riders, and while the conceit of Pern as a society that’s simultaneously feudal and futuristic is a compelling one, the in-text misogyny hasn’t aged well. It’s not just that the setting is sexist, but that the narrative is only sometimes critical of this fact, and if you reread the early books in particular, the consequences of this are… not great (F’lar admitting to raping Lessa, Kyala’s domestic abuse being narratively excused because of her meanness to Brekke, and the female exceptionalism of Miriam and Menolly being Not Like Other Girls, for instance).
But despite these flaws, the series retains a perennial attraction. Pern is what I think of as a sandbox world: one whose primary draw is the setting, the potential of its environment to contain not just one story and one set of characters, but many. Star Wars is much the same, which is why it succeeds so well across so many different mediums: as much as we love its various protagonists, we’re also happy to explore their world without them, and to make new friends in the process. That being so, it’s impossible for me to imagine just one Pern adaptation: there’s too much going on to want to narrow it down. Here, then, are my top three options:
- A Bioware-style RPG based around fighting Thread. The concept of Impressing a dragon, with all the different colour and gender combinations available, is perfectly suited to giving a custom character different narrative options, regardless of whether who you Impressed was decided by a random dice-roll, your resting place on a sliding scale determined by prior in-game actions, or a simple player’s choice. As in Dragon Age: Origins, players could choose from a series of backgrounds with alternate entry points into the same story depending on whether their protagonist comes from Hall, Hold or Weyr. The overarching plot could centre on a mix of Hold/Hall politics and the search for ancient technological artefacts, with bonus sidequests about running various missions, recruiting potential riders, Harper Hall spying and collecting/apportioning fire lizard eggs. Dragon powers like timing it and going Between could work as in-game combat abilities, while romance options could be intertwined with—though not wholly dependent on—dragon pairings. (And nor would such options be exclusively straight: however poorly handled in the source material, the presence of male green riders confirms that Impression isn’t reflective of sexual preference, and that dragons can be Impressed by riders of different genders. Remove the patriarchal impetus of the setting, which is the real reason girls were only ever selected as potential gold riders—Miriam, after all, quite handily Impressed a green—and I see no reason why, even if queen dragons were retained as female-only, you couldn’t have girls riding blues, browns and bronzes, too. Basically, GIVE ME ALL THE QUEER DRAGONRIDER OPTIONS, because why the hell not?)
- A TV series based around Harper Hall spying and politicking, following the exploits of Menolly, Sebel, and Piemur. The dragons are such a big, shiny, visible part of Pern that it’s easy to miss the narrative potential of everything that sneaks along in the background, even when it’s politically meatier. Given that the Harpers are at the centre of historical and social progress, they’re the perfect lens for a long-game look at Pern—plus, I’m guessing that fire lizards would be easier to animate week-to-week than full-size dragons.
- A movie about Lessa: her Impression of Ramoth, her inheritance of the broken, depleted Weyrs at the end of a long Interval, her puzzling out of clues about Threadfall and her leap back in time to bring the Oldtimers forward. It’s the perfect arc for a film, tightly plotted around a single main character whose trajectory natively serves as a worldbuilding mechanism, with exactly the kind of big-budget visuals—dragons! aerial battles! Thread!—that work best as cinematic spectacle.
Any one of these projects would bring endless delight to my fannish heart; all three together would probably cause me to expire from a surfeit of pure joy.
Court of Fives, by Kate Elliott
It’s no secret I’m a longtime fan of Elliott’s work—which is endlessly compelling, diverse and imaginative—but of everything she’s written so far, it’s her first foray into YA, Court of Fives, that strikes me as being perfect for film. Set in a Greco-Egyptian setting, the plot revolves around the game of Fives, an incredibly well-developed sport whose competitors have to run a series of mazes against each other in order to win, with each section requiring a different combination of strength, tactics and agility for successful completion. The protagonist, Jes, is a young biracial woman of noble birth who competes in secret, defying what’s expected of girls of her background. When her decision to run the Fives dovetails with her father being politically outmanoeuvred, their whole family is endangered—and only Jes has the freedom to try and save them.
As a concept, the Fives scenes would look fantastic, as well as providing a solid, engaging structure around which to hang the story. The climax is equally tense and well-written: the sort of storytelling that takes chapters to describe on page, but which looks effortless on screen. The worldbuilding, too, has a strong visual component in everything from clothes to architecture—I’d love to see Elliott’s world brought to life, and given the clear historical inspiration, it’s the perfect mix of familiar and original elements to show that a bigger setting exists without overburdening the dialogue. The diversity of the characters is another point in the story’s favour: not only is race a narratively relevant issue, but as Court of Fives is a secondary world fantasy, it’s one that allows a lot of scope for casting interpretation. (Meaning: it’s very hard to say ‘but REAL Greeks don’t look like that!’ when the whole point is that these are not, in point of fact, “real” Greeks.)
Court of Fives has all the best elements of the most successful YA film adaptations—an original, three-dimensional protagonist struggling to navigate both gladiatorial and political arenas (the two being fundamentally connected), complex family relations, a decent romance, and an action-packed plot which, as firmly as it leaps off the page, would look brilliant on the big screen. SOMEBODY PURCHASE THE RIGHTS AND ADAPT IT IMMEDIATELY.
Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series
To say that Seanan McGuire is a prolific writer is an understatement akin to calling the sun warm: it’s technically accurate, but absent a vital degree of HOLY SHIT intensity. Rosemary and Rue, McGuire’s first published novel and the start of the October Daye series, came out in 2008; counting her slated releases for 2016, she has, since then, produced twenty-seven novels and short story collections, to say nothing of her myriad novellas and short stories, which is more than most authors manage in a lifetime. That many of her shorter works are set in the same universe(s) as her various novels is a testament to the breadth of her worldbuilding: no matter how action-focussed McGuire’s stories become, there’s always a wealth of magic, mad science and originality underlying everything that happens.
At the start of the series, October ‘Toby’ Daye is a changeling: a half-human detective and former faerie knight working cases that cross into San Francisco’s Faerie realms. It’s urban fantasy, noir and Childe Rowland all rolled together with a heaping of snark and geek references, and in the right hands, it would make for an incredible, addictive TV show. If the novels have a weakness, it’s that there’s so much going on in parallel in McGuire’s world—much of it hinted at early on, but not addressed until later books—that Toby’s first-person perspective simply can’t show us everything at once. But in a TV format, all that juicy worldbuilding and backstory detail could be given more space, the secondary characters portrayed through eyes other than Toby’s. This is a character, after all, who spends fourteen years trapped as a koi fish in the Japanese gardens before the story even starts, returning home to find the various parts of her life either broken, destroyed or fundamentally altered in her absence.
Give me an October Daye series (preferably starring Crystal Reed as Toby, please and thank you, she would be LITERALLY PERFECT, FIGHT ME) which folds the events of multiple books into each season, creating a layered narrative that knows its own long game from the outset. Give me a racially, sexually diverse cast of faeries roaming the streets of San Francisco with a wry, Noir-style narration and plenty of explosions. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.
Archivist Wasp, by Nicole Kornher-Stace
The trick to making movie adaptations of SFF novels is to pick a story which shortens rather than lengthens in the transition to screen, thereby giving the filmmaker some leeway to interpret the plot without stripping it. Prose has a different set of strengths and weaknesses to film, and vice versa: an action sequence that takes fifteen pages to describe might be visually conveyed in two minutes, while a subtle piece of background information, worked seamlessly into written narration, might require an extra half hour in order to make sense on film. This is, I would argue, the most practical reason why demanding pristine, page-to-screen adaptations is a bad idea: unless your source material is an especially well-constructed comic or graphic novel, the fundamental differences between the mediums means the story has to change, or suffer in the retelling.
Which is, perhaps, why it’s often shorter works of SFF—be they YA or otherwise—that make the strongest films: the scripting doesn’t have to rush to cram things in, or risk incompleteness for the sake of brevity. Archivist Wasp is the perfect length for film, and premised on the sort of compelling, dystopian uncertainty about what’s happening now and why things broke that worked for All You Need is Kill (filmed as Edge of Tomorrow/Live. Die. Repeat.) and I Am Legend. In fact, you could arguably pitch it as a blend of the best elements of those two stories, with just a pinch of (seemingly) magic. In a harsh, barren future, Wasp is forced to capture ghosts to try and question them about what happened to the world—a largely futile task, as most ghosts are incoherent. But when one ghost proves stronger, fiercer, and more lucid than the others, going so far as to ask Wasp’s help in finding his companion, Wasp follows him out of her body and into the world of dead. Aided by her access to his disintegrating memories of what happened before—flashbacks of an unknown time that steadily lead them onwards—Wasp comes to question everything she’s ever been taught about the world that remains and her bloody, brutal place within it.
My only complaint about Archivist Wasp, an entirely excellent book, is a matter of personal preference: given the dystopian setting and high technological past, it’s simply never explained how the death-magic element fits into things. On page, it reads to me as a Because Reasons elision, but lack of an explanation, while personally irksome, doesn’t change the coherence or emotional impact of the story otherwise. More saliently in this instance, it’s exactly the kind of element we tend not to question when present on screen: there used to be skyscrapers, and now there are ghosts, and it doesn’t really matter how or why, or if the ghosts were always there—the point is the inwards journey, reflective of external transformation, and what it means for the characters.
The Beka Cooper trilogy, by Tamora Pierce
As long as Tamora Pierce has been around, and as utterly beloved as her works are, I honestly can’t understand why no one has ever tried to adapt them before. Forced to pick just one of her series to talk about, I’m very nearly tempted to err on the side of Emelan and the Winding Circle quartet, but as much as I love Briar, Sandry, Tris and Daja, the trickiness there is the age of the characters: they’re all eleven or so at the outset, and while you can get away with middle grade novels that unflinchingly deal, as Pierce’s work does, with prejudice and violence, bringing them to screen in all that graphicness is much, much harder. Harry Potter is an exception and a yardstick both, but for the sake of comparison, imagine if the worst events of the later books were happening to the early, prepubescent versions of the characters, instead of being the result of several years of steady escalation, and you’ll get a sense of the obstacle.
The Beka Cooper books, however, are a different matter. Though the subject matter is just as thematically dark, the protagonist is that crucial handful of years older, and frankly, the idea of a feudal police drama with magic, with each season built around the events of a given book, is appealing as hell. There’s a reason urban fantasy adapts so well to TV, when the people in charge understand its peculiarities: the procedural elements translate well to an episodic format, while the worldbuilding provides extra narrative avenues as the story progresses, and used together, the two things pull in harmony. Beka is one of my favourite Pierce protagonists: a trainee guard from a poor background who initially finds herself on the trail of a child-killer, her persistence and resilience set her apart, both narratively and among her peers. (And as a secondary-world fantasy which deals, among other pertinent issues, with abuse of power, poverty, slavery and police brutality, it’s hard not to think that such a series, were it produced now, would find strong thematic resonance in current events.)
* * *
The one thing that irritates me about this list is its whiteness (of creators, not characters). I count this a personal failing: thanks to depression of varying kinds, I’ve struggled to read in the past two years, which means I’ve stalled out on a lot of excellent books, and as there are fewer POC-authored works being published in the first place, my reading of POC authors has been disproportionately affected by it. On the basis of what I’ve read of them so far, however—and glancing at the very top of my TBR pile—I suspect that, were I to write a future, supplemental version of this column, Zen Cho’s Sorcerer to the Crown, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Signal to Noise, Daniel Jose Older’s Half-Resurrection Blues, Aliette de Bodard’s The House of Shattered Wings and Malinda Lo’s Adaptation would feature prominently: all have elements that spark that same sense of visual excitement for me, and that I’m still getting through them is reflective of my own failings, not theirs.
Which isn’t to say I haven’t read any excellent works by POC recently; quite the contrary. (I’m specifying recently, because most of what I read growing up, before I gave the matter any conscious thought, was by white authors.) It’s just that, for whatever reason, the ones I have finished haven’t struck me as being easily adaptable. To give the most obvious example: even had the ending of Kai Ashante Wilson’s Sorcerer of the Wildeeps not viscerally upset me, its strength lies in its otherwise sublime, intelligent contrast of internal and external dialogue, expressed through the narrator’s varying degrees of fluency with different languages—a trick of linguistic worldbuilding which, while stunning in prose, is excruciatingly difficult to replicate on screen. On the page, we’re effectively seeing multiple fictitious languages ‘translated’ to English, the different degrees of Demane’s facility with them reflected in Wilson’s use of different types of English. But on screen, where the characters would need to be shown to be actually speaking different languages, that comparison would, somewhat paradoxically, be lost in the act of making it real: not only would we lose Demane’s internality, but we’d miss the impact of having the fictitious languages be identically interpretable to the audience while remaining at variance to the characters.
All of which is a way of saying: in thinking about the stories I most want to see adapted, I’m not barracking for my favourite series of all time (or we’d be looking at a very different list), but specifically for narratives which, I think, would thrive in the act of adaptation—stories which wouldn’t lose their most fundamental aspect in transitioning between mediums, but which can either take that strength with them, or find it there anew.
That being so, which SFF works would you most like to see adapted, and why?
Foz Meadows is a bipedal mammal with delusions of immortality. Her epic portal fantasy, An Accident of Stars, is due for release from Angry Robot in August 2016. As well as being the author of two YA novels, Solace and Grief and The Key to Starveldt, she reviews for Strange Horizons, and is a contributing writer for The Huffington Post and Black Gate. Her writing has also appeared at The Mary Sue and The Book Smugglers, and in 2014, she was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. She like cheese, geekery, writing, webcomics and general weirdness. Dislikes include Hollywood rom-coms, licorice and waking up.
The Honor Harrington series.
It was published way back in 2004, but if you’re looking for a book by and about People of Color that is extremely cinematic, full of humor, action, and romance and would translate well into both film and television, may I recommend The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust.
I’m still waiting for Terry Brook’s “Landover” series. I’d much rather have had that than Shanarra (is that how you spell it, I can never remember). Or Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London, which is stuck in development hell. Or even S. Andrew Swann’s “Dragon…” series, which has some interesting things to say about gender identity and body issues, as well as the usual array of dark lords, demons, wizards, and feudalistic politics.
I’d love to see an Elric of Melnibone film, preferably one that does the series justice. I think, though, that it would have to (initially) avoid the Multiverse aspects of Moorcock’s writings, or risk alienating everybody who isn’t already familiar with them.
Becky Chamber’s The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is structured very much like a tv show with each chapter taking me about 40 minutes to read, each with its own plot, slowly nudging the reader toward the “season finale.”
NO! Please leave PERN alone. Why would you want a studio destroying your memories of this series? People point to LOtR but ever Peter Jackson played with the stories, adding characters and events(THREE HOBBIT MOVIES!!!), so please just leave PERN alone.
Liege-Killer by Christopher Hinz. Just the first book, not the second two would make a great movie. Or jumping off point to a TV series.
I sometimes have visions in my head of impossible adaptations. Ones I know will almost certainly fail either because they’re impossible to adapt and keep the elements I love, or they might be possible to adapt but I’m pretty sure would flop, or both.
Blindsight by Peter Watts: One of my favorite books, and, with some loss of quality and detail, probably could be turned into a movie, but it’s bleak and the characters are unrelateable to most people, so it wouldn’t be successful.
A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge: Two things of note here. One, of course, the Tines would have to be a lot of CG (Maybe you could get some Henson-level puppetry wizardry for the closeup shots). Secondly, I’d like to do this with the human characters played exclusively by people of color, because, as I understand it, they are (Pham Nuwen has some features from different races, but an asian actor is probably the natural base, and, even though their NAMES are all Scandinavian, I’m pretty sure I read a brief reference to the skin of all the humans descended from Sjanda Kay (that is, every other human but Pham in the story) as being dark-skinned, and I think it’d be a way to do it. So, a mostly CGI action-sci-fi film featuring a mostly non-white cast (I suppose they can voice some of the Tines, Skroderiders, and do other aliens), with kids playing a major role in the plot? Probably doomed to failure. I don’t care, I want it anyway.
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge: Yes, this too, my crazy idea for this one is that it’s a mix between cartoon and live-action. Live action on the ship, but the reports are ‘translated’ into a cartoon of spider-daily life where they’re cutesy and relateable. Except for scenes where humans interact directly with Spiders and see them in all their glory. Ideally the same Pham Nuwen actor (although looking much different, since even though it takes place earlier, he’s physically much older, but there are also flashbacks).
Jumper by Steven Gould. No, I believe if you visit my own personal bubble of reality, you’ll find that they did not in fact make an adaptation. Would be a great movie or series, but the problem is it was written before 2000 and some of the later plot is involved in the main character using his powers to fight terrorists hijacking airplanes and cruise ships, and, well, that’s hard to do these days. You probably could work around it, but I’m afraid they’d find something silly to add like an ancient organization dedicated to killing Jumpers. Or you could just jump ahead to the second generation and do Impulse, focusing on the the daughter, a teenage girl teleporter with two parents who also teleport and people want to use them because of it, and reveal the backstory through flashbacks.
Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder: I don’t think there’s a SF budget big enough to do it justice, even though the story is reasonable cinematic. Maybe as a anime-style cartoon-for-adults.
From the SF side, Honorverse would probably work fairly well as a series, the first would be a lot of fun but you couldn’t do it as a film because there is too much plot to explain why she does the sacrificial ride. The regular changes in ship size would play merry hell with CGI budgets too.
The Evil Empire setting would work initially, but not sure that the French Revolution parallels would work over time.
I’d really love to see Altered Carbon and the other Takeshi Kovacs books on screen, the Sleeving idea makes for easy cast changes where needed as well between seasons. Especially if the hero from series 1 is brought back in to as the villain of series 3 when he fights his younger self.
From the fantasy side …
Mercedes Lackey’s Heralds of Valdemar would work well – the basic plot of Arrows would be perfect for a film and the thinner plots are easier to translate to visual media.
I’d also go for some of David Gemmell’s simpler tales. Legend would be a magnificent film, effectively Helm’s Deep on steroids. The invasion of the Mongol Hordes might be problematic though given they need to sell to China.
Michael Scott Rohan’s Spiral series would be fun – the mishmash of cultures and time periods of the Spiral would be pretty cool.
Simon Green’s Nightside would probably work well as a darker procedural. He’s probably too weird for TV though – real horror doesn’t sell well. Same problem with most of Moorcock – when the fantasy gets weird people get confused fast and budgets get expensive.
The basic idea of Moorcock’s Von Bek would probably translate really well to screen though – the idea of the devil sending a man to find the Grail to find his own redemption is fairly timeless, and the tagline of Do You the Devil’s Work is brilliant.
Edit: And I’d love them to turn Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera into an animated series – there’s a lot of depth available there, and animation is far cheaper than the CGI budgets of all his effects.
I’d love to see Michael Reaves’ Shattered World books on screen (and maybe that would be the impetus to get a third book in the series). Or maybe Glen Cook’s Black Company, although that would be more challenging because a lot of the appeal comes from the narrator’s voice.
From more recent works, I think Kenneth Oppel’s Airborn trilogy would be great, or Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan books.
And I think Liz Williams’ Detective Inspector Chen books could look utterly amazing onscreen.
Mayhem! You beat me to it. Every time this topic comes up I throw out David Gemmell’s Legend. I want that film so much.
I’m still crossing my fingers for a good Mistborn adaption.
@11 I’m just not convinced that Mistborn is cinematic, except possibly as high-budget animation, and preferably hand-drawn because I haven’t seen a CGI unit yet that has a sufficiently sophisticated understanding of characterization through movement to give essential visual illusions like “how does a Pewterarm move compared to a normal person?”. So you have a budget problem, and a problem with there being such a high proportion of what non-geeks would consider “trivia” to memorize in order for the story to make sense (it’s a character-driven story, but if you can’t keep a mental list of what all the basic metals do you’re going to be really lost on the plot)–and that problem would equal a low rather than blockbuster viewership and hold the budget down.
Secondly, I’d like to do this with the human characters played exclusively by people of color, because, as I understand it, they are (Pham Nuwen has some features from different races, but an asian actor is probably the natural base, and, even though their NAMES are all Scandinavian, I’m pretty sure I read a brief reference to the skin of all the humans descended from Sjanda Kay (that is, every other human but Pham in the story) as being dark-skinned, and I think it’d be a way to do it.
Pham Nuwen has a Vietnamese (?) name, but his description in AFUTD is smoke-grey skin, epicanthic fold and red-brown hair. All we know about the other humans is that they’re all descended from “Nyjoran” stock and therefore have Scandinavianish names with surnames adapted for a shift to matriarchy (both men and women are not “Nilsson”, son of Nils, but “Nilsndot”, daughter of Nilsson) and “brown” skin.
So pretty much any non-fair-skinned actors would do for most of the humans. Pham just looks weird.
@12, unfortunately, I think you are right. With an appropriately huge budget, it could be phenomenal, but no studio would ever approve the budget needed. And for every Lord of the Rings, there are 5 Dune (1984). There’s a very good chance they would screw it up if they tried. That’s cool, I’ll just read the books again.
Belgariad
Foundation (only if done very well and no, the Mule does not die at a wedding…
Heinlein (not an abomination like Starship Troopers)—I would think that The Moon is a Harsh Mistress might translate well to movie
Priest’s “Boneshaker” books! Steampunk done well would be a big boost.
Wheel of Time. I realize there’s no way to make it right, so I sort of hope and dread someone’ll try at the same time.
More – and better – Terry Pratchett’s adaptations. I’d really love to see Guards! Guards! and the rest of the Watch novels.
@* Mayhem
I agree with making Codex of Alera. I think each book could work as a mini series with elements added in to add to the world. It would take someone wanting to own up to it, but a 10-12 episode arc would allow for the world to be seen and the story to be played out within each book. I am think of this in terms like how Netflix does its shows or even Game of Thrones.
I just started the third October Daye novel, and YES. I’m not into crime or paranormal genres of books or TV, but I enjoy this series and think it could adapt well even if it’s heavy on internal monologue.
With the understanding that it would be so hard to get it right, I’d love to see miniseries based on Mistborn or Wheel of Time.
I would also love some type of Pern adaptation (TV or movie) that glossed over (or fixed) some of the more problematic aspects. Perhaps one of the few times where I would wholeheartedly agree with a more ‘transformative’ adaptation! But there is so much you could do there, since there are so many stories across such a wide span of time.
@13: True, re: Pham, but there’s a reason for some of the features that may be a bit spoilery, so, (especially if we were to consider the actor playing the role across both movies, which, considering everything else, hey, why not), an Asian “base” and makeup providing other features seems the appropriate route to take.
Instead of Pern, HBO could do A Companion to Wolves…
Can we add Dune to the list? The 1984 movie is terrible and the 2000 miniseries got the story mostly right but it was very cheap looking? While we’re at it, lets just adapt all 6 of the Frank Herbert Dune books :)
A couple of others: The Barb & J.C. Hendee Dhampir books seem almost tailor-made for some kind of adaptation.
And could we maybe call a mulligan on the most recent attempt, and see what Jason Momoa could do in a Conan movie that had a non-terrible script and directing?
1. Susan Cooper’s, ‘Over Sea, under Stone’ books.
2. Wizard of Earthsea. Please someone, do it and get it right this time!
3. Neverending Story. Do the whole book as a TV series.
4. Anne McCaffrey’s, ‘Crystal Singer’ trilogy.
5. C J Cherryh’s, ‘Morgaine’s Gate’ series.
The Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Liaden series by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Very top of my “This would be great but it would never, ever happen” list is Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder. It looks utterly fantastic in my head and is a fun and hugely imaginative swashbuckling adventure in the most spectacular of settings.
Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained by Peter F Hamilton could be pretty special as well.
Some you mentioned Mistborn, above. Now, I love Mistborn and would love to see it adapted well. Sure, there are some difficulties inherent in doing so (particularly finding a good way to represent all of the various magics while simultaneously making sure that the audience can keep track of them), but I think it can be done.
But this is the Sanderson adaptation that I want: a Cosmere anthology show that functions the way the various Cosmere novellas do. What I’m thinking is something where the show’s producers work closely enough with the author to consider the shorts canon and that tells parts of the greater story from corners of the universe that won’t find their way into any of the big, epic books.
@@@@@ hoopmanjh:
Sorry, but researchers at CERN have discovered that such an entity cannot exist in this universe, given the currently operating set of physical laws…
#26: Oh yes, I would love to see the Vorkosigan saga adapted, although I can’t imagine who they’d cast as Miles… or later on, Mark.
I also think that the Goblin Emperor by K. Addison would make a great miniseries.
Malazan books of the fallen as a tv series. But the have to start soon, cause it would have to be a long one.
Robin Hobbs Farseer books would be interesting.
Would love to see Neal Ashers Spatterjay books brought to the small screen.
@31 I agree that the Farseer books would be interesting, but how are you envisioning that adaptation going? Just the first trilogy? All of the Fitz books but not the Liveship/Dragonkeeper stuff? Or do they adapt everything and approach it like The Wire, where some characters fade into the background or disappear altogether, before later coming back into focus?
Helm by Steven Gould. A sci-fi martial arts military (land war) epic. It would make a great miniseries!
The series almost isn’t a series yet, but I’d like to see Ilona Andrew Innkeeper stories adapted.
I have to agree with Pern, I’ve been wanting dragons done right for awhile. Also, the Toby Daye series is a no-brainer, but what about McGuire’s Parasitology series (shudders) or her Velveteen vs. (snicker) books?
My picks are Jay Kristoff’s Lotus War books and of course the Shadows of the Apt series by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Like Dr. Thanatos above @15, I think there are some great potential movies in the works of RAH. A couple of his adult titles that spring to mind are: “The Unpleasant Profession of Johanthan Hoag” and “Magic, Inc.”. Of his YA novels, I think “Citizen of the Galaxy” and “Have Space Suit, Will Travel” could be terrific.
I would love to see a good movie version of “Starship Troopers”. Unfortunately, given the current political climate in Hollywood, the chances of that happening are between slim and none.
The World of Tiers I think would make s great series of movies
Oh, and don’t forget Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber.
I’d also agree that Pern could be done well, especially with some writing to, shall we say to be polite, tone down some of McCaffrey’s unusual personal attitudes towards sex that are in the books and rework the relevant situations, as @20 suggests? Even McCaffrey herself addressed some of the most serious rape-y stuff with a retcon scene in, uh, one of the last books written I’m blanking out on which. . . . Flashbacks between the main storyline and Dragonsdawn might be interesting in a series format as well, since the average viewer might otherwise just think “medieval setting with dragons on another planet yawn”, not “formerly technological and gender-balanced society that has degenerated under environmental pressure”, which is way more interesting and original.
I know Old Man’s War got optioned for a movie but I would loooove to see it as a miniseries.
Also, the Gone series (maybe called the FAYZ series?) would be a fantastic tv show but I would be worried that the actors would get messed up (all the characters are kids and its semihorror)
Typos: Kylara, not “Kyala”, Mirrim, not “Miriam”, and Sebell, not “Sebel.” I know there are spelling inconsistencies among minor characters from book to book, but these ones had stayed consistent.
In regards to Pern, heres what happened when Ron Moore attempted to produced it for The Wb back in 2001.
http://crashdown.com/news/2001/04/ron-moores-pern-a-no-go/
Interesting parallels to how Shannara ended up to me.
Obviously, there is a market for good adaptations and hopefully there will continue to be so.
C.J. Cherryh’s Rider at the Gate and Cloud’s Rider. If you could visually pull off the telepathy that is an inherent part of the ecosystem in that world, it would be awesome.
Many of my choices have been mentioned so instead I thought I would throw out a crazy idea I had while reading the comments.
Cryptonomicon as a netflix style series.
Imagine it as one episode in the present day timeline, the next episode in the WWII timeline, alternating back and forth. I think it could work for a binge watch. Yeah it’s impractical, probably way too expensive, wouldn’t appeal to a broad demographic but man it could be epic.
Or maybe I just want to see Bobby Shaftoe acting all bad ass before trying to drown himself.
@17: Terry Pratchett’s The Color of Magic, Wyrd Sisters, Soul Music, Hogfather, and Going Postal are already available on DVD. I believe they were all originally made as BBC serials. I thought I had seen a copy of Mort somewhere, but it isn’t listed on Amazon.
Julian May’s Saga of the Pliocene Exile series pretty please.
Falcon by Emma Bull. I rarely fancast, but I couldn’t stop doing it with this one.
(Actually, her War for the Oaks would be a pretty cool Animae, too.)
I was quite young when i read Pern..and i loved it but totally missed the “weird” sex to it. Would love to see an adaption. Mistborn/Cosmere….maybe a Cosmere series….Mistborn being season one, warbreaker 2 part miniseries (long episode kinda like the Dr who Xmas specials)?, then delve into Season 2 which would be Elantris? and Season 3 stormlight 1. etc
I’d like to see the Rachel Hawkins Rebel Belle series made into movies. They’d be fun and hilarious. I would DIE to see The Icewind Dale Trilogy get a very Peter Jackson-esque/LOTR epic movie adaption.
I think Pern could work well by focusing tightly on one of three books: Dragonflight, Dragonsdawn – that could work as a series, actually – or Moreta, Dragonlady of Pern, which is one of the better stand-alone stories but would need more worldbuilding explanation to start out than the other two would.
Mercedes Lackey’s “Elemental Masters” series might be interesting in a PBS-type show, since they are very much period dramas with the incidental inclusion of magic here and there…
Also in that vein would be Patricia Wrede’s “Mairelon the Magician” and “Magician’s Ward”, and her book “Sorcery and Cecelia” with Caroline Stevermer.
I would love to see a faithful adaptation of Wrede’s “Dealing With Dragons”!
As for SF, what came to mind was a book by Margaret Ball called “Disappearing Act”, in which a young thief on a space station ends up on the run and having to impersonate a diplomat who has been sent to do an investigation on the planet below…
@22 Even better than HBO doing A Companion to Wolves would be a Scandinavian production like Bron/Broen. The bleak, harsh introspection of a lot of these great Nordic crime dramas on the small screen right now would be a perfect fit for the Iskryne setting, plus I think they’d be more likely to handle the sex and violence in a way that didn’t feel ickily gratuitous or exploitative. (Also as of just this minute I need to see Sofia Helin and Kim Bodnia play Halfrid and Gunnar. Need to.)
Who cares about Hollywood? It isn’t the only film studio in the world.
@44: I know that. That’s why I said I want more of his books to be adapted, and better. I’d love to see the whole City Watch series (or, as my friend calls it, CSI Ankh Morpork) as a mini-series, sort of Ripper Street style, and each season would cover one book, from Guards! Guards! to Snuff. Also I’ve seen somewhere a suggestion that Tim Roth should play Vimes, and though I used to picture Vimes differently, now I can’t get that out of my head. And I just need to see that.
James Whites Sector General Series – should be doable now with CGI (aside – at a convention I chatted to James who said he could no longer get his work published but the TV & Film rights to these books kept being renewed and was a nice earner thank you!)
Asimov’s Foundation series – Is it really happening?
Gemmell’s Legend – but as mentioned the Mongol hoards fighting the WASP’s might be too much.
Feist & Wurst’s – Empire Trilogy. Come on now there is NO reason not for this !
James Corey’s – The Expanse. Oh no, we got that one :)
53: Definitely a Night Watch series – that would be great. One book per season sounds good – that gives you a season-long arc plot, and you could bulk it out (especially in the later ones) with lots of “routine policing” B-plots, of the kind that you only see in passing in the books.
The ideal casting for Vimes would have been a younger (and less dead) Pete Postlethwaite. Tim Roth might be good. As would (just seen Fortitude) Richard Dormer.
Just a bit off the beaten path, but I wouldn’t mind seeing the Myth-Adventures books tried out.
1. Jack McDevitts Alex Benedict series.
2. Julian May Saga of the Pliocene Exile
3. Allen Steele Coyote series
4. Mary Doria Russell’s Sparrow & Children of God
these are not in order of preference but all of them are absorbing, immersive other worlds that aren’t built around YAs
Movies :
1. Gotrek and Felix
2. Ciaphias Cain, Hero of the Imperium
3. The Warhound and The World’s Pain
4. Legacy of the Aldenata
5. Monster Hunters International
@31, 32: Farseer is a bit heavy on internal monologue and slow in plot, but could be adapted well. I personally think the Liveship Traders Trilogy is the Robin Hobb series best suited for TV, and could be wonderful. (The Soldier Son Trilogy would be last on my list)
@47 Elantris actually happens first, a couple hundred years before Mistborn. Of course, l can see how one might think that it’s not the most interesting introduction to the Cosmere, but I think it could serve.
Plus, if they’re already devoted to going down the Cosmere rabbit hole, they could weave Secret History into the Mistborn adaptation, and you really need to know something about Elantris for that to make sense.
Obviously, the adaptation would then get into wildly ambitious territory (something that I’m all for but would be a really tough sell).
I’d love to see Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series on the tv screen.
“The one thing that irritates me about this list is its whiteness (of creators, not characters).”
After reading this article, and some recent others on tor.com, you’d think white people were a pox on society. I have loved some recent POC authors lately (Wesley Chu, Susan Ee, and Daniel José Older come to mind) but not because of their race. It was because of their stories. That should be our measuring stick, not race. By expressing anger and/or irritation at white authors or readers you don’t promote POC authors, you only alienate people because of their race.
I love that you included Toby Daye! I don’t know if I agree with your casting choice for Toby (Crystal Reed is gorgeous but she’s too pretty. Too much like what I would imagine what Toby would look like after “the change”) but I’d get behind it if it meant seeing Tybalt, May, Sylvester and the rest.
I’d also get behind a comic book. I think that Toby would be greatly served in a graphic novel.
Octavia Butler’s Earthseed series would make great TV.
It starts with the urban post-apocalyptic setting, becomes a road story, and ends up in a rural commune being attacked from without. And that’s just the first book. The second book deals more with the slow recovery of civilization and the effects of religious fundamentalism during this recovery.
There’s a tremendous amount of material that you could mine for story ideas. Sadly there’s only the two books (Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents), Ms. Butler wasn’t able to finish it.
I’d love to see a Garrett P.I. tv series. It seems perfect. The minimal special effects they’d need would be well within the limits of a regular TV budget, and could be accomplished pretty well with nothing more than was done for Buffy.
But you know what would be really fun? An R rated animated series of Worm. Let Skitter and her crew out all Timm/Dini style.
You know what would be really great? If someone did an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire.
What? No, there is no adaptation of ASOAIF already.
@53 and 54
There IS a Watch series in pre-production, Terry, Rob and Rhihanna’s production company Narrativia are leading it up.
I hate adaptions of anything from its source material.
Dont be lame. Come up woth your own idea and do what you want with it. Leave other peoples work alone.
I would love to see Michelle Wests Sun Sword and House Wars series. As a series. Lots of good characters and fantasy elements. With one great female character (Jewel) to get invested in and several other interesting ones . Events in the first 3 House Wars books could be done as flashbacks.
Drawbacks: Very little romance and it would spoil the books to try and add it. A lot of editing needed (too much material that, while great in the books, would probably slow down a series) . And the story isn’t done yet. (but based on Game of Thrones, maybe not such as drawback).
Her Elantra series (as Michelle Sagara) might work a lot better as a series. The main characters are cops (always seems easier to sell a police series). It would be easier to adapt. Each book would work as a 3 to 4 episode arc. Drawback: A lot of special effects and makeup needed since most characters aren’t human.
I could also see Elizabeth Moons Paksenarrion trilogy and it’s sequels as a series. True, the main character largely disappears after the first 3 books, but that might be an advantage in getting a ‘name’ actress to play the part. And the continuing story lines of the remaining characters in the rest of the books are just as compelling.
@@@@@ 15 and 35: Agree about Starship Troopers. It could be great if redone correctly. And in line with the discussion about race here, I always pictured Rico as black when I read the book and have also read that he is supposed to be Filipino. Seeing a white actor in the part ruined the movie for me even if it had been good.
Correction: Rosemary and Rue was released in 2009, not 2008.
I’ll see your Crystal Reed and raise you Krysten Ritter. The moment I saw her in Jessica Jones, my mouth dropped open and I said aloud, “Oh my god, it’s Toby!” She already has the leather jacket and she’s used to blood!
Speaking of the precious Seanan McGuire, I’d love to see her Indexing series on TV. It’s already serial, so it seems to me that adapting it into episodes should be comparatively easy.
Another I’d love to see is Melanie Rawn’s Exiles series, should she finish it. Piecing together Collan’s identity alone should keep eagle-eyed viewers busy.
The last is an old favourite, but may be difficult to adapt: Jennifer Roberson’s Chronicles of the Cheysuli. There’s going to be enough hullabaloo over the family trees as it is.
Oh, Jennifer Roberson! How about Tiger & Del? Imagine the swordfighting choreography possibilities …
HOW COULD I FORGET TIGER AND DEL OMG. YES.
I love a lot of Barbara Hambly’s old fantasies and always thought they had a strong visual quality that would translate well to the screen. The Windrose Chronicles and Sun Wolf and Star Hawk in particular – I wanted Michelle Pfeiffer to play Star Hawk SO MUCH.
Terry Brooks’ The Word and the Void series would be a great TV series, I’ve wanted it for years
Julian May’s Saga of the Exiles as either a tv show or a series of movies. Failing that, how about a reread, Tor?
Gene Wolfe’s Devil in a Forest. I’d love for the Book of the New Sun to get adapted but I can’t see how they could successfully accomplish it. DiaF would make an excellent creepy forest movie.
Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood. Another creepy forest movie.
Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death. Please, please, please!
Clive Barker’s Weaveworld
China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station
Feist/Wurts’ Empire trilogy
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
Jack Vance’s Lyonesse with all the humour left in.
Joe Hill’s Locke and Key.
Oh. And a proper adaption of Le Guin’s Earthsea!
There are three series of books I would like to see made into miniseries
David Eddings Belgariad series
Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Taylor Harris’ Adept Series
Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series
Great potential television.
How about this as an entrée in the Pern series: a mini-series (four or six episodes) of The White Dragon as a lead-in to a normal Pern series? Jaxom could be the audience stand-in; because he’s a young boy (or girl–you could name her Jessa or something similar), the audience may be more accepting of exposition as a way of keying us in to the culture.
I’d really like to see an adaptation of the Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw stories by Issac Asimov starting with Caves of Steel. I think it might even be topical and current if done correctly
I got 5 woids fer youse: Fahfrd and The Gray Mouser. Suitably episodic for Television and some more expansive stories for the Big Screen. Great characters and snappy dialogue right from the books (who wouldn’t want to do a cameo of Ningauble of the Seven Eyes?) Fritz Leiber had Dumas-like literary panache. Naturally translates to visual media, which is why we see The Musketeers over and over and over…Too bad Richard Lester never took a crack at F&GM.
I think Donaldson’s Gap Cycle would make a fantastic miniseries, though it would have to be HBO and even then, might need to be toned down at points. Some of the stuff Angus and Nick do to Morn would be tough to stomach on screen; it’s difficult enough reading about it.
But if they could pull off the full series…man. Some of the later plot arcs would be true edge-of-your-seat viewing.
As I just reminded myself on the “Interesting Times” thread. Marie Brennan’s Onyx Court series. It’d make a good TV series: four centuries of London history, so you get all the good costumes and scenery– not to mention invasions and fires and plagues and comets and the London Underground– while the long-lived fairies of the Onyx Court would allow for character continuity.
The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun, by N. K. Jemisin, would make for a lovely pair of movies. They’ve got a beautifully-evoked Egyptian/North African setting, and they’ve got palaces and temples and cities and deserts, intrigues and battles and doomed love and unconventional endings. And also, ninja priests.
Maybe Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring for a singleton movie: urban dystopia meets feminist-flavored Caribbean spirituality. I’d think it would look very interesting on screen.
I don’t know how there isn’t a movie of Snow Crash yet (apparently there’s one in the pipeline, so cross fingers).
David Brin’s “Earth” would make a great TV series if it hasn’t dated too much. (Even if so, it’s not like Watchmen didn’t get away with setting the narrative in a possible alternate timeline, so…). Similarly the uplift novels would probably make great films.
@83: YES to the Onyx Court Trilogy.
Or Katherine Kurtz’ Deryni books — kind of splitting the difference between Game of Thrones and The Tudors/Wolf Hall.
@15 I always imagined the Belgariad as a cartoon series. The graphic novel version would be amazing.
@17 Someone had the rights to WoT but all they ever did was release a terrible dialogue between Lews Therin and Rahvin. /shudder I still imagine what could be done with a well executed TV series version, though.
I haven’t heard of most of these suggested works! Too many to read in a lifetime. ;)
Personal preference:
Mistborn as a TV series. The video game comes out this year. Let’s see what reception that gets. But I would still love to see at least the second series adapted for TV. The humor would be received very well, I’d imagine, as would the bullet action and speed bubble sequences.
The Faithful and the Fallen, by John Gwynne. This is the most fantastic (ongoing) fantasy series I’ve read in recent months. A film adaptation could be just as brutal and action packed as the literature.
The Demon Cycle, by Peter V. Brett. Another unfinished series, and one that if adapted for TV and executed well, could blow things like Shannara and Game of Thrones out of the water. :)
Terry Brooks’ Landover would make one hell of a video game. Exploring the world, discovering secrets, interacting with various creatures and characters. Having a whole fantasy kingdom that you are supposed to rule and improve: almost like a fantasy version of Sim City/The Sims.
I have to credit the Shannara Chronicles for giving me the push to finally read the books, something I always planned to do someday. Since the show has been on air, I have read the first 20 Shannara books and think the prequel series would be very intriguing on screen.
Naomi Novik’s Uprooted could be an awesome miniseries, perhaps. As it’s a standalone novel, I think viewers would be intrigued to know that it would have a definite ending and not be dragged on for money’s sake.
There’s a lot of hate for the movie adaptation of Steven Gould’s Jumper, but I would really like to see a sequel in a few years based on Impulse and Exo, featuring David and Millie’s daughter Cent. These books really have cinematic appeal, if they can somehow get around the weird Paladin thing. Or remake the series from the beginning.
Garth Nix’s Abhorsen series could be an incredible TV show.
An Abhorsen TV series, like The Walking Dead meets Stardust (there’s a wall between magic and nonmagic worlds), with lots of vigorous bell ringing and some incredible sets. Abhorsen’s house? The Library of the Clayr? I have no idea how they would film Death, but I would love to find out. Paperwings! Mogget! A lot of things could be CGI, but I would love it if the monsters were practical effects.
Anything by Octavia Butler or Nalo Hopkinson….and nobody has ever done Le Guin’s Earthsea right. Too many ideas probably, not enough of dragons burning people. But Earthsea, given it’s implied multi-racial cast, would be incredible. We can’t leave diversity to just Fast and Furious movies.
I like @78’s idea of doing Pern using The White Dragon as the opening (The White Dragon was the first Pern book I read thanks to library stocking weirdness, so I’m at least one person for whom the setup was completely comprehensible from that point even though it’s technically a third book), and gender-swapping Jaxom could be a viable option if you wanted to go there. Would also agree with @61 that Kushiel has potential, but honestly I think a good adaptation would focus on the characters, the alternate history and the political intrigue and keep the sexual content at more “contemporary cable norms” levels rather than “pushing it even further by showing every envelope-pushing act in real time”. I think there’s a line with difficult sexual content where it’s still interesting on the page where you’re inside the character’s head, but becomes distractingly shocking and detracts from characterization on screen if you just adapt straightforwardly.
there is a dragon riders of pern film and possible tv series in the workls . whether it gets the backing it needs is another story ! …one can hope !
I do not care what color an author is as long as the book is good. Personally, I would not want Pern ruined by some tv network executives.
@Poe, after that debacle that SyFy did to Earthsea, Le Guin will most likely never let Earthsea be made again by anyone. I wouldn’t blame her either.
One of my favorite series was The Last Herald-Mage by Mercedes Lackey. I think this would make a great mini series or possibly adapted for a weekly tv series
+1 on Gemmel’s Legend. To heck with political correctness. What about Piers Anthony’s A Spell for Chameleon? I’m not sure the puns would translate to the big screen, but the whimsical story would. Speaking of whimsy, anyone familiar with James Schmitz’ Witches of Karres? That would be a hoot on the big screen.
@93 I would just die if they made a Last Herald-Mage show. Die. Probably a good choice for MTV
My Pern-adaptation vote would be for a Menolly-centric Dragonsong/Dragonsinger miniseries.
Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone and Leiber’s Fahrd and the Grey Mouser would both make great open ended series — the books have plenty of both long quests and episodic adventures.
Bertram Chandler’s Grimes series for sometimes humorous space adventures. He wrote over 20 books so there’s loads of material.
Harry Harrison’s “West of Eden” series — a world where the Chicxulub meteor missed, and dinosaurs became intelligent, while humanoid mammals also evolved and come into conflict.
Larry Niven’s “Known Space” — say focusing on stories involving Gil “the ARM” Hamilton.
Since no one’s mentioned it, one property I’d love to see adapted is the Justice cycle. Not only is it a YA property with plenty of depth for adult audiences and great length for adapting in to a film trilogy, but the main character is a POC girl, supported by her brothers, written by a POC woman. It combines scifi and fantasy elements, but in a way that won’t bust budgets. If not on the big screen, it’s something that could make a strong set of miniseries or TV movies.
P.S. For the love of…everything, PLEASE somebody make a great adaptation of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner. ‘KTHX.
A Really enjoyable read that could not have been adapted until CGI is “They Walked Like Men” by Clifford Simak. It was written back in the 60s and was remarkable for the basic premise. People are being displace from their homes, with no place to go. Earth is being bought up, parcel by parcel, by aliens, who are using our laws of property against us. Not just any “normal” aliens, but shapeshifting who can combine into larger entities. They masquerade as human, but are actually the size of and look like bowling balls. Beautiful book and would make a great movie. Simak was a master, who seems largely forgotten. The book appears out of print, http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_16?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=simak+they+walked+like+men&sprefix=simak+they+walke%2Cstripbooks%2C210&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Asimak+they+walked+like+men but is well worth your time, as are all his other works
Eon by Greg Bear. Or any of the Culture novels by Iain M Banks, but if I had to choose one, the debut of the series, Consider Phlebas. Eon would be the one top of my list to be made into a film. From the reviews I’ve read, it’s one of those books that seems to split the readers into those that love it and those that hate it. Even though the book came out in the mid 80s, I don’t think it could have ever been successfully adapted for the screen until now. The CGI just wasn’t up to par. But now they could do it justice.
I’d like to see Dune made into a good mini-series. No, not acknowledging the David Lynch version (which I saw again with my son last week and is just not good) or even the better but still flawed mini-series that came out a decade or so ago).
Re Bujold, whom I seconded earlier – I’d like to see someone do a TV or even a stage version of Bujold’s Mountains of Mourning novella. Sets up beautifully – handful of characters, no need for big special effects (it is largely set in Appalachia type backwoods on Barrayar), potent mystery procedural with built in drama. I can almost see it as a 2 night, 4 hour (less an hour of commercials) mini-series special event on Syfy, now that they’ve shown that they actually can do a good job with programming or a 2.5 hour off-Broadway show with an intermission. Yeah….
An animated miniseries aimed at tweens based on Mars Evacuees and Space Hostages by Sophia McDougall.
And a movie based on Daniel José Older’s Shadowshaper (finalist for the Andre Norton Award, the YA Nebula)! Smart, funny, sharp dialogue, a terrific female teen POC lead, horrifying threats, and drawings that come alive, including a very large dragon mural. I *so* want to see that mural come to life on the big screen!
I’d also love to see an adaptation of Elizabeth Moon’s Remnant Population. Probably couldn’t be on the big screen, because the protagonist is an old woman, so you know that’s not gonna happen in Hollywood. So, a made-for-TV/streaming movie or two-parter? Though perhaps small-screen adaptations couldn’t afford the aliens.
Wikipedia claims that there is a movie adaptation of Vonda McIntyre’s The Moon and the Sun in the works. Does anyone have an update on that? It would be great to see her Barbary as a movie, too, to add to the relatively short list of Great Movies for Girls.
p.s. Just checked IMDB, and it says production is completed on the movie “The Moon and the Sun” (a couple big names in the cast) but there’s still no definite release date.
@@@@@ Mayhem. I too would like to see Codex Alera adapted into some sort of series The story is not so convoluted or the characters too numerous that a screen adaptation would leave viewers (who haven’t read the books) confused. Sadly, I remember only too well what happened to another Jim Butcher series – the Dresden Files. It may not have been adapted quite as the book fans/purists would have liked but I watched it before I read the books and thought it was a pretty decent series. Still it was cancelled after only one season – just as it was getting interesting.. Undeterred, I started reading the books and am still following the series. If it was ever made into a film or TV series, I would hate to see Codex Alera go this way. And herein is the problem with adaptations of well loved books. Do you pander to the book fans or the viewers in general. It is no easy job to strike that balance (as we all know) but then if it was that easy I suppose we would all be screenwriters.
No mention of Ringworld? The Mote in God’s Eye? Seriously?
And, yeah, Banks’s Culture novels, certainly.
I’d like to see Michael Flynn’s novel, The Wreck of the River of Stars big screen. With a really good orchestral score! Lots of already-written roles there for actors of diverse ages (!) & races. Themes of workforce obsolescence with tech change could be quite timely in the next few years…
Cordwainer Smith’s future history done as an anime series. Or at least Nostrillia as a movie.
I mean it has catgirls and everything!
I think Abercrombie’s First Law Trilogy could be potentially great, if someone like Quentin Tarantino decided to direct a fantasy trilogy. I would also love to see China Mieville’s The Scar adapted, if done right–I’m not a huge Pirates of the Caribbean fan, but Gore Verbinski’s attention to detail is stunning. If anyone could bring the strange and vibrant world of Bas-Lag to life, it’s Verbinski. Guillermo del Toro could also do justice bringing a Mieville yarn to the big screen, provided he didn’t try to make an ‘epic’ fantasy out of it. There’s a million short stories that would make great films. It doesn’t all have to be some sprawling series: Octavia Butler’s Speech Sounds, or any Ted Chiang story. I would love to see something from Jeff Vandermeer’s Ambergris make it to the big screen as well. Here’s to wishing.
1. Gust Front, et al.
2. L E Modesitt’s A Fall of Angels/Chaos Balance or White Order/Chaos Balance/Magic Engineer.
3. LE Modesitt’s Parafaith Wars/Ethos Effect – though….. the LDS church would not like it. not at all.
4. 2nd the Garrett PI motion made above.
5. Brust’s Vlad Taltos series.
The Rho Agenda 3 book series by Richard Phillips would make a fantastic TV series. Three main teen characters that grow, mature and change; alien technology, government conspiracies, murder and mayhem. It has it all.
Anything by Julie Czerneda – although my first choice would be the Species Imperative series.
Sharon Shinn’s Summer at Castle Auburn. Her Twelve Houses series would make an awesome mini- series.
I think Pierce’s Tricksters Choice/Queen would make an awesome mini series too – lots of juicy parts for a diverse cast.
I love Summers at Castle Auburn – I read it every time I’m sick. Twelve Houses is pretty good too.