Three SFF classics might be hitting a screen near you—Snow Crash, Ringworld, and Lazarus are all being developed for television! That’s right, next year you’ll be able to watch an adaptation of Neal Stephenson’s blinking neon warning about the dangers of capitalism…on Amazon Prime. If they go to series, the shows will join the streaming services already-impressive offerings, which include the stellar adaptations of The Man in the High Castle and The Tick, as well as the upcoming anthology series Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams.
Click through for more details on each show!
Ringworld will be a co-production with MGM, and was actually originally planned for development with SyFy alongside The Man in the High Castle before both projects came to Amazon. Larry Niven’s 1970’s book series follows Louis Gridley Wu, who finds that his 200th birthday in future Earth is bringing him nothing but ennui. He decides to join an expedition to “Ringworld”, and embarks on a journey that takes him beyond Known Space and into a strange new world.
Lazarus will be written by comics scribe Greg Rucka, who will also executive produce along with Michael Lark, who previously worked on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Angela Cheng Caplan. Lazarus is a near-future tale of the sixteen rival families who rule the world, and who each vie for ultimate power through battles and romantic entanglements. The Lazarus of the title in the name for the super soldiers most families employ.
Finally, Snow Crash will be a one-hour drama, co produced with Paramount TV and executive produced by Ant-Man’s Joe Cornish (Ant-Man) and Frank Marshall of the Kennedy Marshall Company. It will adapt Neal Stephenson classic, neo-quasi-cyberpunk novel which introduces us to pizza deliveryman/hacker Hiro Protagonist, his business partner YT, and their adventures in a future divided between life in a grim corprocracy and in the Metaverse, a virtual reality that is being threatened by a terrifying virus.
All of these stories are fascinating launching points for television adaptations – which ones are you most excited for?
[via io9!]
The Handmaid’s Tale is from HULU, not Amazon Prime.
Ringworld on the screen, one of my favorite SyFy of all time. I sure hope they do it justice.
@1: Thanks–the article’s been updated!
I would think a few season of Known Space background episodes would be required before Ringworld made any sense at all. There is certainly an abundance of material available for prequel episodes. Maybe they’ll get it done with long flashbacks. Maybe.
It was pretty much all UnKnown Space when Ringworld first came out. You don’t need the background.
Entertainingly only one of these “classics” have I heard of. But then much of modern soft sci-fi with a political axe to grind I don’t keep up with. Early Ursula Le Quin (up to the dispossessed) was my limit.
Snow Crash on TV, OMG yes. Obviously there are things that would need to be updated and changed but if they can somehow manage to bring that crazy, yet somehow familiar and plausible world to life, it could work.
Plus I’ve always wanted to hear Vitaly Chernobyl and the Meltdowns. I’m thinking get Royal Blood to do the music with even more distortion and fuzz. Or maybe re-team Josh Homme (Queens of the Stoneage) and Trent Reznor.
@6
Lazarus I can understand but you haven’t heard of Ringworld and/or Snow Crash? And I definitely wouldn’t call either one modern. Snow Crash I guess could be considered sort of kind of modern yet it already feels pretty dated when you read it today.
@5
World of Ptavvs (1966)
A Gift from Earth (1968)
Neutron Star (1968 collection)
Then Ringworld in 1970.
Then Protector (1973) which set up the rest of the Ringworld series.
One hour is far too short to do Snow Crash justice. One hour is enough to do the first chapter justice, maybe.
But I suppose if “they” could wedge Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell into 7 30-minute episodes (as opposed to a single 730-minute episode?) then maybe they can distill enough of Snow Crash’s goodness to make something passable. And then maybe we’ll get awesome treatments of Cryptonomicon and Reamde (which should, obviously, be set in the same universe).
Curious to see how they do the Pierson’s Puppeteers for Ringworld.
Ringworld. That book opened my eyes :)
How how how are they going to fit any meaningful amount of Snow Crash into an hour? Hell, the Deliverator/YT first meeting/car chase is already taking up forty-five minutes in my imagined adaptation!
Edit: dang, ninja’ed by @11 aethercowboy… got sucked into reading the first two chapters while writing this comment :)
@11. zombiejetpilot ah, a rishathra practitioner, are we?
;)
So much of Ringworld has been built upon by other SF and pop culture, that I wonder if it will have that John Carter and Ghost in the Shell feeling of being a bit stale compared to it’s progeny.
For those concerned about producers fitting snow crash into one hour: I read that blurb as meaning a one hour drama *series* is in development…usually means 6 or 8 episodes
Exactly. One hour episodes, not one hour for the whole book.
Aw yeah, Ringworld!
@@.-@ – Black_Dread: I read Ringworld as my first Niven book, and it was easily understood.
@13 – vinsentient: Hahaha, rishathra practicioner. As for Ringworld feeling stale, I doubt it, as long as they can capture Niven’s dialogues and characters correctly.
I came into Ringworld cold the first time I read it, and did just fine. Well, maybe not completely cold, as I had read a few Known Space stories here and there in the magazines.
This is great news, not just Ringworld, but Snow Crash, too. And best of all, I already have Amazon Prime, so I don’t need to spend any more money to get it!
+1 for Ringworld. Ironically, given the scope of the eponymous structure, I think this one can actually work quite well on the small screen since most of the important elements of the story are more high-concept and interpersonal. Definitely looking forward to actually seeing a Puppeteer.
And, hopefully a movie or miniseries delivered primarily via a streaming service can find some way to—
Discontinuity.
—capture the feel of the book. Maybe. ;-)
Really excited for Lazarus. I’ve been telling anyone that would listen that it needs to be on TV. Looks like I’m finally going to have a reason to put Snow Crash at the top of my to read pile. If these three shows only end up half as good as I hope I’ll be a happy man.
@CJ. Thanks for clarifying that. That makes far more sense.