I didn’t read this series when I was a kid, but I finally got around to reading Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber.
Given it’s an older series, I wasn’t sure how much I’d like it (some of those older series age horribly), but it was actually REALLY good still, and the few minor things that’d aged too much wouldn’t be hard to update for a modern audience.
But the concept of Amber is fantastic, Corwin’s behavior and arc perfect, and I think a TV series could do it justice nowadays. Man, some CGI artists could do some beautiful work depicting a hellride through shadow.
I also would really, really love to see Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern adapted…but there’s a few parts that have aged pretty badly, so it’d need careful handling of things like Lessa and F’lar’s relationship and such. And maybe, you know, keep Jaxom the hell away from Corana.
But I think the whole idea of threadfall, and Impressing dragons, could be done beautifully on the screen. I think a run from Dragonflight to All The Weyrs of Pern (including the Harper Hall Trilogy) could be done. (Then leave the later books out, they don’t really add much, lol.)
The series would need a top-notch composer scoring it, though. I’d vote for Natalie Holt. She did wonderfully with Loki, and it’d be a nice touch having a woman score the series that’d have the Harper Hall Trilogy included in it.
I’ve long wanted Terry Pratchett’s Discworld to be made into a series. I used to think it wouldn’t be possible because of how much the humour relies on the narrator, but after seeing the (IMO successful) Netflix adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events, I think it is possible.
Good Omens showed how well his work can translate to the screen. Just focusing on Ankh Morpork and Vimes could be a great series.
My entry into Discworld was Guards! Guards! and I’d love to see a really good rendition of that. I know a lot of people loves Vimes, and I do too, but I also love Carrot and his werewolf girlfriend and I’d like to see Carrot being Carrot.
I think Susan’s story as the grand-daughter of Death could be great, too.
I know Neil Gaiman has a great deal on his plate shepherding his own works onto the screen, but I wish he magically had a bit of extra time and energy to do something (besides Good Omens) of Pratchett’s.
I think it’s possible, but that none of the attempts so far to do so have had the type of success I’d like to see.
Some of the BBC for-television adaptations have been ok. And some series haven’t.
I’m pretty sure there have been a few books adapted, nowhere near enough though! More, more please.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discworld_films_and_television_series
I’d like to do a series that takes place after the books where Vimes son goes to the Assasins academy and befriends a fellow student who doesnt realize he is a born wizard. I envision five seasons with each season taking up about 3 to 5 years in story. This allows the actors to age gracefully and gives time for quality writing instead of rushing to get a season out before someone gets pregnant or starts balding.
Each season would follow them through their late teens and 20s as they live and thrive in Anhk-Morport. First season would be them at the academy. Second would be them in the Watch. Third would have them part ways as young Sam advances in the Watch while the other starts working covertly for the Patrician.
It’d generally be villain of the week with some over-arching storylines, showing them solving the same mystery from different perspectives, while mostly having each others back even when its not obvious.
Eventually it would culminate in young Sam taking over the watch from Carrot, while his friend finally faces the music and joins UU.
I’d like to throw Carrot and Angua’s daughter in there too, but that might get in the way of one of the potential storylines. Also I don’t want it to be a Harry Potter clone.
Old Man’s War! Pretty green people fighting aliens! What’s not to like?
I’m honestly surprised none of Scalzi’s works have ended up movies or television series or anything.
But yeah, Old Man’s War would be awesome. It’s such a fun concept.
There was supposed to be a ‘Redshirts’ movie, but it never happened.
That seems common–books are optioned, then the project never gets out of the ground. Then the options are sold again for X number of years, and rinse and repeat.
May be urban legend, but the story is that ‘Stranger In A Strange Land,’ by Robert Heinlein has been optioned more than any other book, and earned the writer more from options than from book sales. It came out in 1961, and was last optioned by SyFy network in 2016. David Bowie tried to make it, and ended up taking elements of it in ‘The Man Who Fell To earth.’
Stranger in a Strange Land was popular enough and written late enough in Heinlein’s career that I’d be somewhat surprised if movie options truly earned him more than book sales (I mean, “stranger in a strange land” and “grok” both entered common parlance)–then again, it’s possible Heinlein got a shit contract for that book, or there were some heavy-hitters optioning the movie for tons of money even if it never got made. He was savvy enough too that he might have jacked up the cost of optioning the book a lot if it was getting a lot of Hollywood nibbles. So maybe it’s not urban legend.
I bet some sci-fi author out there knows if it’s true or not.
To be fair the first book is so much better than the rest that I think it should be a movie, not a show.
well it used to be wheel of time.
My condolences for your loss.
Still is for me. I want to see Jordan’s story and world, not this other one loosely based on his.
Me2 but I would call it more than loosely. Just enough to sorta spoil a better done production that had more fidelity.
Season 2 was a big step up from S1
I agree but mistakes from season 1 are still going to be problematic to the story, still wondering if they are just going to ignore that they made the idea of reincarnating as a different sex as something someone would expect to happen over being something no one would expect.
No one has mentioned The Culture?
There really wouldn’t be much to update because a good chunk of it is still modern. Not only that, but Banks really fucked with gender, ideology, and civil rights in a way that is still incredibly relevant in 2023.
I also really want someone to try to portray Fwi-Song from Consider Phlebas.
I came looking for The Culture. Those are such great stories.
THE CHAIR!
Use of Weapons was definitely one of the best of that style I’ve ever read.
I don’t think it would work well as a movie, but I think it would make for a great miniseries with converging chronologies.
Man, I’ve been stuck in this place where I really want to read those books (somehow I missed them), but I write SFF too and have some near-future thoughts that I don’t want to get tangled up with his stuff. (Part of the reason I went back and read the Chronicles of Amber was to keep my mind away from modern SFF while I work on projects.)
Some day I think I’ll just have to give in and read it and my own stuff is too close to his…oh well. I feel like I’d enjoy his work based on what everyone says about it.
I think that it is an influence worth risking.
The settings themselves vary wildly, and technically the books occur before, during, and after the present. The level of technology varies wildly.
The one thing in common is the examination of the content of the character of the “human” being, and how we are the same or different, adapt or don’t, expand or hide.
It’s truly masterful work that, yes has cool gizmos and concepts but worries more about how the gizmos make you feel.
PoG would make a good movie or TV show. Imagine Denis V putting Dune level effort into a movie adaptation of it. UoW would easily translate to TV and unlike most Culture novels, wouldn’t require that much CG budget.
Well, I have some good news for you!
Stephen Colbert to Produce ‘Chronicles of Amber’ TV Series Adaptation.
Stephen Colbert strikes me as someone who knows how to respect the source material.
Given his love for fannish things, he’s one of the few people I’d trust with the adaptation.
Huh–crossing my fingers then! It’ll be interesting to see if it actually gets into development.
I was thinking about casting Corwin, and after the finale of Loki, I kinda think Tom Hiddleston would do a great Corwin. I think he could portray Corwin’s arc of fighting for the throne at first just so his brother wouldn’t get it, to someone who doesn’t even want the throne wonderfully. He’d also do great as one of Corwin’s brothers.
But I’d also kinda like to see some newcomer knock it out of the park too.
Stephen Colbert, yay! Robert Kirkman, ugh.
Discworld. I would love to see the shenanigans of Samuel Vines and co, Mort, the witches, and so many other wonderful stories
I have good news and bad news, you can indeed watch Samuel Comes in a TV series, but it’s utter shit. They just took the names and fucking butchered the rest. It’s called “The Watch” if you really want to do this to yourself.
Somewhat related, the hogfather and going postal adaptations are great!
They did one season of The Watch. It’s not bad.
Damn.
Why did they have to change so much? Like, if you told me that trailer was for some sci-fi border world cop, that would make sense. Why the fuck…
Theres a ton of BBC adaptations, I believe. I know of at least Going Postal and Hogfather
I know about The Light Fantastic and The Color of Magic (did i mix those two up?) But there’s more?
It’s crazy whats out there that you want but you never thought to look.
The Kingkiller Chronicle
I’m in but only if Rothfuss finishes it first.
Agreed. And only if the movie or show is not produced by Netflix.
Good call.
Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series of books. The first book alone, where a guy who was about to unalive himself accidentally kills death instead as he walks in the door to take his soul, would make an awesome series. Each book takes on a different aspect of Immortality (Death, War, Time, Nature, etc.) and how they overcome Satan by not being used for ultimate evil.
That last sentence may seem religion-forward but the author, Piers Anthony, is not a religious writer by any means. Another series of his, Bio of a Space Tyrant, could be an ultra gritty R rated Sci-fi epic with the right director.
It’s unlikely Hollywood will ever touch Piers Anthony with a ten foot pole after some of the stuff he’s self-published in his later years. Like Marion Zimmer Bradley, the SFF world has decided it’s wisest to quietly forget him.
I need to look into this, I was heavily invested in the Adept and Xanth series, and finding book 2 of Bio of a Space Tyrant, physically, is near impossible. I had no idea he was wrapped in any kind of controversy, but to be fair I haven’t kept up with him in over a decade.
Firefly is a stand-alone novel of his with a character who was enthusiastic about her sexual abuse as a five year old. It is more fucked up than it sounds.
The Lies of Locke Lamora would make a fantastic show/movie if done well, and I feel like the vast majority of it is pretty screen-friendly. Basically just some minor cgi for the scorpion-hawk and Falselight and you’re good.
Still waiting for a Mistborn adaptation.
It won’t work as live action, and Sanderson is probably a little cagey after working on Amazon’s WoT. He would need to have absolute control over the writing.
Wax and Wayne in the style of Fullmetal Alchemist would be amazing though. Comedic but also serious.
Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe would be fantastic. The last thing I remember hearing was that he was working on a script for a Mistborn movie. I would’ve preferred a TV-show, but he feels it would work better as a movie, and I trust his judgement.
I both want and don’t want the stormlight archives books adapted to movies. On one hand, the books are amazing. On the other hand movie/tv adaptations usually go badly and it would require a lot of special effects that I think would come out badly
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The ministry for the future by Kim Stanley Robinson. And moreso after the Texan republicans are trying to keep climate science out of classrooms!
That was a surprisingly good book. Lots of ideas for public policy and guerilla climate strategy.
Totally! Makes you want to DO something!
that was the one with drone swarm attacks was it? feels very prophetic
I think it was 2312 where they had multiple asteroids set on distinct trajectories to all meet a target at the exact same moment to produce undetectable large impacts as well from memory
Hyperion Cantos (Dan Simmons)
Any of the Xeelee series (Stephen Baxter)
Quantum Magician series (Derek Künsken)
Hyperion would be cool but for gods sake they better stop after the second book.
Aww. I loved all three, though perhaps that opinion is formed in some way because I was heavily into learning about Buddhism at the time.
There’s 4 aren’t there? Fair enough, I liked his writing but a third of the way through the 4th book I realized I didn’t give a shit about the characters anymore.
The age dynamic between them is really fucking gross and pointless too.
That first book was amazing though, no doubt about it.
I liked his writing but a third of the way through the 4th book I realized I didn’t give a shit about the characters anymore.
xD fair point. I guess we all have different tolerances for different stuff. I was dating women in their 40s when I was in my 20s so maybe the age gap stuff flew over my head when I read them. I just finished a really enjoyable book by Stephen Baxter called ‘World Engines’, the main character also appears in other books by him and I really, really struggled with it purely based on the character.
He’s called Malenfant, and would you believe it, he’s bad-tempered! ‘Malenfant grunted:’, ‘Malenfant snorted’, Malenfant scowled, oh very subtle Stephen. He is capable of imagining such diverse creatures, thought patterns and genuine ‘hard sci’ concepts, then went with ‘grumpy old man’ for the protag. There’s enough grumpy old men running the place already, I’d prefer my fiction to be a respite from that!
Looking forward to his next book about a protaganist paralysed by indecision called Soppy McSimpleton.
Second the hyperion cantos. I’m surprised it’s not mentioned more
Dan Simmons is an incredible author, I really should check more of his books out. The only other ones I read (before Hyperion actually) were the Ilium / Olympos ones which were very enjoyable.
Quantum Magician is really cool. If it was made into a movie it would look like The Mechanic or the Equalizer
It would also heavily utilise the graphic from that meme where the woman is thinking deeply and all these equations appear around her head
I have often thought about dragonriders of pern as a movie. I am not sure thread really would show well. The books really emphasize people’s fear of thread. But I don’t see anything visual about it that would really inspire that fear on the screen. Even while reading, I often felt the fear level was unrealistic. And a lot of peoples motivations were based on that fear. Now a great writer might be able to adjust things to work aroundvthat, but it seems tough.
“Chasm City” by Alastair Reynolds. It’s a standalone novel in a much bigger Revelation Space series. But the plot of this book is quite independent of the series, you don’t need to know the lore to understand it. I think it is very well suited for a movie or a short series.
The setting is hard SciFi, very detailed, but not too crazy.
Reynolds is an excellent writer. Great worldbuilding.
