What's a sci-fi or fantasy book or series that you want to see adapted as a movie/television series?
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.
Oh don't worry, The Culture is anything but near-future. Some concepts are so out there that they border surreal existentialist philosophy.
And some are set in the past! A large period of time is covered.
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.
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.
Still waiting for a Mistborn adaptation.
All of Cosmere. Do a Marvel with it.
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
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.
Abhorsen / Old Kingdom series.
I don't like reading but I breezed through the first three books. I think all the dark, necromancy type stuff would be generally well received. The gates of the afterlife also sound really cool to be put in a visual form.
Yeah, it's a really distinct take on necromancers. The visual look of everything, the rules of the world--all really well designed.
It'd be a great YA movie or series.
Yeah, I was looking for this one. It also always struck me as a good option for VR games once that is a bit more entrenched with the general public.
I think it would be good, but the whole 'mental' aspect of the magic would be impossible to convey well.
I'd absolutely love a faithful adaptation of SnowCrash by Neil Stephonson to a TV series, don't think a movie would be doable, unless they did a trilogy or something.
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
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.
"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.
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.
I always wonder why sci-fi gets mixed in with fantasy so much? It's always a pain to find decent movie/show or a book because these categories are treated as the same thing.
In my mind they are trivial to separate and I struggle to think of a single book or a film/show that even comes close to crossing over.
I enjoy quality writing in either genre, but as I get older I gravitate towards sci-fi because most fantasy seems to be written for younger audience with some great exceptions like Chronicles of Amber or Witcher.
And just to stay on topic, I nominate Asprin's Myth Adventures.
As Arthur C. Clarke famously said:
"You have reached the end of your free trial subscription to ArthurCClarkeQuotes.com""Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"A lot of Sci-Fi stuff is just fantasy with a different coat of paint. Any universe where the technology is just acting as a stand-in for magic qualifies. There are even many settings that blur the line between the two, like Warhammer 40K.
"Hard" Sci Fi is another beast entirely. That would be more like OG Star Trek or even something like The Twilight Zone. Something where the "magic" exists to explore thoughtful/philosophical "What if?" questions rather than simply as a system of magic to serve the fantasy.
I lol'd
Approach is different. If they treat magic as given without trying to understand it - fantasy. If they treat it as advanced tech - sci fi.
But why does it matter? In Dune characters are able use mindfulness to control their body so finely that they can manipulate molecules. So there's a "scientific explanation" but for all intents and purposes it's magic.
I don't understand the need to draw hard lines, the fantasy/sci Fi distinction has always just been a way to describe the setting moreso than the genre. Many fantasy novels read like a typical sci-fi and vice versa.
They're only trivial to separate if you think the only "real" sci-fi is hard sci-fi. Star Wars, Star Trek, and plenty of other beloved sci-fi series that blur the lines would get lost in the infighting.
I mean, the "war" between sci-fi and fantasy has been going on for decades, and it's always been ridiculous.
Not really. Like I said in a comment above, if they treat magic as advanced tech to be explored - sci fi. If it's treated as a given - fantasy.
Hard agree. There's sci-fi/fantasy settings and then there's sci-fi/fantasy writing. Star wars is a fantasy story that takes place in a sci-fi setting, if you're so inclined. But it's hard fantasy in my books.
If your book is focused on adventure and characters it's probably fantasy, if your book is focused on humanity or other grander themes it's probably sci-fi. Focusing on whether there is magic or elves or whatever is completely missing the point in my opinion.
The whole debate is childish. If you refuse to read a book because there is X race or X technology or whatever then you really need to change your priorities.
It's like when people say "I don't watch cartoons". Fuck off!!
Yep, when I'm looking for sci-fi I don't want elves or whatever. The only pointy ears belong to Mr Spock.
I feel like you mentioning Spock/elves just highlights how similar the two genres are. Sci-Fi (in theory) uses a future universe as a setting in which to explore characters/themes. Fantasy uses a fictional universe as a setting in which to explore characters/themes.
Preferring one to the other feels pedantic. Is Dune sci-fi or fantasy? Does it matter? I say no. Grumpy rant/
My problem with scifi and movies is that most of them are scary/horror. Not so much the case recently, but I remember walking the scifi section being mashed in with the horror section.
Lots of great horror sci fi, but definitely different genres.
Drangonlance could be as epic as The Lord of the Rings. Yes, really.
do game of thrones-fidelity live action for the main line, and some bitchrod love-death-and-robots-type cg for Legend of Huma and I'm in.
And a Lord Soth spinoff movie.
The Caves of Steel quadrilogy. Especially now that we're on the eve of AI mates, this one would be fitting for the times.
During the pandemic nadir I kept thinking about “viewing” and “seeing” and Zoom and Gladia.
Hyperion Cantos (Dan Simmons)
Any of the Xeelee series (Stephen Baxter)
Quantum Magician series (Derek Künsken)
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
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.
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.
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.
I read some Halo books that seemed like they'd make for great TV.
It's a shame that instead of any of that we got the garbage Paramount+ version.
Firefly looks good.
Project hail Mary is my favorite literature I've read in the last few years.
I would love to see it done justice with a movie done right.
You're in luck, Chris Miller and Phil Lord (LEGO movie) are working on an adaptation with Ryan Gosling set to star. Drew Goddard (The Martian) wrote the screenplay together with Andy Weir himself.
Oh fuck yes. I'm so goddamn hype to hear that Andy is involved
Thank
I'd love to see the Foundation and the Robot series of Asimov.
As single movie, Asimov's End of Eternity would be great.
Foundation is currently being adapted. They have changed quite a bit and it's a bit clumsy at times but Trantor, Cleon and Demerzel are very well done.
They wrapped up season 2 a few months ago.
Never knew they made a serie of it... Gotta watch it. Hitch Hickers Guide to the Galaxy was nice. (both the original as the remake)
More "The Expanse" would be awesome.
Nah, maybe one more season... but the last few books are not that good.
😲
What didn't you like about them?
It just gets... dumber? It's pretty subjective though. ::: spoiler Spoiler alert
Not a dumb part, but the main characters, being separated for a long time, don't get their own interesting storylines. It seems like authors got bored with characters and didn't know what to do with them. New characters are usually boring. Duarte's daughter, Kamal's son - they are just background... The only strong character in focus is Tanaka.
Ah ok, I see. Well I want to be clear, if someone is interested in reading, don't be deterred by this, make your own opinion. My wife and I loved every book. I really liked Amos' trajectory especially.
To touch on how I interpreted your points in the story (CONTAINS SPOILERS AND I DON'T KNOW HOW TO HIDE THEM):
-It pointed out the higher dimension beings couldn't actually pinpoint anything in our spacetime unless a huge amount of energy was released at the exact moment we crossed their dimension through the gates. -It seemed to me that everyone was scared of duarte and even more scared of modifying themselves with protomolecule after his "coma" where he killed someone instantly. -I think I remember the Laconians basically being arrogant and underestimating everyone.
I hear that you have a different opinion and maybe you got burnt out on the books, but I really hope the show finishes them up because I enjoyed them.
Warhammer 40k - Horus Heresy, live action, to the books. Then Eisenhorn eventually.
I'd absolutely love to see the whole heresy play out on the screen, but it would be hundreds or thousands of hours to show it all lol. I've been reading through it at a pretty good pace and after a year in only about halfway through lol.
Looking forward to seeing what Cavill does with 40k. I heard they only got the rights to 40k though, not 30k or fantasy, so it's possible someone else gets those rights.
I came here to say Chronicles of Amber. Damn, I thought I was the last fan left.
Not the last. Chronicles of Amber is awesome.
Hyperion cantos
Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastards series.
Demon Cycle series by Peter V. Brett. They had a film adaptation in the works a few years ago, but it fell through.
This is what I said but I'd want them to rework it some. Largely for far less rape.
The Expeditionary Force series! I loved the series and listened to the whole thing on audible! The great thing is, R.C. Bray could still voice one of the key characters who makes the whole series fun and addicting!
That's with Skippy the beer can right?
You know it! God damn, a TV show based on that series would be so awesome! Come on Amazon, get cracking!
Old mans war. Come on they take OAP and turn them into super fighting soldiers to fight a whole galaxy of different races. We literally could have Morgan Freeman and Arnold err the terminator smashing aliens.
Barrayar. Giant SciFi world, tons of cool characters, politics, action, romance and intrigue. All in all it probably would make for a pretty great series.
I suspect the big thing that's always held Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series back from being made into a movie or television show is Miles being disabled. Peter Dinklage could've played him, but he's too old at this point for young Miles. And there's probably not a lot of acting talent with dwarfism AND the manic charisma that playing a proper Miles needs.
I wonder if it'd work as an anime though? Lois McMaster Bujold reviews a lot of manga on Goodreads so I imagine she might at least entertain the idea if anyone ever approached her.
I think her Chalion series would work as an excellent series of shows, either live action or animated. Penric is, personality-wise, a lot like Miles, but easier to cast.
Maybe, or any animation really. Still live action would be the thing I would look forward to the most.
Joe Abercrombie's 'First Law.'
Best Served Cold is in the early stages of being turned into a film with Rebecca Ferguson currently signed to lead. Abercrombie is joint writing the script, I believe.
Took me a minute to remember the plot. I hope they can do it justice.
If you haven't seen it yet, check out 'Blue Eye Samurai' on Netflix. Not quite as cynical as Abercrombie, it has lots of swordplay, betrayals, and brave/stupid/honorable enemy.
Thanks for the tip! I'll check it out for sure.
Ann Leckie's Ancillary series would make a fantastic space epic, if handled properly.
Hyperion cantos. Ilium/Olympos. Lovecraft's dream cycle.
On one hand it's a risk that there would just be some terrible version that ruins all public things connected with the name, but on the other hand there could be something fantastic.
I guess sandman is already off the list. Haven't seen the results though.
Another big risk in adaptations is that, like Peter Jackson's Lott, it will make it very unlikely that someone else would come up and do it better after a big enough attempt.
I'll come clean and say I haven't read Sandman (yet) but I thought the show was really damn good. I've seen a lot of readers and critics praising it too. It's definitely worth cheking out.
When you do, don't judge the series by the first volume. DC told Gaiman they wanted a horror series. It was only after that they loosened the reins and let him take the story where he wanted it to go.
It does take some time to get going and a few stories are pretty dense. But it's also a good re-read, especially after reading some notes about the things you missed the first time around. There's a crazy amount of detail and characters.
The artwork is also legendary, of course.
Also my top choice. One of the best scifi series I've ever read, I enjoy reading very much but it's rare that a book gives me such an emotional response. Apart from this it's only been 'The Kite Runner'... not scifi, a very very VERY sad, moving book about a boy in Afghanistan.
Red Rising would be a phenomenal TV show.
Mistborn and Stormlight Archive from Sanderson would also be incredible.
A real adaptation of the Foundation Series. Not the abomination we are getting from Apple.
I didn't watch it until second season was out, I just didn't see how they could possibly do it justice... look at how Altered Carbon floundered, I expected (and was proven right) the same problems.
People need to attach to characters and plot. It's very hard to do that when the characters (or actor in the case of AC) change every chapter, and the plot arches over 10s of 1000s of years!
I have to say once I was able to let go of preconceptions based on the books and just enjoy it for what it is, I really enjoyed Foundation series.
I loved the books, and I loved season one on Apple TV. But then it lost me. I didn’t recognize any storyline anymore
season 1 I thought was S tier, really good. Season 2 was horrible
I love the books and would like to see a 1:1 adaptation so I have no interest in the Apple show, but I've been told the show is good if you pretend the books do not exist.
Joe Abercrombie -- First Law Trilogy
Stephen R Donaldson -- The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
I've often mused who they'd cast as Thomas. A younger Billy Bob Thornton would have worked.
On Joe Abercrombies website he says there's a best served cold show in the works.
The Quantum Thief trilogy. Mainly because part of it takes place in Oubliette, a city whose buildings, plazas and monuments are carried across the surface of Mars by giant robots. That ought to be quite a spectacle.
I have to reread that series. I loved it, but it's not easy to digest in one sitting.
I kinda think it'd do better as a high-concept anime, like the original Ghost in the Shell anime. I think some of the concepts/cultures would be easier to render in animated form than live action.
The Murderbot Diaries
Cosmere - Mistborn, Stomlight Archives, etc...
The Cosmere, or at least the Mistborn part thereof. While reading I often pictured movie scenes.
Just started it but Deathworlders would be very cool.
I haven't heard of that series. Who is the author?
Phillip R. Johnson aka HamboneHFY. Its a free novel.
The entire Sprawl trilogy. But if only one was to be made, I'd love to see Count Zero on the big screen as that one had the most action and visually appealing scenes to adapt.
But I also agree with Dragonriders of Pern! I loved those books when I was in high school.
I could see the new enjoyers of Pern flat out giving it up when the twist happened. Plus, I wouldn't trust the show's makers to not trash the politics of the holds. ::: spoiler spoiler Fantasy -> sci-fi is a pretty big change for a tv audience, I think. :::
I read the original two trilogies in the 80s so I've forgotten some bits, but what were the things that would be problematic today? I don't think I remember any details relating to the above. Lessa is always one of the first people I think of when someone says "so and so was the first strong woman in scifi" and it's a character that came 30+ years later.
I only just read the Amber books a couple of years ago myself; I don't know how I'd missed them. Very much unique stories in my experience, really unlike anything else I've ever read. I did enjoy them, but I think I respected what he did as a storyteller more than I enjoyed them, if that makes any sense.
So, when the books were originally published, it actually was pretty feminist/forward-thinking that Lessa got to lead Benden Weyr as an equal partner, and she's the one that saved Pern, and she's the heroine who gets songs sung about her. Sure, F'lar "saved" her by slaying Fax and bringing her to Benden, but she mind-manipulated him into it so it was really her using him as her tool, and then she went on to save the WORLD all on her own. And that was all pretty forward-thinking, when most SFF of the era had ladies being damsels in distress, or running around in chainmail bikinis.
The bits that haven't aged well today is how Anne McCaffrey writes romance. Basically, back when the books were written, there was this cultural trope that "good" women didn't want sex. Like, even if the main gal obviously wanted the romantic lead, you had to put up a show of resisting, of saying no, for some dramatic tension or something, because if you said yes too quickly you were a slutty slut just slutting around or the like. Good girls don't say yes, even to the people they want, too quickly. And it was "romantic" for the man to be pushy and not take no for an answer.
So McCaffrey has a lot of her lead men "ravishing" their partners in some way after the female resists or says no, which reads as really rapey with today's understanding of sex and consent. F'lar grabs and shakes Lessa physically at times (I don't recall if he outright hits her at all or not--he might, once or twice. I'd have to re-read). And Jaxom basically rapes Corana--she says no, but he's just so horned up by dragons and goes ahead anyway, and the whole scene seems to be some attempt by the author to "show" that Jaxom is as virile a lead as any other dragonman, even if Ruth is asexual. It reads as if she were afraid Ruth not being a bronze would make people doubt Jaxom's manhood or something, so she writes a scene to supposedly "prove" it.
And then the dragonlust thing during mating flights initially suggests between the lines the queen rider is going to have sex with the bronzerider whose dragon catches her queen, whether she wants to or not. "Aliens made us do it" is totally an old-school SFF trope especially any time a human or alien is telepathic, but again, in modern eyes it's super-rapey since consent and being able to say no is important.
McCaffrey rolled the rapey sort of thing back in later Pern books as social mores changed going into the 90s--but the books written in the 60s and 70s mostly didn't age great when it came to romance/sex. So there's inconsistencies between the Pern portrayed in the early Pern books, vs. the ones written before her death in the 2000s, with the early Pern having some of the "heros" doing kinda awful things, and the later ones sort of forgetting or erasing that.
I don't think it'd be going against the spirit of the books to update the mores here, though, for a modern audience. Anne McCaffrey was obviously trying to be forward-thinking with certain things, and it's honestly really hard to be ahead of your time when it comes to the social/cultural stuff, esp. in the pre-internet era.
Personally, if I were to update Pern for a modern audience, I'd keep some of the dragon mating stuff, like I'd purposefully keep some of the huge downsides of being telepathically bonded to a mind that is not fully human and which can cause a human to act in inhuman ways when the dragon gets over-emotional. Mostly so there can be this cultural tension between the Weyrs and the Holds so that the Oldtimer storylines work better. Dramatically-speaking, it'd be a great scene to watch a dragon get hurt--but it's the dragonman howling and clutching his eye or something, when he clearly isn't bleeding at all and is getting feedback from his dragon. (Or, dragonwoman...I think I'm recalling Brekke right there.) And there'd be a huge contrast between the weyrs who have fluid relationships with other riders that start and stop on a whim, and the Holds that are very traditional and still do arranged marriages and such.
Also, if the Weyrs are seen as hotbeds of greed and depravity, it'll be easier to take Pern through a story such as Dragonquest where the Holds and Halls start to rebel against the people who saved them from thread. The Oldtimer storylines from the books. Cultural friction, where the planet's heroes also act in ways that are strange and different to ordinary men and women, and a way to play with modern cultural concerns too.
But I'd do away with things like the Jaxom and Corana plotline because there's tons of other ways to make Jaxom an appealing lead character that don't involve the future Lord of Ruatha Hold abusing his power over a peasant girl. I don't think a modern audience would consider Jaxom weak or feminine just because Ruth is ace/nonbinary. In fact, him having a possibly nonbinary dragon might be a super-interesting story to follow. ::shrug::
Thanks that was a great analysis. Once you started in I did recall about half those details, but mostly I guess it needs to go on my reread pile since I've forgotten so much.
As a tangentially related side - one of the first emails I ever sent when I first started to use email in about 1996 was to Anne McCaffrey.
I was in the "everything you can imagine is on the internet" phase of just looking up random things, and somehow I found her email address.
I sent her a short note about how much I'd loved her books, and she sent me a brief, nice note back.
That email is long lost to the twists and turns of life - I didn't even understand the concept of keeping backups back then (Edit - that's not true, it would be more accurate to say I just never bothered) - but it was a cool little interaction that I always remember fondly. 🙂
I find, when I re-read, one thing that stays with me is how vibrant and beautiful her narration is. I think the books are still worth reading, but that modern audiences who've been participating in more modern discussions around storytelling would recoil at some of the bits we sort of just accepted as being "normal", as standards for what is "normal" have shifted. The spirit of the books always was forward-thinking, even if she got some stuff wrong.
When Anne McCaffrey did a signing in Chicago when she won her Grand Master award, I had a battered copy of Damia (from her Talents series), and she told me Afra Lyon was her own 2nd favorite character, behind Robinton.
I was on "The New Kitchen Table", which is where her online fandom ended up in the late 90s for a while, but her fandom was HUGE and had already been around for nigh 20 years with Weyrfest and all at Dragon*Con so aside from the one in-person comment (after I waited hours in a line that twined around the bookstore--the only time since that I've seen a bookstore event line that long was for a Harry Potter release), I was very much on the periphery of the fandom vs. those who'd been in it for 20 years already.
the wandering inn. absolutely no way a movie would do it justice though
I'm not familiar with LitRPG (assuming google didn't lead me wrong on this title).
Do you think it'd work as an actual game at all?
its sort of litrpg - less "numbers go up" than most. no idea if a game could be created from it. I dont think we have reached the right tech base to emulate a System yet
Becky chambers wayfinders
Locked tomb
Mark Lawrence's book of the ancestor.
Realm of the Elderlings.
Fitz, Althea, or the entire series as a whole with all the casts?
I feel like it'd be hard to adapt Robin Hobb's work, mostly because it'd be so easy to get the wrong tone. She has a very specific tone with her work, and I have no idea how one would work it for TV without making the entire series too light or too dark.
The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks!
We had a Shannara series! Despite the creative license taken with some characters / the lore (Manu Bennett is an awesome actor but Allanon, the tall rangey ancient wizard? Really?), I was gutted that it got cancelled.
I never heard of it!
Only got two seasons unfortunately. Maybe if they didn't do a Witcher and were more faithful to the lore it would've picked up all the OG fans: https://epguides.com/ShannaraChronicles/
Is something Shannara not on prime? I was excited to see it there, but the acting and world building was so poor I didn’t get through season 1.
World War Z. It needs to be adapted as an HBO limited series.
The movie made me so fucking mad when I saw it. Nothing like the book whatsoever grrrrr.
Will never forget seeing a promo for it starting "only one man can save the world". Literally the exact opposite of the book
Still blows my mind that it was written by Mel Brooks' son.
For a stranger kind of fantasy: Gormenghast books by Mervyn Peake
They already made a mini series.
edit: spelling error because I don't proofread :P
A Canticle for Lebowitz would be AMAZING!!
The Dresden Files 10000% and iron druid.
At least we have a tv show to watch right?
The polity series would be really cool. It's a great universe with lots of options for storytelling (which the diversity of the books demonstrates). Starting with prador moon and then following the war with the prador for a while would be amazing to see.
If I had another choice I'd pick the Children of Time series.
I feel like the Destroyermen series would fit a tv show format pretty well.
I just finished the Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee, and that would work great as a gangster/martial arts show.
I can't believe I had to scroll this far to see The Green Bone Saga mentioned. Get the choreographers from Into the Badlands to work on this show. Shit, with half decent make up Daniel Wu could probably play Kaul Hilo.
seveneves would make a banger series.
Technically a book series, warhammer 40k. It's being made too and I'm as excited as I'm afraid.
For the longest time, I wanted to see the Percy Jackson series adapted. (I'm not counting those movies!) Thankfully, it is and the first book/first season will be coming out in December. I hope they are able to expand to the entire universe that Riordan made. There are so many stories that would be great to see.
The uplift war by David Brin
Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series could be a fun series/world to adapt to a series, but also infuriating if they cut it short after two seasons.
Would love to see an Otherland adaptation into a series. There was a film being planned but haven’t heard anything in a while. Tad Williams is a fantastic author.
The Honor Harrington series. Would have to be 3d animated IMHO- One major component of the books is humans have received lifespan extension treatments which greatly slows down human aging. So you would need a ton of 18 to 25 year-old actors who can pull off playing 50 and 100-year-old characters.
Gateway by Fredrik pohl would be great to see reimagined.
The Hyperion books by Dan Simmons.
An Endymion trilogy with bits of Hyperion sprinkled in for flavour would be perfect
Wraeththu by Storm Constantine.
I'd kick in a few bucks to see that produced, just because once conservatives find out what it's about they'll be having shit hemorrhages from sea to shining sea.
Übel Blatt Manga as Anime
Series: Ell Donsaii Movie: project hail Mary
I thought I heard they were doing Project Hail Mary.
Edit: Yep, Ryan Gosling, directed by Lord & Miller.
Wow, that's awesome news!
The Scholomance series by Naomi Novak could be great.
Melanie Rawn: The Dragon Prince
I didn't think special effects could do it justice in the past, but I think they've definitely advanced far enough now.
Something by Alastair Reynolds. I think Eversion would work as a mini series. Otherwise Revelation Space would be sick, but perhaps as an animated show instead of live-action.
Pushing Ice might be cool. His other stuff is so hit or miss for me.
Jeff Long's The Descent:
In a cave in the Himalayas, a guide discovers a self-mutilated body with the warning "Satan exists".
In the Kalahari Desert, a nun unearths evidence of a proto-human species and a deity called Older-than-Old.
In Bosnia, something has been feeding upon the dead in a mass grave.
So begins mankind’s most shocking realization: that the underworld is a vast geological labyrinth populated by another race of beings. Some call them "devils" or "demons." But they are real. They are down there. And they are waiting for us to find them…
And it's sequel, Deeper:
A decade has passed since doomed explorers unveiled a nightmare of tunnels and rivers honeycombing the earth's depths. After millennia of suffering terror and predation, humanity's armies descended to destroy the ancient hordes. Deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, a doomed science expedition killed the subterraneans' fabled leader, and suddenly it seemed that evil was dead and all was right with the world again.
Now "Deeper" arrives to explode that complacency and plunge us back into the sunless abyss. Hell boils up through America's subways and basements to take its revenge and steal our children. Against the backdrop of a looming war with China, a crusade of volunteers races to find the vestiges of a lost race. But a lone explorer, the linguist Ali von Schade, learns that a far greater menace lies in the unexplored heart of the planet. The real Satan can't be killed, and he has been waiting since the beginning of time to gain his freedom. Man and his pitiless enemies are mere pawns in the greatest escape ever devised.
Tad Williams - The Dragonbone Chair
Trudi Canavan - The Black Magician Trilogy
A Darker Shade of Magic was slated for a movie, then a TV show, but I think it's basically been dropped. I really enjoyed that series and think it would be a pretty easy adaptation.
For me its simple: Metro 2033 as a movie. Do I want that real bad.
Bobiverse series would be relatively easy to adapt, Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky not do much, looking forward to Bradley Cooper's Hyperion adaptation
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. You'd need a massive budget to make the darwinists look convincing though so it'll probably never happen.
I know it had a brief go in the 90s, but I’d love to see a proper adaptation of Animorphs. Those books were wild, especially for something I remember starting in 3rd or 4th grade. I’d prefer animated personally, but I would tolerate another live action series. Tech has definitely improved enough to do the alien races justice in either format. Another pick would be Vampire Hunter D. It got a couple anime movies but I think a series could really do it some justice. It has such a fascinating world.
I think RA Salvatore's Forgotten Realms books would be awesome. We need a live action Drizzt!
Witcher without all the Netflix bullshit. Like, give it to someone who loves the IP, not someone who wants to push some agenda.
I've loved the book series for close to 20 years, it deserves a LOTR or GoT level movie/series.
I reckon you've been downvoted for the agenda comment, but you're absolutely right about it being bullshit. They fucking ruined it. Imo it's less about 'agenda' and more about the arrogance of the directing team.
Literally all they had to do was replicate the stories for the screen, but they couldn't resist putting 'their stamp on it'. What a missed open goal.
Don't really care, if people can't see that the director is pushing her agenda into the thing and kinda forgets about actually adapting the source material, it's their problem, not mine.
The Witcher books talk about a lot of issues that are relevant today (like racism, the price of being neutral, colonialism and many more), I personally also love the medieval politics bit (you can see that Sapkowski really loves history in those parts) and I think it deserves a proper adaptation, not this hacked together bullshit that just likes to push every modern agenda in there.
You (the general you) can dislike my opinion as much as you want, that's really up to you, but IMO one of those things lines pretending it works with societal issues, while the other one truly presents them as such.
I've never read the books, huge fan of the game series. I love reading, but what's put me off is Sapkowski's reputation for being an arsehole. I dunno, I've always been a bit resistant to consuming media if I don't like the creator.
Like, I can enjoy Michael Jackson songs, but if I discovered him today with all the baggage attached I might never have formed an attachment to his music. Think I'll see if I can find any Witcher books in the library and then if I don't enjoy, I've not wasted any money.
Well, he is an arsehole a bit, but not on the level I'd consider turning away from his books. I probably wouldn't want to be friends with him, but he's not such a big arsehole that I would lose sleep over supporting him financially. I truly recommend the books, though I've heard that the English translations leave a lot to be desired.
Ok I’ll bite. What’s Netflix’s agenda with the Witcher? Hmm?
Not Netflix's, the director's.
Edit: No need to "bite", if you want to argue with someone online, I'm afraid you'll have to find your fix somewhere else.
The Bible 😎😎😎