What book that hasn't been adapted into a TV show or movie do you think deserves an adaptation?
What book that hasn't been adapted into a TV show or movie do you think deserves an adaptation?
296 comments
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Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy deserves a good adaptation, rather than that trash movie and that too short BBC series.
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The BBC series was brilliant.
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Agreed, just too short.
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I would love that, I dont think the movie is terrible, its just that everything after Ford and Arthur get thrown out the airlock isnt as funny or absurd as the books. The main issue is the first 2ish books are unadaptable because there is no central conflict (or arleast the main cast dosent care or know there was supposed to be one).
Zaphod is the only person with motivation to do anything other than to continue existing, and he is unaware (or dosen't care) he is being hunted until they meet those suprisingly progessive law enforcment officers on Magrathea and when he visits the guides publishing offices.
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Zaphod's 2 heads were the biggest let down of the movie.
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- Hyperion Cantos.
- Neuromancer.
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For being what I would consider one of the founding fathers of cyberpunk, I'm surprised there hasn't been a Neuromancer film yet. Especially when so many of the tropes we know from the cyberpunk genre originated from Neuromancer, to begin with.
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The question is do they stick with the existing Johnny Mnemonic movie as the prequel story, recap it in an intro scene, or ignore it completely?
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Neuromancer has been optioned before but no one did anything with it. I think it was in play again but recently but haven't heard much lately.
Hyperion Cantos would be great.
Gormanghast might also be cool.
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https://www.theverge.com/24086056/apple-tv-plus-neuromancer-streaming-series-william-gibson
Neuromancer Might be getting made.
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Watch Inception and think of Neuromancer and you will find that its probably the best closest match for the way the story is told. So many things made me realize there are so many little "I loved that story but I cant make that movie so I will just give you clues". The throwing star is the top.
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I think neuromancer is being done? Maybe it's something else tho I forget
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Always felt like that Eragon series could have been good. Too bad they never made a movie for it. Never once. I'm sure it would have been solid if they had. But they didn't.
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I think they are making an Eragon adaptation (for the first time, of course). I think Disney+ is making a series, similar to them restarting Percy Jackson.
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Oh boy. Disney adaptation track record is very hit or miss. I hope they don't mess this one up like the last adaptation.
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I feel the same way about Avatar: The Last Airbender. It would have been such an amazing movie, or perhaps even a series. But alas, they've never attempted it once.
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Ah, it appears you have forgotten or have simply Mandela'd in from a different timeline. Allow me to refresh your memory for you in the kindest way possible:
Eragon was a 2006 dance film featuring Jeremy Irons and Ed Speeler on a ship. Some fighting is involved. And I dunno, a dragon maybe.
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Every single thing Brandon Sanderson ever wrote
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The graphic audiobooks are pretty great already. Would love some visuals to go with it. Would need a big budget though..
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Similarly, I'm reading through the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks and I think it would be a great candidate for an adaptation. It's a really good story and the magic is all based on the colour of light which I think would make the special effects pretty easy to create and should also look nice.
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The Iliad. Not a "take" or an "adaptation" or a "re-imagining". Just play it straight as it is, cut out some of the monologues and replace the "throwing spears at each other" parts with swordfights.
I want to see the gods descend from Olympus to fight on the battlefield.
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Old Man's War by John Scalzi was made for this, I swear. His latest books also read a lot like movie scripts are contained therein.
Charles Stross' Laundry series has a ton of potential too, if less Chtullu is required, I wouldn't mind a Merchant Princes series either.
I heard rumours about Forever War being optioned at some point, but nothing came of it.
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I vote for laundry series too
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I had thought that some Hollywood people were talking to Scalzi about Old man’s war, but nothing ever came of it. Sad.
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The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and some guy who's name is harder to remember.
An inventor uploads a schematic to the Internet for a cheap, easy-to-assemble device that lets anyone (or almost anyone) "step" into parallel earths. A nearly infinite stretch of untamed wilderness sees people abandoning the polluted, crowded, government-run Old Earth in search of new opportunities. The catch: No iron or iron alloys can "step" across, sending these new earths back to the bronze age.
Also: Zeppelins that are also reincarnated Buddhists that are also the first true machine intelligence; robot cats; libertarian communes; sapient nonhuman primates; sapient nonhuman non-primates; radioactive ziggurats; space programs to parallel moons; and grumpy survival chicks.
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Stephen Baxter
The premise was better than the execution, but I've definitely been curious if you could use the world stepping premise in an RPG in a compelling way.
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Ringworld :)
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Announced over 3 years ago (2021) in this article that mentions Amazon Prime optioned it in 2017: Tech Advisor article about “Ringworld” on Amazon Prime
So…
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So, it's still not here :P
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Dragonriders of Pern, by Anne McCaffrey. Currently doing my umpteenth read-through completely accidentally. I wanted to read one of the books then got sucked in. I'm nine books in and read several of them in one sitting, despite having read them all plenty of times.
And while I'm on the subject, I don't think I've ever seen anyone taking about Pern online but I see mentions of Isaac Asimov every few weeks. They're of a similar age and Pern is equally good as Isaac's work, if not better. Grumble grumble...
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I'm a lifelong pern fan, but... the immense fear of thread won't come across well on the screen in my opinion. And thread fighting will be hard to make such that it has the same magnitude as it can in your imagination. All in all, thread is over played. It can't be such a harrowing fight in the skies, and still be so devastating if one got through unnoticed. Cause if the fight in the skies was so hard, more would get by, and some would get missed over the years. And that is played off as the end of the world. In your imagination, that can work, but on screen, not so much. That means they would need to make some fundamental change to film it.
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Yup. Or it would lend itself to a 3-4 season show. The CGI time would seem prohibitive thanks to the dragons, Thread, and sci-fi aspects of the story.
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Sanderson's Mistborn series could make some good film or TV. Honestly they could probably even pull off a whole cosmere MC universesque type thing... Although I think deals keep falling through because the author wants full creative control.
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Although I think deals keep falling through because the author wants full creative control.
I mean looking at the ruins of the Game of Thrones franchise that David Benioff and D. B. Weiss left behind, maybe that's not such a bad idea.
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Stormlight has to be an anime. Especially for the "magical girl Kaladin" memes
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Pretty sure that's a result of him seeing how Wheel of Time has been going.
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Or any adaptation where they DON'T have creative control.
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The original TSR Dragonlance D&D series from the '80s by Weis and Hickman.
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At least we finally seem to be beyond people wondering why Drizzt isn't around.
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This is what I was looking for. Sure, we have a crappy animated movie, but all I have ever wanted was to see the Heroes of the Lance in real life.
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Hell yes!
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I would have loved Name of the Wind, but that lazy fuck Rothfuss is going the way of George Reorge Reorge Martin: he's been promising book 3 for a decade and can't finish it.
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He wrote himself into a corner. Somehow he needs to wrap up a spiralling plot in one book...
It's never gonna happen.
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The Dark Tower.
Whatever that monstrosity they released a few years ago was doesn't count.
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Just the first book
Make it like Blood Meridian level creepy and violent
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I would love a true to the book series of World War Z. I’m not even sure anyone involved with that movie read the book. It should be a 3 season HBO series with an episode for each persons vignette. Intros and outros of each episode has the recurring reporter meeting the person and starting his recording as they launch into their narrative of what happened. If you need more episodes, just write additional vignettes. Season 1 is the events that lead up to the outbreak, season 2 is the war itself, season 3 is the aftermath. I’m pretty sure this is what Max Brooks was writing towards. It could be amazing.
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I've been saying this for years. It's ideal for a series. Was terribly disappointed with that zombie movie that borrowed the name.
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mass effect could be a huge tv and movie franchise but the designs of the aliens would make the effects budgets prohibitively expensive. damn would I love it though.
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cries in Halo
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Old Man's War
Tom Godwin's The Survivors, it's pretty short so they could do their thing where they always mess with the story and it wouldn't have much effect.
Asimov's Robots stories, particularly those with Powell and Donovan, US Robots, etc could be the basis for a cool series, ideally retro-futuristic...
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Surely you've seen the 100% faithful adaption, "Will Smith Shoots Stuff"?
And apparently Amazon made an adaptation of Foundation, not that I've watched it yet. Not sure if I even want to, part of the charm is how long ago it was written and how crazy some parts of it are
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I watched the first couple of episodes of Amazon's foundation... Then I abandoned it
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A well-done Brothers Karamazov could put your Downton Abbeys and Bridgertons to shame.
Maybe call it "Three Brothers..."
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I don't mind it if it's a labour of misguided love, like Stephen King's many many many hit-or-miss film adaptations pre-2020.
I do mind being told repeatedly that I should like it by viral media, it being overhyped to the point of ridiculousness, it being given the full red carpet treatment by one of the two main studios, and then when I actually watch it it's been changed to suit some audience mass appeal (e.g. make the clown scarier / less scary / not like that) .
I guess what I'm saying is, I like it when books are adapted into films where the director can do whatever the hell they want, for good or for worse, without the studio whipping them to appeal to the mass audience, many who weren't even fans until they were told to be 5 minutes ago.
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You ask as if that was a good thing. Like an honor for a book. But I way too often find myself defending books with "It's nothing like the movie. Don't juge it by the awful movie."
Especially fantasy adaptions are regularly awful and damaging for the books.
Examples: The Dark Tower, Eragon, Percy Jackson, The Giver, Inkheart.
Netflix's Persuasion, The Beach to name a couple of non fantasy as well.So I'd rather they leave the books alone and make original stories into movies.
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After the Dark Tower movie came out, I heard a whole bunch of people on the internet saying that the movie was awful and the books are so much better. I didn’t see the movie, but if the books are so well-liked I thought I’d give them a try.
I tried my best, I really did. But I just couldn’t finish the first book. It was just way too surreal and abstract for me.
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You are not alone in this. The first book is awful. It made me doubt my english reading comprehension. Everybody hates it.
It's unfortunate, that such a great series starts off with the worst book, not only of the series, but imo of all of Kings books.
Somehow the real story starts (for me) with the second book. The first is more of a world introduction, a world building tool. And otherwise quite irrelevant.I urge you, to give the second book (The drawing of the three) a chance. You won't regret it, because if you disregard the first book, the series is fantastic.
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Try reading it alongside the podcast the KingSlingers. The podcast is set up where they read a couple chapters at a time, then spend a 2 hours talking about those chapters. One person read the series multiple times and the other is just reading it for the first time. I'm halfway through the series, and now I want them to break down and discuss every book I read.
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You said it better than i ever could. Starting at Jurassic Park, and going all the way to The Wheel of Time, just keep Hollywood away from my literature!
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Infinite Jest. Just for the sheer impossibility of any attempt to do so :-)
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Almost anything from Neal Stephenson.
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Seveneves is coming as a series. Not sure if they could pull off Baroque, but I'm game. I'd love a Snow Crash film.
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Typing that comment made me do my semi-annual check for adaptations, and I just saw that announcement came out a couple of weeks ago. Hope it comes along better than the movie that got stuck in development hell.
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Oh shit. The Baroque Cycle getting the Game of Thrones treatment... minus the executive meddling.
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You wouldn't even have to obsess over the history, alchemy, etc., just don't fuck it up. People get too wrapped around an axle thinking every single infodump has to be there. Stephenson's got issues (coughendingscough), but the stories are informed by the same research as the infodumps, and they'll hold up well.
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Seconded.
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Seveneves would be the bomb (eta : they could even do the last part as a separate animated short)
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Yeah, it certainly doesn't hold up as well as the "origin" story, but silly though it was I liked the last part of Seveneves. It could definitely work as an animation.
FALL could as well, or at least kind of a Tron-like thing.
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Seveneves is functionally two separate books jammed together. I hope they do the serious TV show on just the first book.
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First part as a movie, second part as a tabletop roleplaying setting
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Any Batman story that focuses more on how he's mainly a detective and only breaks out the concussion gloves if he's attacked or there's literally no other way to resolve the situation at hand?
Society thinks he's The Punisher in a funny hat because of those damned nolanverse films.
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He was supposed to do some detective work in The Batman movie, right? It's been awhile since I've seen it, though, so I don't remember how much they fulfilled that promise.
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They did, and though it was a short segment, it was good
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I mean theoretically, but it was crap like everything else in that film. He figured nothing out on his own
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The Red Rising series would be an awesome TV show. Each of the 6 (so far) books would be excellent as long seasons.
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Yes and I want the people who did The Expanse to make it.
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Who (actors) do you think would be Darrow or Goblin?
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Benedict Cumberbatch and Judge Reinhold
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I kinda fell off after book 3.
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Book 4 is a bit slow but it picks up a lot after that.
That said don't feel obligated to read something that Doesn't interest you of course
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4 is the weakest of the series imo, it does pick back up
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Hyperion series. That thing's gonna be hard to adapt though.
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It'd probably make a better TV series with a Star Trek The Next Generation feel to it
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One of my favorite books is called Inherit the Stars.
Mankind is starting to reach out into the solar system, but finds a man on the moon entombed in a space suit, and he's been dead for 50,000 years.
It'd make a pretty good movie, 2 hours tops.
It does one of my favorite things, by strongly blending two genres: mystery, and sci-fi. A sci-fi show, movie, or book that's purely sci-fi is rarely good. Same goes for fantasy. Season 1 of Game of Thrones is good because it's primarily a mystery/drama story in a fantasy setting. A New Hope is great because it's a western, coming-of-age story in a sci-fi setting. Rebel Moon is garbage (for many reasons) because it's pure sci-fi schlock with no nuance.
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Any Brandon Sanderson books of course.
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Blood Meridian (decades of false starts not withstanding).
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One of my faves. I've never understood why people say it's impossible to adapt.
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Because a huge chunk of the story is wandering the gorgeous, but empty desert with a bunch of psycho killers. Occasionally that group commits grisly large scale harvesting of passable scalps to sell off to bigger towns with a scalp trade. Sometimes one of them, usually the judge, will commit a little extra horrific crime against humanity as a treat for themselves. The "good guy" isn't exactly someone to root for either. It's a story with muddy, dark morals and an ending that'll bum out a lot of folks. No happy days here.
I loved the story and would watch a well done movie about it. I highly doubt that'll happen. To do it right is to include almost all of the horror of what these people are, which would be a lot of money on effects that will anger a ton of people due to what they portray. It's not that it's unadaptable. It's that it would be a slow burn movie with brief, hyper violent hollowing out of small villages including baby smashing. It's slow, mean, and ends in a way that'll have you stare off into space feeling a little bad about the nature of humanity. Not a very profitable idea for a movie.
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They need to do a good Dark Tower series. Make it a mini-series or a series of films.
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House of leaves.
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MZD wrote some spec screenplays for a television series and sells them for $11.
https://www.markzdanielewski.com/digital-downloads/p/markzdanielewskihouseofleavesscripts
Haven’t read them yet but intend to.
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Any advice on how to actually get through this book? I love it but it's very challenging.
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Take as long as you feel like, and try not to focus on "getting through" the book. On my first read, I was lucky enough to feel like I couldn't put it down. I tried a second time years later and didn't get very far, I think because I was focused on finishing it.
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Hard to imagine it being done well, given not only the plot(s) but the...unique narrative structure.
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Not a book, but a true story from WW2:
5 May 1945 Troops of the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps led by Lieut. John C. "Jack" Lee, Jr., a number of Wehrmacht soldiers led by Major Josef "Sepp" Gangl, SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt-Siegfried Schrader, and recently freed French prisoners of war defended Castle Itter against an attacking force from the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division until relief from the American 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th Division of XXI Corps arrived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Castle_Itter?wprov=sfla1
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dude i read this comment like three times and still don't know what the fuck is going on. can you do it with fewer meaningless names and numbers
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The Lies of Locke Lamora is just begging for an Ocean's Eleven-type treatment.
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Lot of good ones in here. Only idea I can think of is The Black Company. Not specifically to follow Croakers story either. Could be about battles and drama of the past from the annals.
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Goblin and One-Eye would be fucking awesome as the main characters, or Raven. Hell even a story about how the Silver Spike came to be would be a good movie.
No fuck that Croaker is the bad ass mofo and his story should be the first movie. Make it an unknown actor who can be humble but also a bad mofo who everyone is like JFC dude!
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If you did a TV series it could be like True Detective. Each season being a different timeframe. The Taken being the few reoccurring characters. But even then a character like Shifter could be portrayed by multiple actors.
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Gets my vote.
Funny enough, came to say the Garrett P.I. series.
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Keep meaning to get around to reading those.
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Something from Iain M. Banks The Culture. The best books, like Excession would probably be hard to adapt due to the protagonists being mostly ships, but others like Consider Phlebas or The Player of Games could probably make great films or miniseries (and Use of Weapons would probably be great as the later).
Probably excessively expensive in the CGI department if done well, but one can dream.
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First Law series by Joe Abercrombie
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Hell. Yes.
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I'm as hard as a certain wizard gets thinking about murdering people who oppose him
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Dragonlance
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Seconded, but I'm not sure I would go past the twins trilogy
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Based on Honor Among Thieves there simply isn't enough of an audience. Dragonlance does a better job of hiding the dice but I don't think high fantasy can get away with not having boobs and murder everywhere.
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Little brother by cory Doctorow Best book ive read. Characters have real feelings and flaws. And the book got me deep into linux and foss
Would highly recommend
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Doctorow releases his books under a CC license as well, so you can download a copy here.
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I want to see Down and Out
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A good version of “Riverworld” by Philip Jose Farmer would be awesome. “Borne” or “The Strange Bird” by Jeff Vandermeer. “Dance, Dance, Dance” by Murakmi. The Maddaddam Trilogy by Atwood.
As a deep cut, “The Woman in the Dunes” by Kobo Abe. Totally surreal.
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The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is my favourite book and would be highly relevant today given its political themes about colonialism, and AI.
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Assassin's trilogy by Robin Hobb.
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Agreed, fantastic story but I'll be damned if I wasn't moved to tears.
Hey, Robin! I know you have to vent sometimes into your works, but give the poor guy a break, won't you?
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Lord of Light, high sci Fi mashed with epic Indian mythology and eastern philosophy.
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Snow Crash.
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Call me crazy, but I want a 14 hour epic of The Silmarillion...one movie, not a trilogy plz.
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14 hours is way way way too long of a movie. Multiple movies or a series makes much more sense.
But yeah, that would be really cool.
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Oh absolutely, no one will sit through an actual movie that long. A series of some would be the way to go for sure.
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silmarillion is tv series material. every episode a mythic story, with some two-parters.
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As an aside I found it surprisingly readable and I'm not a huge LotR fan. Maybe I just like short story anthologies.
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Would love to see (and probably be disappointed by) a Revelation Space adaptation.
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I think diamond dogs would make a really interesting animation short or maybe full-length movie.
But any of the books from the main series would require the kind of love and effort that the Expanse got early on.
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Although I love the books, I'd never want to see them as a film. I expect it would be so gory it would take away from the story. Kind of how Game of Thrones was just so focused on boobs that it was honestly embarrassing to watch sometimes.
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Dresden files not popular among these parts or how come nobody's mentioned it yet?
It has technically already been adapted, but it was a stupid procedural cop show with a twist rather than what it should be. If you want a more formulaic thing, just copy Amazon's Reacher.
Plus, since it's an urban fantasy, it should be cheaper to make than most other fantasy/sci-fi shows, I think.
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The blue(and green) beetle LIVES!
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The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny
It needs to be a show, not movies. One book per season would allow enough detail to be included.
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Yes! I came here to see if anyone had mentioned this. My favorite fantasy series when I was a teenager. I also wouldn't mind his Incarnations of Immortality series turned into a show either, but Amber would work better due to the humor and settings
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These books changed how I read books and understood books. They were a gateway into other worlds I never knew could exist.
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Neat trick, that.
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I so want a Hercules/Xena type show except it's Conan. The world needs more Conan in all its glory steeped in fantasy and Lovecraftian lore.
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Now I'm picturing Conan O'Brien portraying Conan The Barbarian, and I don't like it.....
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Where's is waldo
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Not a TV show, but this ongoing series of shorts as if a video game are fantastic.. here's the first, see the rest on their reels/shorts
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Dan Simmons, Hyperion... Or Carrion Comfort.
I'd love to see some modern tries at Dashiel Hammet's work too.
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The bone comic book series by Jeff Smith completely deserves a movie or show or something. The series is like Tolkien + Disney +metaphysics and is aimed at a younger audience but has enough deep ideas to keep adults actively interested. It has a rich history of the 90s-00s comic book era as well as some history in acholastic book fairs as well as some early internet meme culture contribution. It was solely owned by one dude who eventually got some help from someone who added color to the series that really made it a next level up. If anyone decides to read it from my comment here, check out the omnibus version and if you can find a 20th anniversary version, that has some nice history and behind the scenes type stuff included. There was a Netflix series that was in the works for like a year or so until Netflix decided to cancel it, so it already has some kind of an interest that I hope keeps building up and eventually makes someone do something about this forgotten gem. Here's a explainer video about bone Bone comic series explainer video
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I thought the telltale video game adaptation was interesting!
But yeah, a full epic series would be something else
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Yeah it's odd how all these companies are just letting it slip through the cracks like this
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Peter Hamilton's nights dawn trilogy, and his commonwealth saga. Both really good space opera, with varied characters and plot lines.
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After how the Withcher was butchered, I'd like to see less adaptations.
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Yeah, I don't trust them not to ruin everything. Disney fucked up Star Wars for fucks sake. If there was ever a sure thing it was that and they somehow managed to make half their shows terrible.
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Remove most of the muscle porn from it, which wouldn't be hard since the main characters are all essentially superheroes, and the entirety of The Deathworlders, the canon parts of Salvage, The Xiu Chang Saga, and Humans Dont Make Good Pets.
The Jenkinsverse has a ton of potential there.
ETA: also a documentary narrated by David Attenborough, based on Alice in Sunderland.
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There is no Deathworlders after War On Two Worlds.
Outside that I agree.
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Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
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This was my first thought, one of my favorite series.
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Honestly, no one could do it justice. But I agree it would deserve a great adaptation
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There's so much going on, a TV show would have to be 10 seasons. Love the combo of socio-political struggles and hard sci fi technology though.
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I guess its kinda fringe but the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. Either the parents or little admiral would be pretty good if she is involved in the writing. Or, one of her other books. Great writer.
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Curse of Chalion is my favorite fantasy novel, I'd love to see any of her stuff adapted well. I've read everything she's ever published.
(Apparently Warrior's Apprentice was adapted into a French comic book)
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The Devil in the White City - would love to see the Chicago Worlds Fair brought to life in all it's splendor, and to be directly contrasted with the horror that was HH Holmes murder castle. The book brought that history to life so vividly, and I feel like mini series with great casting would do incredibly well.
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - mysteries and whodunnits are popular again (thank god) and this one has such an interesting premise. When I first read it I was convinced it would be a great video game. But a movie would also be a hit.
Something Wicked this way Comes - not sure if this has ever been adapted, but I've never seen it. The book is so atmospheric and has such a rich cast of characters. We haven't had a movie that really celebrates the moodiness of autumn in a while.
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There was a 1983 adaptation of Something Wicked that Bradbury was involved with and liked. Honestly it didn't do much for me though.
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Dresden files would be a fantastic HBO style series. They tried a TV adaption in the past but it was trash
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I have so much of this fancasted in my head
Clancy Brown as Morgan
Ray Wise as Nicodemus
Mia Goth as Aurora
Naveen Andrews as The Gatekeeper
Young Ray Wise as Marcone (just let me have this lmao)
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The Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian - yes, I know there's been a movie (Master & Commander with Russel Crowe and Paul Bettany) but the series is much richer and deeper than any single movie could be.
Also, Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings series. Concentrate on the Fitz storyline, maybe give the Liveship series a miss.
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Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle. I was expecting a trashy slasher with some queer elements and an autistic protagonist, what I got was a good supernatural thriller with some queer elements and a very believable autistic protagonist - I would genuinely recommend it.
The writing is the weakest part, it feels very kind of pedestrian, like "here's some words explaining what's happening" rather than being artistic or beautiful or evocative but it's good enough for the story and characters to come through, and they're great. So remove the writing quality from the equation and it could be absolutely excellent
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Love is real
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Elf Quest
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The Sword of Truth series. My favorite series of all time. It had an attempt at a show, but I refuse to accept it. They took a story that's 10x more adult than Game of Thrones and made a CW show that had events from the 5th book in episode one.
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No hate, but you’re the first person I’ve heard say it was their favourite. I enjoyed the first few books, but dude went off the deep end in later books. Became damn near unreadable for me. And I think majority of readers have similar views. I doubt any attempt would survive the hate and t would receive.
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That's fair, I get it's not for everyone but I truly did enjoy it and the little book club my with my friends liked it. Granted I like those types of worlds. Mistborn, Wheel of Time, etc. But book 5 was by far my favorite entry, I've reread it by itself. I'm honestly curious what you started to dislike about them, just to understand that take on em, if you're willing to take the time.
No offense taken if it's not for you, or hell even most people, but man I would love to see it done justice in cinema, I just see so much potential there.
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I bought it because I needed something to read on a flight, the cover looked cool for Black Sun Rising, and it blew me away.
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Haroun and the Sea of Stories
All the Muderbot series
Old Man’s War series
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Ohhh hell yeah I would watch the heck out of a Murderbot TV series!
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All the Muderbot series
Best RoboCop sequels tbh
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I'd like to see Ian McDonald's River of Gods or The Dervish House made into a 10ep series. They're both fantastic cyberpunk books and would make excellent TV.
Also, absolute long shot here but I'd love to see Iain Banks' The Culture series adapted for premium streaming with a Foundation series budget.
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Nobody wants to mention the Malazan Empire series? That's probably fair since chances are good someone would screw it up royally.
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I already get confused in the malazan series due to lack of exposition or background. No way in hell would that work as a movie or TV show.
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I've been listening to Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds thanks to a recommendation I saw here on Lemmy. This is one that I'd like to see a movie or series adaptation.
The Bobiverse would be a fun series I think as well.
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I mentioned Daemon and FreedomTM by Daniel Suarez in another thread recently. I've often thought they'd make good Techno Thrillers. They got optioned once but I think it expired.
I think part of the problem is that the second book is a conclusion to the first. One falls flat without the other. So I think they'd be best suited to a single mini-series of 6 or 8 hour long episodes. And studios want franchises.
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His more recent series starting with Delta V would be excellent too. Even Kill Decision would make a great techno-thriller series.
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The Gap Cycle series
LOL IDK how you would do the first book or even touch on that part of the books (because it makes them very very hard to suggest let alone reread) but once you got to the singularity bomb at the science space station deep in a dense asteroid field.... I wanna see that part. The emotions that the story creates in the characters is pretty primal and believable. Its an interesting story how each of the main characters goes through the same level of violation but in different ways
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Snowcrash
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How would you do the Y.T. and Raven in stuff?
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Children of time, but as a scifi miniseries.
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The Girl from Earths End By Tara Dairman
It's like Harry Potter if you replace magic with botany, and JK Rowling's shittiest values with the opposite of that.
Also fair warning it will make you cry
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I would love a faithful adaptation of Worm, but I don't think it could ever do the series justice.
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The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik.
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There already has been a movie (L.A. Confidential), which is one of my favourite movies of all time. But to get it on the screen required a lot of rewriting to fit a complex weave of plots that intersect and takes 10 years to resolve. It was brilliantly done for what it was, but it left a LOT on the floor.
I would love love love to see an HBO or similar series that is as true to the novel by James Ellroy as it could possibly be.
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Otherland.
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Magic Kingdom of Landover
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The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee.
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Not a book exactly, but East of West would make for some great narrative and world building.
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For a movie: Sailing to Byzantium
For a tv series: Bones of the Earth or Replay
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I believe Foundation was made into a series already, by Amazon
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“Foundation” is on Apple TV+ and the second season is or was about to drop!
According to those that read the book(s) it’s either utter trash or a decent adaptation of a rather nebulous story.
I’ve not read the books. The series is very well done! It’s a compelling story with good characters, and Lee Pace is in top form (both acting and nude)!
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Michael Morecocks Eternal Champion saga. Great candidate for a Netflix animation
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Just don't say Elric since we know how they screwed us over on his ripoff.
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Lord Valentine’s Castle series by Robert Silverberg
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Man, I read those books ages ago. Tbh can't remember much. Did that series get finished?
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The first book was a self contained story, could make a movie, or mini-series if you must. There are a series of sequels and prequels that could do the same.
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There's a book called Robopocalypse where an AI gains sentience and then takes control of basically all robotics/anything connected to the internet to take over the world and I'd love to see that as a mini series.
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Choose Your Own Adventure
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If you want to head right skip to 27:00, if you want to head left skip to 13:35
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Dredd could be a whole franchise
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Bring 👏 back👏 Karl 👏
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Honor Harrington might be good on a big screen in the present political climate. (Female lead plus a cat)
The myth adventures might be right for a different flavor of comedy.
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Low Town and its sequels, especially She Who Waits. They're by Daniel Polansky and not my typical reads but dang were they good.
Random Acts Of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack.
From comic books, Bitch Planet and Archer And Armstrong.
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A book called The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll.
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V. E. Schwab - the Invisible Life of Adie LaRue would be amazing. Classic cursed immortal living through the ages, but without vampires!
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House of blades / travelers gate series by will wight.
Surprisingly cool YA / RPG ish without being gamey and too cringe.
Would be a very cool show if not done on CB
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The Megastructure Compendium as an Anthology about life around these massive feats of engineering.
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Damsel.
When I heard about the Netflix movie I initially thought it was an adaptation of the book...
At this point, I want a movie adaptation just out of spite to see how much better it would be than the complete trash that netflix thought would make a good original story. I do highly recommend the book, too.
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Transmetropolitan
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Deserves? Not sure, but I feel like Gideon will get one. It seems pretty popular.
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Maybe? So much of the story is wrapped up in perspective. It would definitely lose a lot in any adaptation.
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I've actually never read it, but it seems pretty popular. I see a lot of people doing cosplays of it. To my knowledge it seems like one of the few books without any non-print adaptation that gets cosplayers. But that could just be because it's very recognizable lol.
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Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. Could be a fun mini series to adapt. The video game never grabbed me though.
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Discworld work make an incredible series of movies. I think D&D Honor Amongst Theives proves that modern comedy fantasies can work great in a movie format.
My other choice would be House of the Scorpion.
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Karsa Orlong would say: Witness.
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Fritz Leiber's short story "A Pail of Air".
This story portrays the effects of the most terrifying natural calamity I have ever encountered in fiction: Earth being ejected from the solar system. In any other disaster there's still hope because even though humanity might die out, life on Earth would eventually recover. Not so in this case. Without the Sun we're fucked. Even the air freezes (hence the title).
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Repairman Jack. But reserve the supernatural stuff at the end of the seasons. I just want to watch his "repairs"
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Zero. It totally destroys everything about a book. I have found though that horrible series can make good TV. Like Twilight or Dexter or Harry Potter. Horribly written trash but popular with those in the center of the bell curve.
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In my opinion, the book is almost alway "better" but they're different. A show or movie can be more entertaining for the unit of time you spend on it, but you'll be reading a lot longer. It can also introduce new people to great books. For example, how many people read the Game of Thrones series after the show started?
Movies/shows can be great, especially for well written stories. They have to be different than the books, because they have less time and actually have to re-create what the book only has to describe. They are a good part of the entertainment ecosystem, and even if the book is better. Alternative versions existing do not harm the book. They can exist together.
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The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks.
He is a little fucking nuts but the book is fun.
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"Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates" by Tom Robbins. I always thought Phillip Seymour Hoffman would be the perfect protagonist.
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Stranger in a strange land
For the chaos
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Gotta be HBO though. For reasons. Otherwise I can't grok it.
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Ah yes
Euphoria but written by the guy who told the kids in Euphoria to get off his lawn when they were 10
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The Hike by Drew Magary
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Chung Kuo series by David Wingrove
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Slightly off topic, but the latest episode of the What Went Wrong podcast is about the adaptation of American Psycho from novel to film and I'm quite enjoying it.
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The Grand Tour novels from Ben Bova. All about mankinds spread into the solar system. There are some anachronisms here and there that would need to be ironed out, and plenty of continuity errors to fix, but overall a very exciting series of stories.
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Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series by Fritz Leiber
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I have a vision that I think would be really cool for this type of adaptation but the only one I really care about is way too good to just put it up on the internet so that my idea can get stolen without credit.
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So why say anything at all?
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I would love to see a sword of truth series, but not done as an action thriller with shallow characters, because that’s just not what it is, damnit.
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The entire 2001: A Space Odyssey series should be a TV show.
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Mountain Man: 10 Books by Keith C. Blackmore. Basically, the Zombie Apocalypse happens and a Dude tries to survive alone, physically, mentally and emotionally while also trying to go on supply runs, running into Zombies and generally trying to stay alive while coping with everything. I think it would be good to have some other zombie-related Series that isn't The Walking Dead.
Expeditionary Force: 18 Books by Craig Alanson. Earth and Humanity are attacked by Hamster Aliens, another alien Race, Lizards, who attack the hamsters saving Earth in the process and then recruiting Humanity into a war on a galactic scale but the Hamsters aren't the real enemy of Humanity. I'm only at the end of the 5th Audiobook but they are great and I would really wish Skippy is voiced by the Audiobook Narrator R.C. Bray in a TV adaption.
Kyralia series: Been a while since I read it but a fantastic series related to magic By Trudi Canavan, I think there are just not enough good Magic-related Shows.
Tales of the Otori: A 5-Book Series by Lian Hearn is set in a fictional feudal Japan. The Main story follows a Boy, Takeo, through his life to avenge his adoptive father and escape the legacy of his biological father. Probably the only series in which I had to put down the book at one point and just had to process what was happening.
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Blood Meridian
I don't think this is impossible to adapt. I don't even think it needs a huge budget. If you could nail the cinematography; be comfortable with long sections w/o dialogue; and resist the urge to re-work the pacing you could have something. Think Barry Lindon(1975) but as an ultra-violent Western.
The Cohen bros. proved that McCarthy can be adapted in this way. Think of the opening scene of "No Country For Old Men"(2007).
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